Got pulled over yesterday
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Got in the Golf yesterday morning to go to work, as I was belting in and getting settled, I see a police car roll by kind of slow and then continue on his way.
I make the turn onto the main road, couple lights up I'm getting ready to turn right, waiting for the light to change and traffic in front to clear, and I see another police Ford Explorer, or more likely, the same one coming up behind me.
I make my right turn, the police decides to follow. The road is a 2 way, 4 lane that I just turned onto, 35 mph limit. I stayed in the right lane for making the turn, being extra careful, used my signal to the left to not give the cop another reason to pull me over, get into the left lane and continue down the hill where eventually I'll make a left turn. The cop follows my lane change a moment later and hits his lights.
Well, I didn't do anything wrong, so this should be interesting. Also, the car isn't yet in my name, but I did at least insure it, and in California you can provide electronic proof of insurance on your phone.
The officer walks up and asks me to roll down the rear windows (they're pretty darkly tinted). Told me he pulled me over for lack of front license plate. He first asks where my license and registration are, as in he wants to know my next moves before I make it. That tripped me up for a second as I began reaching for the glove box. He clarified what he meant, not that he wanted them right now, just wants to know where they're located.
I tell him, then also tell him I just bought the car and haven't yet titled and registered it in my name. He asked if I owned other cars, I paused and said "Well, one other that actually runs... there's a couple stored elsewhere that don't." Haha
He takes my info back and I hear him talking quite a lot to his coworker. I couldn't really hear, but it sounded like he was showing a trainee the ropes.
After a solid 10 to 15 minutes, he finally comes back with the fix-it ticket. Explains the situation, said there is no fine, but there is a court date. If I show up to the courthouse before that date and have someone verify the plate is properly affixed, the court date gets waived and I end up having to pay a $25 processing fee.
Whatever.
I got a front plate bracket ordered from the dealer. Actually told me there were none in any warehouses in the country, but random dealers still had stock, they can put out a request and see if a dealer is willing to part with them.
Apparently one was because I got a call today that it was in stock.
Got it installed, I had spotted the front plate under the spare tire yesterday, so I go to remove it and find there's actually yet another plate underneath that! One from Utah. Guess I know where this car was before it got to California now.
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Whoa, that's pretty cool! Bummer about the weird ticket situation, but glad it can be resolved minimally at least
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Yay victimless crime
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@dieseldub Chp is thirsty about plate violations but they don't use their turn signals half the time
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@sony1492 Yeah, this one was actually local cop.
I've had a couple interactions with CHP before. First was getting rear ended on 101 in Santa Maria. They were nice then. The woman that hit me was a little hysterical and sounded like she was trying to find some way to weasel out of it. Her insurance paid up.
Second was getting a speeding ticket in the middle of nowhere outside of Santa Barbara, highway 154 I think. He was a little power trippin that day.
Then later as a witness to someone rolling over on NB 101 near Atascadero, where I was SB and literally no one else was around, probably 11 at night near Christmas a number of years ago. That officer was pretty chill. Almost looked half baked, even. haha. He was nice, thanked me for my statement and for stopping.
And then a few years ago the rear of my car got clipped as someone beside me on EB 37 at the 121 junction where Sonoma Raceway is decided he didn't want to turn left onto NB 121 all of the sudden and clipped me as he tried to force his way into 37's nutso EB evening traffic. That one was cool too, but he brainfarted a little. After he got my statement and wrote things up and let me go, he ends up pulling me over 1/2 mile down the road because he forgot to take photos of the damage. lol
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@sony1492 hard to use automated plate readers if you don't have front plates. The CHP are the victim.
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@dieseldub I got ticketed for no front plate when the car was parked in front of my house (also Commiefornia). I went to the local CHP office to pay the fix-it ticket and the desk sergeant's Corvette was parked prominently in front of the office with no front plate. I mentioned it to the Chippy at the desk and he was all set to get really annoyed, but I did not make a fuss.
That was 15 or 20 years ago. If this were to happen today, I would demand that the car be ticketed on the spot. I'd demand that the watch captain be summoned. I would calmly, gently raise a big f***ing stink.
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@sony1492 I got ticketed for no front plate when the car was parked in front of my house (also Commiefornia). I went to the local CHP office to pay the fix-it ticket and the desk sergeant's Corvette was parked prominently in front of the office with no front plate. I mentioned it to the Chippy at the desk and he was all set to get really annoyed, but I did not make a fuss.
That was 15 or 20 years ago. If this were to happen today, I would demand that the car be ticketed on the spot. I'd demand that the watch captain be summoned. I would calmly, gently raise a big f***ing stink.
