Short notice, but that's the weather for ya. Looks like good conditions for the 2nd Annual Snow Drift Olympics. Excellent chance to practice skid correction and safe winter driving skills. 10:30pm TONIGHT, Tuesday December 4th, 2007 Home Depot parking lot in the Quarry shopping center in Nordeast Mpls Mapquest: 1520 New Brighton Blvd, Minneapolis, MN Just off of 35W north of downtown Minneapolis. Of course you can't take 35W from downtown because the bridge fell down last summer. Go around on 280 or take the Broadway exit off 94. Take the Johnson St. or Stinson Blvd exit off 35W. Home Depot is right there. I will bring loaner radios for car-to-car communication. We will play at Home Depot for a short while, then visit several other deserted parking lots in the area. We won't stay in one place too long, so we can avoid uninvited observers. See you sideways tonight! 8)
Or you can just meet the guys down to that place over there for the umpteenhundredth MNSubaru Snow Mayhem.
That WAS going to be one of the lots we used tonight, but not the only one for sure. I'm new to mnsubaru so I don't know what you guys usually do. But I do know my quiet and empty parking lots pretty well. Just trying to spread the joy among the various car forums in town.
I'm going to note that publishing locations for hoonage online before they happen is a bad idea. MNsubaru's practice of meeting elsewhere first seems the smart way.
There is a few threads. I started an official one, but there is also one by Skarecrow. Typically the crew meets at Firestone then cruises the local lots for mayhem.
Do you guys really believe that the authorities actual peruse our website to make a bust? That idea seems highly unlikely.
I've seen it done on other sites. It happened quite a bit on a mixed marque car forum I was a part of in Virginia
I organized at least six "snow drift olympics" events last winter and never had a problem with law enforcement. The key is knowing the locations of many quiet and empty parking lots, and only spending about ten minutes in each lot. Also, there will be no "hoonage" ... whatever that is. We're just conducting an informal winter driving school, practicing skid correction to promote safe winter driving on the roads of this great nation (cue patriotic music)
Sorry I don't mean to compete with an event that someone else already has scheduled for tonight. I just wanted to get the word out that few friends and I will be at Home Depot at 10:30. Consider that an option if you can't make the other times/places. And bring your FRS/GMRS radios! Half the fun is razzing each other from car to car.
Drifting in a parking lot is by definition hoonage (Basically having fun with your car, it does not imply reckless driving) I would just note that its a good idea to post a meet location in a different place than where the activity is happening and then drive there. I have no issues with the actual event and if I had something that wasn't a rental car with really, reall crappy tires, I might join you.
I'm still at work until 8pm, then have dinner plans with a lady, so 10:30 is the earliest I can start tonight. We meet at Home Depot, but we only stay there for the first 10 minutes before heading to other undisclosed locations. And why not bring a crappy car? You should have seen 05MR on Saturday night with his front-wheel-drive Ford Winstar minivan. He got the rear end on that thang wagging back and forth so much, it looked like an invisible giant was slapping it around.
This sounds like it might be fun. I should go charge up my frs radios. As far as law enforcment lurking on the forums, I guess I've never seen any evidence of that here. But, you can't rule it out since anyone can read what's posted here. If there are any law enforcment reading our forum, I'd wish they would join up and post once in a while. It would actually be nice to have an informal way to ask questions, etc.
No comment :laugh: /No I'm not and never have been a cop (Though technically, I could be lying) //I do know way too much about traffic law though.
Sorry I was late. Got pulled over on the way there for "driving too fast for conditions". Nice Minnetonka cop let me off with a warning. Yep, we stayed in the Home Depot lot too long, waiting for two more guys to show up. The cops showed up just as we were leaving. Luckily no interaction took place, and the three other lots we visited were fantastic!
By the way, the highlight of the night came in one of the big empty lots we visited. The big plows and trucks had just moved out, leaving a nice inch or so of icy snow to drift on, so we moved in and ran a few "olympic" events. Just then one of the huge trucks comes back on the lot, yellow lights flashing. Thought he was going to chase us off, but he whips off two HUGE 360s with that monster 12-wheel truck! We gave him the big thumbs up. Wish I would have gotten THAT on video!
Excellent!! :laugh::laugh::laugh: Wish I would have made, ended up with one too many drinks to be out playing in my car...
Yes they do, and no, I am not telling you who they are. If they want to post up, they can do that. Russ
You can never rule it out, but considering these lots are private property, the police must have a complaint or request from the owner of the lot before they can do **** (legally). They can come and hang out in the lot like anyone else, but without a complaint, they're basically OFF DUTY (again, legally). We all know they can still play the games there gonna play, but any ticket given on private property (civil complaint)without the consent of the owner of said property will be immediately thrown out in court. In fact the cops know this and wouldn't even show up for the court date (but you still get to sit around for 8 hours waiting for them to call your case #). Clearly "we" still loose, as taking a day off work, paying for parking, etc, etc, costs you, but the end result (after the hassle) is still a clean driving record. Doing this on PUBLIC roads is a different story. I've got a reckless (warning) ticket (paperwork) to prove this from last year with my rental truck in Yellowstone.
The quarry is by no means a hidden parking lot. It's like 10 blocks from my house and busy as hell all day every day.
nope Oh and 3(a)(2) was specifically written for unplowed parking lots. Its a stupid law -- it used to be only reckless that applied to lots -- but careless is a MUCH easier standard to prove.
Yeah, i saw that. There is an exception for properly sanctioned races, though I wonder how hard that is to get. The wording to the parking lot section is a bit weird and may except certain lots (for example one completely closed to the public sounds safe, but what about one closed at night or something), but I'll admit I haven't studied the case law on it. /Not legal advice or anything, assume any lot is open for prosecution unless you find out different
Thanks nm+ Thanks for finding the actual statute #'s nm+. There's nothing I like more than when someone replies to a post and INCREASES the factual data instead of just adding more speculation. I love researching legal statutes, specifically focusing on anything related to driving and motor vehicle laws (chapters 160-174). I'm no lawyer, but I was unaware of the precise wording relating to parking lots. I guess the case I would focus on making in court would relate to: (2) the emergency operation of any vehicle when avoiding imminent danger :laugh: I don't doubt it esperunit. My point was more along the lines of: cops show in court when they know they have a strong case (and the proof to back it up) or the nature of the charges is serious enough to warrant prosecution even with only moderate proof. I've spent many a days waiting around in court to have my case called. In all my situations when I had an attorney, a strong case, visual displays, pictures, witnesses, etc., the cops don't show and the case is dismissed (see below) In all the situations where I was "really" at fault and still decided to take the battle to court, the cops DO show and THEY have visual aids, pictures, in car video footage, etc. and I loose. My point is this: if the cops have a better than average chance of winning, they show. If they have a weak case or the attorney you've hired has a BIG name, they're better off staying on the street issuing "new" tickets that have a better chance of resulting in $$$$ for the dept. It's just simple $$GREEN$$ logic.
DIAL Lawyers No I really don't. I have access to 3 good attorneys and all of them are in car clubs with me. As fellow car buddies, I get a discount rate and straight up advice. BIG name attorneys are the kind that don't have discount rates. If you can afford $350/hour, it shouldn't be hard to do a little digging and find out who the big names are. The difficulty with this is we're talking about "relatively" small offenses here. I don't think there's any shortage of big name lawyers when it comes to capital crimes (if the glove don't fit and all that ship), but misdemeanor traffic offenses aren't normally front page news with front page lawyers. The ideal BIG NAME lawyer is one the judge/prosecutor knows, either as friends (out of court settlement) or as enemies (this guy is tough and I don't want to spend forever in court).
