As i was driving home from work today, cruising happily at 70 mph. I saw this cop car going the oposite way and imidiately slow down. As I saw him stop the car and do a 180, I thought "Oh SHIT!!!!"

Sure enough after following me for another 3 minutes and giving me all kind of anxiety attacks, he flashed his light. As it can't be any worst day, I can't seem to find my registration either. (GRRRRRRRR)

The officer told me that it's no big deal, and ask me what kinda car is this and what year. After asking me all kind of questions about the car. He said he's gonna give me a break today. Since he saw me searching for my registration and saw my licence (RPh), he's gonna give me another break. He said it could happen to anyone ( thinking about other things and speed w/o realizing it). He brought my ticket down form 20mph over speeding limit ($135+ 3-4 points deduction) down to a non-moving violation (failure to provide registration), a $35 fee with no point deduction. Suddenly my whole day seems a hell of a lot better.

LOL just have to share with the forum. Don't know if he was just nice, or cause he love the 8, but I'M DAMN GLAD

LOVE MY 8 ;) :D :cool:

You're one lucky SOB, now get a V1 and avoid the hassle altogether! :)

If he was going the other way, how did he measure your speed? Over here they have to be behind you to do that.

Cheers
---Dave

No idea, but he said he got me on radar going 70, which was exactly the speed i was cruising.

Sounds like you need a radar detector. Or are they illegal over there?

Something else is that I know a lot of cops over here and one was telling me what if you've got a radar gun, you've been trained to be able to assess the cars speed before even aiming the gun at them, and he proved it to me by guessing cars speed before zapping them and usually being 5MPH off at most from the real thing. Something like 20 over woulda stood out he says.

Now how they do that while driving too, is beyond me. But I know that I slow down if I see the cop on the other side and he can make a u-turn :D

Edit**

I asked one fo them about this and here is what he said:

I am radar certified and when you complete the course, you can really visually estimate speed within 2-3 mph. I'm out of practice now since I'm a fat **** in the Detective Bureau... But when I was out there writing tickets, I was pretty accurate.

Every 6 months, the radars are sent to a shop where they are calibrated... They use some funky machines and stuff and it takes 5-10 mins.

At the beginning and end of each tour of duty (or the amount of time you'll be using the radar) you have to strike a tuning fork in front of the radar and ensure that it's accurate to the speed readings... Usually it's a 25mph & a 40mph tuning fork. These forks are in turn also checked for accuracy when the radar unit is calibrated.

The speedometers on the police cars have to be calibrated every 6 months. As a calibration for every shift of use of moving radar, the officer must verify that the speed on the vehicle's speedometer matches that on the radar.

Now as far as the two officers testing the speed... One driving, one using radar, or one using the radar while driving, I've never heard of that...

Originally posted by druck
Sounds like you need a radar detector. Or are they illegal over there?

Radar Detector is legal in MD, I think. But since commute to VA a lot,, and it's illegal over there, so i didn't bother.

Originally posted by druck
If he was going the other way, how did he measure your speed? Over here they have to be behind you to do that.

Over here, cops can subtract. I once got tagged the same way, apparently they just subtract the speedometer reading from the radar.

(BTW, cop speedos, unlike ours (http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7838), are calibrated so they're accurate.)

Sounds like a lucky break to me. If you no previous tickets, that can also help.

cops are just jerks, i feel sorry for you bein pulled to begin with.

Originally posted by druck
Sounds like you need a radar detector. Or are they illegal over there?

i don't know about England, but here in California, almost all counties have instant-on radar guns now. A detector cannot sense anything. I've driven by a motorcycle cop with his radar gun on his lap. We look in each other's eye, he grins, sees my detector, raises the gun at me, activates the radar, my detector goes off, too late, he's got the reading already.
In this specific case, I was going 26 in a 25 zone, he knew it and it was more a joke that he actually did the reading.

Back then I was driving the Firebird, that combined with detector highly visible on the dash prolly something cops didn't like.

CONCLUSION:
I don't use my detector any more. They are USELESS HERE.

