Has Your Car Helped You Get Out Of A Traffic Ticket?

I’m the proud owner of a 1982 Volvo 242 ‘Restomod’. It’s powered by a late model EFI Ford 5.0L V8 backed up by a Tremec 5 speed and a Ford 8.8″ rearend. The suspension and brakes have been altered to allow it to handle and stop as well as it accelerates. My personalized tag is RPVNWNKL — a nod to the ‘ultimate sleeper’. It’s even beige. Fact is, vast majority of people don’t even SEE it.

A number of years ago, when we lived in Knoxville, TN, my wife and I attended a little hotrod cruise-in and then headed out to the movies on a beautiful Friday night. This particular theatre was located in a mall and was accessible from a 6-story parking deck behind the theatre. It was a poorly designed (read – old) parking deck where each lane in the deck had to deal with 2-way traffic. So once every two hours or so as people were heading in to see movies and others were leaving after having seen their movies – traffic crawled to a stop, especially on the first 2 or 3 levels of the garage. Hundreds of drivers trying to back out of or pull into spaces simultaneously with a line of traffic on either side of the lane in the way.

After spending a good 15 minutes slugging through traffic to get up to the third level, my wife exited the car to walk in and get our movie tickets. I was going to head up to level 5 or 6 where hardly anyone was parked to get a ‘good’ parking space — no chance of door dings — and then head inside to meet her. Once I cleared the 3rd level and headed up to the 4th level there was no traffic at all and virtually no cars parked on that ‘up’ ramp. So as I rounded the corner to head up the next level I laid into the throttle to let the car ‘clear its throat’ a bit. At the time, the car had a fairly healthy (read – loud) exhaust system on it. So as the throaty roar of a healthy V8 echoed in the parking deck, both rear tires broke loose and I laid down a righteous pair of black stripes for 20-25 feet. Just enough to kind of make me ‘LOL’.

Having gotten that out of my system, me and the car slowly ambled up to the top floor of the deck and parked the car safely on the end of the row under one of the lights on the deck. As I was locking it up a Mall Security car came roaring towards me with its yellow light on. I took a few steps towards the officer and he stopped beside me with his window down. It was evident that I was about 25 years older than he was. AND he was an off-duty Knoxville police officer working security for the mall – so not your typical ‘mall cop’. I want to be sure you have the picture — young police officer questioning ‘mature’ gentleman stepping out of an old, beige Volvo. He was clearly agitated and proceeded to ask me “Sir, what did you think you were doing back there?”

Now, I had a choice to make. I’m pretty proud of the fact that over the years, I’ve done the right thing. I’m a safe driver (former SCCA racer) and have been involved in precious few incidents over the years. My insurance companies love me – I pay my premiums on time and I rarely have claims. However, if I screw up – I own it. The couple of times I’ve been ‘caught’ speeding during almost 5 decades of driving, I pull over quickly, respectfully ‘fess up’ and throw myself on the mercy of the officer. Which in my case meant a couple of polite tickets a LONG time ago. But this time, something different happened. I know he didn’t SEE me do what I did on the ramp — he saw me turn the corner and then he HEARD something. So I looked him right in the eye and in a very innocent manner replied – “I’m quite sure I don’t know what you’re talking about officer.” Still agitated he said “I heard you lay into the gas and spin the heck out out of the tires as you headed up the garage.” I knelt beside his car so we were eye to eye. With more innocence I said “You do realize that I’m driving that 1982 Volvo sitting over there, right? You saw me get out of it. Officer, have you ever ridden in or driven a 1982 Volvo?” Immediately you could see a look of embarrassment come over his face. I continued with a smile “I’d like nothing better than to be able to spin the tires at will, but old Volvos like mine are doing pretty good just to make it up the the ramps in the parking garage.”

At this point, to mix metaphors, all the steam went out of his sails and he said “Sir, I am so sorry. I saw you round the corner and then I heard the noise and I just assumed it was you. I understand what you’re saying…I just didn’t think it through I guess.” I had to give him credit for his humility. I patted him on the arm and said “Don’t worry about it we all make mistakes.” I continued “For what it’s worth, I saw a couple of kids in a red SS Camaro down on level 3 turning the corner at the other end of the ramp – it was likely that car that you heard.” He smiled and said “Well, you’re probably right. And they’re long gone. Have a nice evening sir – sorry to have troubled you.” And I replied “No trouble at all officer. Thanks for keeping us safe.”

Absolutely true story. A piece of me feels guilty because I just plain lied. There’s no justification for that. But I was sure I hadn’t put myself or anyone else in harm’s way. And at that moment, it just seemed like the right thing to do. It still makes me laugh just thinking about it. Ultimate sleeper indeed.

In June of 2012 I got pulled over in my then 2 weeks old Scion FR-S. Having relased on Memorial Day Weekend not long before, folks had only seen a handful if any. The cop clocked me doing 55mph in a 35 as I downshifted into my neighborhood.

I rolled down my window and he gave me the run down, asking me drive more safely in the future and then proceeded to ask me about 10 minutes of questions on the car and its twin Subaru BRZ. Still owe him for helping keep my insurance low!

I got stopped in my 76′ BMW 2002 and I had a headlight out I didn’t know about. Me and the officer got into a small conversation about the car and he just said “Get home before I can catch up to ya again, have a nice night.”

Laughed to myself the whole way back home.

Ok this is not a story I am particularly proud of but one New years I had had a couple drinks (not enough to make me too stupid, but enough to blow a DUI and well, drive in my state…) and I was rushing somewhere with my buddy passanger to stop some unpleasantry at around 1 am in my Acura RSX. As I was proceeding down a road with a concrete divider in the middle to separate oncoming traffic, and well I was going quite the click, bare in mind that there was 3 cars on the road 1 going my direction and two going in the opposite direction tho distanced significantly apart (This is important). I pass an intersection and instantly sirens and lights on my tail, at this point I panic not particularly interested in getting a DUI and I pop a quick left at an up coming break in the island. I was going to fast. I began to understeer I quickly pull right and because FWD I mashed the throttle and was able to pull myself in to the oncoming lane driving the wrong way… I as cautiously as one could be in a situation avoided the oncoming traffic and fled the scene. Now before I receive a huge amount of flame I 1. have never drank and drove since and 2. I have moved on to a MR car so please be kind 🙂

Unfortunately no!
This week I recieved a speeding notice in my Alfa GT junior, 36 in a 30 zone on a section of road that goes from 30mph to 60mph just up the road, I have elected to take the speed awareness course (£85 + 4 hours) rather m&s than £100 fine and 3 points on my driving license, no excuse for doing 36 in 30 zone I guess, but I was the only car on the road at the time, heading towards a nice tunnel in the 60mph zone, I needed to get some speed up 😉

Mine was just two weeks ago! I was leaving the Charlotte area at 2:30AM to make it to a track day at Road Atlanta that morning (3.5 hour drive.) The officer examined the slick tires on the roof of my ’69 510 with his flashlight, asking where I was headed in such a hurry. After checking my license, and a brief conversation about my car and the events of the day, he sent me on my way. It could have been a terrible start to what turned out to be a great day.

Many years ago I was driving my bodydropped minitruck and an officer pulled me over, he seemed to be tripping down memory lane checking out the truck as he was a minitrucker from way back. That was the ONLY minitrucking police officer I ever ran into, most had zero patience for the thing,