This is my Bloomington Police rant! I live in bloomington, and my brother (sober for 160 days) and friends from sobriety high were pulled over in bloomington a couple weeks ago, because their car had the scent of Marijuana trailing a mile back. Cuffed all 3 of them for almost 2 hours as 4 different squad cars showed up to search the car (No K9's) and ended up not finding anything. As they were laying on the ground over the cop's radio there were 2 girls reported to have alcohol poisoning at a party that was busted, but no cops left to go help. Not to mention my Wreckless Driving ticket for 85 in a 30 mph residential straight away.. Not my brightest idea..
I usually do the continuance for dismissal if I get a speeding ticket. I did it about 7 years ago and just did another one about 4 months ago. I'd agree with some of the earlier comments, imagine all the times that you speed and figure out the percentage of times you've gotten caught. For me, I've gotten caught twice so that would be about 0.000005%? Not bad Either way, being an asshole to a cop isn't going to get you anywhere. Please and thank you along with complete cooperation, they deal with assholes all day so presenting a different attitude might get you somewhere.
hell, my percentage of tickets to times pulled over is low, not to mention my ration of pulled over to dumb **** i've done. It's all in how you act. Hell, once I forgot to set my e brake, and my car rolled back INTO the cop car, and I still didn't get a ticket. I was rather flustered, and had the o **** I can't believe this just happened thing going on, PROFUSELY apologized, no ticket.
i have a continuance for dismissal for my first speeding ticket in Dec, can i still take this to court hoping they dont have calibration records/officer doesnt show?
The last time I had any interaction with LE in a Subaru, I was given the thumbs up when I was in my STi... I guess St. Cloud cops aren't all that bad. Got a 4mph over the limit ticket in my GTO, though. :\
Like Derp said, no. If you got caught with Laser, those are checked before an officer starts their shift so they're calibrated for accuracy before they even leave the station. Also, officers get overtime to show up in court since it's above and beyond their normal patrol duties. Something tells me they'll be inclined to show up.
Better idea, since it's your first speeding ticket, talk to the DA and get it reduced. Unless you were SPEEDING speeding, in which case you better lawyer up.
Okay thanks. This is pretty much my debate, i was thinking since its months later maybe no one will care to show up. Other guy^ i dont need a lawyer im already squared away with the fine and its not on my record (pending 1 year of no tickets). PS it was on the hennepin bridge, a huge speed trap apparently (undercover was sitting on the side street to nicolet island)
I'm waiting to hear back on this from a traffic lawyer, but I also think that your continuance may count as a plea of sorts and might preclude you from trying to get the ticket thrown out.
my law school friend said i could go to court but depending on the outcome i could void my continuance and be worse off. ill prob just stick it out, maybe get an Escort redline detector
we are all jinxed for having read this thread. Since reading the modded exhaust ticket thread the other day, I started wondering about how often trucks get tickets for exhaust.. and one other thing that makes me cringe, the really tall bumpers. Like the ones that look like they would decapitate you if you caught one head on. Does Johnny and Jane Law pass out tickets to trucks as often as they do to subies and other imports? I see this guy every day.
Lol, I used to live 4 houses from there. Also, no not really. Unless by "trucks" you mean rtards, and by "subies and other imports" you mean other rtards... then, yes.
Quick rant / lesson learned. Two years ago I got pulled over by a state trooper south of Duluth (driving a stock RSX). Trooper wanted to look at my tint. His meter read 49, and he said it was not a big deal. Super polite, the type of cop you prefer to deal with. No warning or anything, just sent me on my way. A year later I get stopped by Edina PD for speeding. According to the officer I was doing 39 in a 30 - to this day I don't buy that I was going over 35 if even. I didn't have a chance to dispute the speed - he wanted to check my tint. His meter read 45. I disagreed with this and told him about the trooper encounter (huge mistake). This resulted with the officer telling me quote "you need to shut up. i'm going to write you for the speed to if you don't shut up." I shut up. I've never dealt with a cop like that before. Not sure if he was having a bad morning or what. Even when my friend got stopped doing 90+ that officer was decent to deal with. At any rate, I took the car back to the tint shop to have them check with their meter. I had paid them to put LEGAL tint on my car. Their meter read 46. Ended up paying the tint ticket, because although it's maybe 1-5% out of the legal range it's not legal. I probably won't debate a cop's equipment again. There is no point in arguing. Shouldn't have to deal with this again - the Subaru has no tint
Edina PD is special. I'm guessing because they deal with "special" people all day long. Not too different from Stillwater PD. You haven't heard excuses until you've heard rich suburban people traffic stop excuses. I wouldn't be very pleasant after a while either.
edina police is the worst, i am in that area alot. I have seen an undercover dodge caravan and a corvette.