-Peter

70 MPH? Was it on highway or not? People on highway here in GA cruise at like 80 MPH.

not hwy, was in some back road

Radar detectors can still be usefull even if the cops have instant on radar guns. The trick is to make sure there is always a car in front of you. When the officer activates the radar gun for the brief moment to get the speed of the car in front of you, the detector should pick that up. The detector should beep and then you know its time to slow down.

So they are not worthless, one just has to know how to use them.

Originally posted by cueball1029
Radar detectors can still be usefull even if the cops have instant on radar guns. The trick is to make sure there is always a car in front of you. When the officer activates the radar gun for the brief moment to get the speed of the car in front of you, the detector should pick that up. The detector should beep and then you know its time to slow down.

So they are not worthless, one just has to know how to use them.


I know that (in) theory, but from my experience, IF they use the gun on the guy in front of me, then only because they're pretty sure the guy is speeding.

(On the roads that I drive daily, 90% of all people are speeding by 10 mph.)

So, if the cop uses it, then he's going to pull the person over and I don't have to worry because he's going to be busy for the next 5 minutes.


In the situation where he measured me @26 in a 25 zone, seemed to be more of cop humor. A quiet road, no other traffic.


I do agree that in some areas the detector makes sense. On highway 1 between Santa Cruz an San Francisco, I think around Half Moon Bay, 2 years ago, they still used the old-fashioned X-Band. My detector saved me big time.. a mile away from the cop when I was coming out of a curve ready to accelerate back to 100 mph (55 limit).

On Highway 17, 85, 101, 280 for those who know Silicon Valley.. it's all instant-on radar now. Not to mention the cops in white Camaros.

In 2002 I was even pulled over by a cop in an unmarked car he drove a dirty blue ~ 10 year old Pontiac Grand AM. He didn't need radar since I was passing him and he was speeding already :-(

-Peter

hmm. According to the big Radar Detector Instruction manual, instant on radar has a short range. It also says that the detector is effective against this type of radar but that reaction time limits speed overages to 10 mph of any limits. IN other words, detector or not, make sure that you are not over 10 mph of the posted speed.

Originally posted by ptiemann


On Highway 17, 85, 101, 280 for those who know Silicon Valley.. it's all instant-on radar now. Not to mention the cops in white Camaros.



HA! I saw a white Camaro-cop on 101 around Great America a couple of weeks ago. WTF? Bastards. Grrrrrr!!

Sucks too, because the Rx8 has made me drive much faster than I did on my old Cavalier, and I don't exactly have what you guys call a "California Driver's License" yet :(

Even with instant-on, on several occasions my V1 has warned me as the cops zapped cars waaaaaaay ahead of me. It's still valuable.

On Saturday I was trying to see how fast I could get my 8 up to. I was in 5th gear got it up to 140mph at about 8500 rpms or so. I was slowing down..i reached 75 I see a cop going the opposite direction. As I continued to slow i saw him start to cross the median with his lights on. I was hoping he didnt clock me at 140. He comes to my window and asks me to step out of the car and come back to his car. I thought I was in serious trouble. He said he clocked me a 75mph in a 65 and gave me a warning. Damn did I feel lucky.

Every 6 months, the radars are sent to a shop where they are calibrated I thught radar guns and in-car units were to be calibrated before each patrol shift due to magnetic interfererence, temps, humidity, etc.? You can call them on that one.

Originally posted by druck
If he was going the other way, how did he measure your speed? Over here they have to be behind you to do that.

Cheers
---Dave

The beauty of technology and the drive to put more speeding ticket money in local coffers. Moving radar that can be used against oncoming vehicles is becoming more widespread. I got tagged by a moving cruiser on the other side of I-90 in Eastern Washington State last May. Ritzville is one nasty speed trap if you're in that area. Even the cop hassle didn't keep me from making Boston to Seattle in just over 3 days solo. I can't imagine how many hours I'd shave off in my future 8!

Not too many cops would do that for you. I'll bet you were courteous and polite -- I believe that makes a difference. As you pointed out, it could have been a lot worse.