Driving The Speed Limit


mirkwood
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My question is if the suspicion was founded... :D

Well, the officer sure seemed to think so. My younger sister (13 yrs. old) and I were on our way to Las Vegas, on a school day, to visit our oldest sister. We had permission from our mother to miss a day of school. There were no license plates on the car, just a temporary sticker on a side window, which the officer did not see. (My mother had put the temp. sticker on a side window instead of the rear window). Anyway, the officer sure did grill us. I didn't know my mother had put the temp. sticker on the side window, and I was looking for any registration info. to give the officer. My mother had purchased the car from a relative in California, we lived in Utah, and it seems like she had sent everything in the mail to get the plates, etc. I was being upfront and honest about everything, but I don't think the officer was buying it. He probably thought we were runaway teens in a stolen car.

Anyway, I finally noticed the sticker on the side window, and pointed it out to the officer. He goes back to his patrol car, and radios everything in. He comes back, and says we can go, but be be careful because we could be put in juvenile detention in Vegas if the cops caught us. I was pretty shook up by the ordeal. I was a naive, innocent, 16 year old, and definitely not some tough juvenile delinquent. My younger sister and I laugh when we talk about it now, but at the time, we were scared!

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Cops that drive under the speed limit are hazards on the road. Cops are usually the bad drivers as well. No use of turn signals(those crown Vic's must not come with them) I love to watch the stupid maneuvers they make while using crossovers or just plain abusing citizen owned vehicles and just doing some badger hole jumps crossing divided highways. Traffic enforcement is nothing more than harassment and revenue stream(job security).

Get a few too many tickets to think this way?

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My first ticket was in Filmore(?) UT. I could be wrong about the town.... somewhere between Ogden and Provo. I was late for a test. The officer wrote down 80, he was quite generous... I was going much faster.

I even have an "outlaw" moment, I was driving to Phoenix, AZ from Southern Cali, I knew I was speeding and I saw a cop on the side of the road, I saw him pull out from his spot and flip his lights on in my rear view as I went into a dip in the freeway (he can't see me now, I can't see him anymore) Naturally I became thirsty at this point and pulled off the freeway for a Pepsi. 30 minutes later, I'm happily back on the freeway full of caffeine.

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Since we are now talking about first tickets (great sub topic by the way, I love reading these stories), my first and only ticket was within a year of getting married. Times were tight and I totally didnt even know I was speeding. So when I saw the lights flashing in the well know trap area I glance down at my speed and I was going 5 or so over (limit was 35 and I was going a little over 40).

Cop comes to my window. I was expecting a question like, "do you know how fast you were going?" or something to give me the chance to say I didnt realize it and try to get out of a ticket. But nope, nothing. He simply flashes his raidar in my face and says somthing like "You were going 48 in a 35mph zone" and asks for my info. I knew I wasnt driving quite that fast, but he reduced it to 5pmh over for me.

The funny part about it now, but wasnt then is I get home to tell my wife and I basically start crying :cry: for getting us a hundred dollar ticket (since we were facing some tough times). She was very understanding and didnt get mad at all . That is when I knew that my wife would love me no matter what!

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Cop comes to my window. I was expecting a question like, "do you know how fast you were going?" or something to give me the chance to say I didnt realize it and try to get out of a ticket. But nope, nothing. He simply flashes his raidar in my face and says somthing like "You were going 48 in a 35mph zone" and asks for my info. I knew I wasnt driving quite that fast, but he reduced it to 5pmh over for me.

Something to keep in mind is that speedometers aren't 100% accurate. In fact federal law is okay with 5 mph error at 50 mph (Cite: eCFR — Code of Federal Regulations ). Radar guns are also going to have some error in them, and there may be either rounding issues with both your reading of your speedometer (either in gauging the needle or in the display rounding if digital) and the display of the radar gun (if it displays in whole mph). So it's conceivable one could, once everything combines, think they were going 42 or 43 but the radar gun spits out 48.

Edited by Dravin
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My first ticket was in Filmore(?) UT. I could be wrong about the town.... somewhere between Ogden and Provo. I was late for a test. The officer wrote down 80, he was quite generous... I was going much faster.

I even have an "outlaw" moment, I was driving to Phoenix, AZ from Southern Cali, I knew I was speeding and I saw a cop on the side of the road, I saw him pull out from his spot and flip his lights on in my rear view as I went into a dip in the freeway (he can't see me now, I can't see him anymore) Naturally I became thirsty at this point and pulled off the freeway for a Pepsi. 30 minutes later, I'm happily back on the freeway full of caffeine.

Wouldn't have been Filmore then. Filmore is about 100 miles south of Provo.

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I got pulled over for passing a cop going 1 mph over... seriously they dont have better things to be doing? I was pretty irked almost made me late for work especially since cops go slow all time sometimes 5-10mph under.