Ahh Stillwater - full of "special" people. I've had a couple of strange run-ins with PD there. I should have added that my Edina PD "experience" was the second one I'd had. I first dealt with a different officer who was very polite. I'll echo someone earlier in this thread - I definitely think you are more likely to get stopped if you have a massive spoiler or loud exhaust - anything that draws attention to your car. Or if you speed all the time.
I got pulled over for window tint a few years ago with my Wife and Daughter in my 05 STI. The officer asked if I knew why he stopped me and I answered honestly with a polite "No". He said it was my window tint, which I thought was legal, he asked for my license and my proof of insurance. After returning from his car he asked me if this was my car. The car is titled in my name only which matches my license and my proof of insurance that lists the car model. I can only assume he pulled me over thinking I was some young punk and was hoping to find something else. I'm 37 years old and I think that he was shocked that a person my age would drive a car with a big ass wing and loud exhaust. He checked my windows and the fronts measured 50%, the rears were 5%. I bought the car with the windows tinted and was under the impression that the front windows were what mattered. He was nice enough to let me go with a warning and told me to get the tint fixed. Two years later I still have the tint and have yet to be pulled over for it again.
This - exactly. My guess is that is a normal assumption. Nice. Seems like some officers really care about tint and some don't. A co-worker of mine just got the windows fully tinted on his white car. I'm curious to see how that goes.
I'm getting them re-tinted this spring. The 5% looks really good on a silver car but it turns out it degrades over time. The tint is starting to spider and looks like crap at night when lights hit it.
I found the key is having the same tint all the way around on cars. My GC had 30% front and 5% rear. Got pulled over multiple times, finally took it off after gettin a fix it ticket. Went to 30% all the way around and never had an issue.
I think it depends on the region that you mostly drive in. Our IT guy at work has a Audi S4 with perfectly legal tint and he said he gets pulled over 3-4 times a year. He happens to drive from the city every day so I think that has more to do with it. State Troopers seem to have the biggest issue with it.
Yeah the last one was a trooper. Best one was a young guy in Grand Rapids at like 3:00 a.m. said he pulled me over for my tint, and only bein slowed down to 42 mph the instant i went by the "40 mph" sign. I think he was more mad that he pulled someone over that late/early on a saturday night / sunday morning and i was 100% sober. Haha
Yeah, another cops excuse was the smith & wesson revolver air freshener hanging from my rear view (smaller then the trees) and then checked my tint. Pretty sure I've seen alot more than an air freshener hanging there, oh well. That's what i get for driving nice looking cars, in bright red, and looking like I'm 16. Damn my baby face! Lol
I keep getting pulled over for having my fog lights tinted with yellow overlay on my bugeye. This is in no way illegal but for whatever reason I've been pulled over for it 3 times down here in Rochester. I always explain to the officers that its not illegal they go to their car and check their resources and always come back and let me go. Mabe it's because the fog lights are so big compared to most vehicles? Whatever the reason they don't overpower the headlights so it makes no sense to me.
Stillwater wins. I got pulled over for "obstructed windshield" on a car I was driving home from purchasing, at night, down the freeway, with my high beams on. When I got stopped and answered "no idea" to why he pulled me over, he was kind enough to point out the black thread hanging from the rearview that I hadn't noticed yet. Sharp eyes those Stillwater PD folks have. I mean I couldn't see it until he pointed it out with his flashlight, yet he had no problem picking it out as I passed him head on in pitch black night with my brights on at 60 mph... Unfortunately for him, he pulled me over real close to the gas station I was working at. The one where I chatted with the overnight cops several times a night. On the Oak Park Heights side of hwy 36. Which, if you are unaware, is the wrong place for Stillwater PD to be. OPH squad saw that go down and pulled in behind him. To this day I have yet to see an "authority figure" get humiliated that thoroughly and ruthlessly in person. It was beautiful.