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I didn't realize some states actually enforce front plate laws. I've never run a front plate on the Audi or Forester in Wisconsin. No issues for two decades.
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@vincentmalamute Previous owners and one friend who borrowed it for a year and a half never got ticketed for it. I have the car for 2 weeks and get ticketed. heh
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@dieseldub ah. Karma. You did something bad this week, didn't you?
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another plate underneath that! One from Utah. Guess I know where this car was before it got to California now.
Strange, it's usually the other way around.
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@vincentmalamute Last week? You mean every day!
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@alfalfa Judging by the age of the California plate, the change happened sometime around 2012.
But yeah, definitely is more the other way around these days!
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@dieseldub seems generally positive for you. They've pulled me over too many times, for too many BS reasons. Generally the cops have had a good attitude but they seem pretty overzealous to pull you over just to "check". My experience being, they've pulled me over 16-17 time in the past 5 years, generously, half of which had merit. ("No badges is illegal" in reference to my debadged Lexus, being my favorite)
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@sony1492 Whaaat!? That's pretty nutso.
Might also depend on the local office, too.
How many times did you get pulled over just for the debadging??
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@rusty-vandura imagine my shock
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@sony1492 said in Got pulled over yesterday:
"No badges is illegal"
That's so wrong it's almost funny. Just wait until I go and commit crimes in my debadged Suzuki Kizashi just to get that law on the books.
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@dieseldub once, but the same officer pulled me over a week later for speeding. I was speeding but had no speedo from the manual swap, his reasoning was I should've known because I'd passed a truck. He was new and very eager, halfway through my ticket he pulled someone else over then came back and finished mine.
My count is from doing lots of miles in bad times of morning, in a county with bored cops, driving (legal) hoopties. Also loud cars.
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I once got a "fix it" ticket for having out of date tags. $150 ticket. Went to "fix" it and it was also a $80 "processing fee," plus the fees for having an out of date tag (which was my bad) which were about another $80. Still kinda bitter about that.
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What did you do to annoy that cop? They don't normally ticket for missing plates.
Also, what was the cop doing for those 15 minutes? The Supreme Court said that cops are not allowed to extend a stop beyond the time required to ticket you.
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@akioohtori Oooof
Best fix-it ticket story I have, I wasn't charged a thing.
I was living in Michigan and left my dad's after watching the superbowl. Driving my '89 GTI 16V. I get pulled over not long after leaving his house. The reason? No brake lights.
Yeah, that's definitely warranted. Big time safety issue, I had no idea they were all dead. I knew the 3rd brake light was inop, but the other 2 were confirmed working some time before this.
Drove home more carefully, used my hazards when a slowdown on the highway happened in front of me. Probably saved my bacon.
Investigated the next day, found the brake switch was kinda half melty on the inside, replaced it, still no love... oh, the brake switch isn't even getting power anymore... Investigated the wiring going to the hatch, found a break in the wire to the 3rd brake light shorting to the body. Fixed that, replaced the fuse, everything worked.
So, I got to the local police station (almost an hour's drive away from where I was ticketed--officer that pulled me over said so long as it was signed by a Michigan police precinct, that was fine--and to then mail the ticket as instructed on the back) and bring the ticket to their front desk. Very odd, almost armored feeling vestibule with a narrow opening to talk to the receptionist. She takes the ticket and says an officer will be out shortly to verify the brake lights are working and sign off on it.
I never saw an officer, she returned with the ticket already signed. Officer never stepped out of the building to even look at the car. Guess he didn't want to leave the warm office for a couple minutes to look at some 20 year old shit box in the middle of a particularly cold Michigan day. Figured if I had showed up to get it signed, I must have had it fixed, otherwise why waste everyone's time, right?
haha
No fees on that one, not even for processing. I guess Michigan is nice that way.
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@bison78 The usual background checks, I guess. Seeing if there's any outstanding warrants.
I think this one was genuinely trying to find examples to show his trainee the processes, which is what took so long. There was a lot of talking between the two that seemed like the main cop in particular was explaining the details, the ins and outs of the whole process, the potential what ifs.
They were at least nice about it, I guess. I didn't get the chip on the shoulder vibe, but the main cop definitely was taking extra precautions at first with his instructions, but it's also the neighborhood I live in. Lots of low income, fair amount of crime, I'm sure they've dealt with a lot of shit.
Not to mention, they've been involved in some unjustified shootings, at least one of which got national attention, and this summer during the George Floyd protests, they actually barricaded the two roads that allows access to their police station, which happens to be pretty close to where I live. We had a fair bit of protests in June and there is some strong anti-police sentiment in this town.
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@bison78 Here's a recent background on my local PD...