I dont ever speed I always go speed limit only been ticketed once for going 25 in a 15, speed limit on that road was always 25 but they changed it for some construction on the side of the road. I had turned on to the road from a side street and the ONLY posted speed limit I found later by going back and trying to find it was hidden behind a construction sign. I took pictures and took it to court and the judge dismissed it.

I wont even start on all the times I been pulled over for imo rediculous things...

Edited by John11111
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My first and only ticket so far was while I was on my learners permit. I turned the wrong way onto a one way and swerved into the median to avoid an oncoming vehicle, totaling my parent's minivan. After that, my parents decided to pay for drivers ed instead of teaching me through the parent course. :P I haven't had any accidents or tickets since.

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though i have no comment on my first ticket (since i am yet to get one) i was once stopped by the cops while walking home from a young mens young womens party, literally 50 feet from my front door, lol

i am a utah resident and i have seen those people that are afraid to drive the speed limit around a cop, me on the other hand will fly right by a cop not goin the limit they can follow me from odgen to clearfield all they want i dont care. but what i do care about is when a cop pulls behind me when there's another car on the side of me he flips on his lights and the car on the side of me goes the same pace as i am so i cant get over, wait till i can get out of the way thas all im askin!

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though i have no comment on my first ticket (since i am yet to get one) i was once stopped by the cops while walking home from a young mens young womens party, literally 50 feet from my front door, lol

Once upon a time I lived about six miles from a gas station and I had a fairly wacky sleeping schedule (as did my brother). I had an officer stop me and my brother because we were walking to the gas station for a soda (we just wanted something to do) at 2 am. I understand why us two walking around late at night, and me with a backpack, would trigger his cop senses, but it was a rather surreal experience because I knew I wasn't up to anything. The cop was asking cop type questions (who, what, where, when, why) and he clearly was interested in taking a look in my backpack. Of course my brother was trying to mess with the cop via his responses which made me want to slap my brother upside the back of his head and contributed to the surrealism of it all.

I do remember the cop (I was over 18, my brother wasn't) asking if our parents knew my brother was out and about so late, I recall the look on his face when we answered, "Yes." He clearly wasn't expecting that answer (it's possible he just didn't believe it).

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Not my first ticket... But my first "arrest".

I was home on leave (USMC).

Got up to go for a run at 4am.

Arrested for coming out of my parents house.

Cops thought I was a burglar. Cuffed. Mirandized. In the back of a squad car.

While theoretically, a person jogging from a lakefront home at o'dark'thirty MIGHT be suspicious... Keep in mind: Running shoes. Shorts. Tanktop. Ponytail (Im a girl for anyone wondering). Walkman. (Dates me). I didn't even have pockets. Where was I supposed to put said loot?

The "justification" (aside from "fleeing the scene", although for the record, when their lights went on, I just jogged TO them) after they initially talked to me, was that I was "claiming" to have lived there for 4 years and they'd never seen me. Um. Because I never got in trouble? I'd only been in the military 6 months!!! Go wake up my parents!!! They wouldn't "bother upstanding citizens" based on my say. Sheesh!!!

So. Much. Fun.

The irony is that Im currently applying for a sworn officer job. Which means Im going to have to explain that arrest. I haven't quite figure out how to do that with a straight face.

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Attention drivers. If the police are behind you it is okay to drive the speed limit. I promise, we won't pull you over for driving the speed limit. Seriously

And you sure do feel "fast" when you do drive the speed limit and everyone else is puttin' along in fear of being pulled over.

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So it almost seems there is no point in driving the speed limit--cops can pull you over and ticket you whether you are beneath, at it, or above--depending entirely on their whim. Is that what I'm taking from this thread?

I dunno. I drive the speed limit, or at least, I try to. I guess if I'm to be honest about it, I drive about 10MPH over.

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I do but also, keep it down. A few good reasons. One, if you have a series of stop lights ahead of you, watch the yellows. You could be 500 feet away or 1,000 feet away from the yellow, do you self a favor, take the foot off the throttle and coast to the light. If you are lucky, you wont have to use your brakes. This is called hypermiling and save fuel this way.

Second, posted speed limits are set for the time/reaction limits us humans are normally able to respond to. The more traffic in a area, the less reaction time to stop.

My truck generally does not like to go over the highway speed anyway. It is way under powered by, gets fantastic fuel economy on the diesel it consumes. Every day, some one is always passing me because my truck is a slug to accelerate up hills or faster then the highway speeds.

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  • 4 weeks later...

mirkwood are you a officer?

I got in a little argument with the wife the other day "not unusal" she said "do the speed limit" I said well the ground is wet, and the limit was only designed for dry roads. Wet, fog or snow, you drive under.

Anyway, I pretty much do the limit. I see the jack #$$ drive way to fast ride your rear then get caught :) Its unsafe and generally they always get in accidents. Once, a corvetee went flying down a off ramp sped way to fast around the corner of the highway. It went up the bank and went airborn upside down and landed on top of another car in the apposing lanes.

I been tempted to make a bumper sticker that says "Want to race? Race you to the Grave!"

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