Up till a couple weeks back I drove a V8 (318) truck with no exhaust at all after the y pipe and never once got pulled over and I drove that thing everywhere at all hours of the day. Someone once said its less likely for a truck to get pulled over because cops can be scared of whose driving those lifted 4x4. I have no proof of this bit it's what I was told. That and loud exhaust on a truck is way more acceptable then a car.
Aha, I know the place. I had no idea they couldn't be there, although that makes sense that 36 is the line. That's excellent. The most ridiculous encounter I had with Stillwater PD was a few years back. I was dropping a friend at his car in Lowell park. It was 11pm or so - we get down there and see a few squad cars but don't really pay attention. He splits and goes to his car and one of the cops waves him over to talk to him. I don't think anything of it and start leaving the parking lot - then the other cop whips his crown vic around and lights me up. I also had "no idea" what he "pulled me over" for (this also in the stock RSX). He could have just rolled up if he wanted to ask me what he did. He asks me where I'm coming from etc. I gave him truthful answers - I had nothing to hide. I told him I'd been hanging out in Lake Elmo with some friends and when he questioned that I told him six people would happily corroborate. Then he asks me "so earlier tonight when there was a fight you weren't down here?" "No. I was in Lake Elmo, like I said." What followed still perplexes me: "So earlier when you guys were all down here that fight that almost happened, well they went somewhere else and fought." me: "As I said, I wasn't down here, did you see I was dropping a friend at his car?" I'm not sure why, but I don't think he ever believed me. All of my answers were immediate (and true) and neither myself or my car had been there at all that night. Apparently some eleventeen year olds were going to fight and took it somewhere else. Because at the time I was also an eleventeen year old I must be involved! Later I asked my friend what the other cop had said to him. He got the same questions minus the disbelief, and his car had been down there the whole time.
Stillwater is just a breed of their own. OPH told me you can be pretty confident you were clocked at least three times if you drive the length of 36 between downtown and hwy 5 on a Friday/Saturday night. I had a mpls officer refer to them as "ah, the traffic cops" when being stopped and asked where I was headed (which was ironic to hear during a traffic stop, but I digress). OPH had some gems too, but the overnight guys were a significantly more in touch with reality. Good people. One of them told me he only pulls people over if he HAS to because he's not in the business of f'ing with normal people just because he can... something that he couldn't say for a lot of colleagues. Granted, if you did manage to get yourself pulled over by the OPH guy in question, you were about to get screwed really, REALLY hard... Not that he needed to fill me in. I overheard (stillwater never actually talked to us) plenty of stories like, "You wouldn't believe how bad I just f'd with this guy who was totally minding his own business. I ruined the f out of his night! I made his kid cry!! PWN3D!!1! LULZY-LULZLULZ" while sitting around demolishing our bakery (yes, really) without paying, again in a city they don't have jurisdiction. Anywho, I thought Stillwater PD was filled with misanthropic, tyrannical bullies who especially enjoyed harassing teenagers for sheer personal amusement before I had that job. Now... I know that to be a fact. **To be fair, this was well over a decade ago now. Things may (and hopefully have) changed.
Yeah I remember running into OPH one night and the officer was zero hassle. Come to think of it I actually drag raced a friend at a stoplight and an OPH cop saw the whole thing and ignored us - but this was on the north side of 36 so probably not his jurisdiction. Stillwater PD are traffic cops for sure. I just don't speed or engage in general tomfoolery out there...anymore. It has been five years since I lived there so hopefully things have changed. I feel like we've neglected Bayport. Based on prior experience they'll pull you over for 30.1 mph, .1 % over tint...Surly, in your case a thread the width of a hair obstructing your windshield...you get the picture. I won't drive through Bayport. Occasionally I'll go down there to eat at Woody's and I drive twenty five just to aggravate everyone, and not speak with PD.
Ayup. I almost scrubbed a leg of the Keys Cafe drive n' dine for that reason. If I would have had more than a couple cars with me, we were going to detour another 15 minutes. I won't do so much as 1 mph over in Bayport. Same thing with any small'ish WI town. They take it personally. Especially if you're driving one o' dem der' damn jap ricer sumbioches.
I had to rethink that, we actually went through. It was only a few of us though. I was nervous about it...
Brave. There have been rare times when I've gone through and not seen PD (or they already have a traffic victim), but I'd never bank on it.
Last time I was pulled over it was by a dickhead Mpls cop/mnsubaru member. I was 99% sure it was him but the 1% chance stopped me from trying to get away. *maybe next time
