We need a thread on which state/city has the most ominous looking state police car.

Didn't you say you drive 78MPH, they're cool with that?

 

Personally, I don't care how the cars look (they can paint them pink or purple, for all I care), as long as they do their jobs and go after scofflaws instead of hanging out at the donut shop.

 

Right but police cars need to look tough.

 

It depends. If I was the only car on the road and I blew by at 78, I bet they would stop me. But when there is traffic like that and I'm going with the flow, they wont. If I see them up in the median I will slow down some, maybe to 68-70.

One of the things my Dad taught me is how to be a human radar detector. How to scan traffic ahead and anticipate where a speed trap might be and watch driver behavior ahead of me and watch their reactions to tell me what to do. One of the things I love on my S class is there is a button that drops the speed right to the speed limit if you are in Distronic. So if you see a cop hit that button and it backs it right off.

A lot of the highways around here when you travel are 70MPH, and I set the cruise at 80 and don't give it a second thought. 80 in a 65 I get a little more alert, 60 or 55 if I'm doing 75-80 I'm really alert. On the beltway in VA for example the limit is 55, or if you are in the toll lanes its 65, I always use the toll lanes. On 66 the limit in the newly completed toll lanes all the way from the Beltway is 70 which is amazing. 270 goes to 65 north of Urbana, 95 goes to 70 south of Woodbridge, I70 is 70. On the beltway and on 270 where the limit is 55 I just drive the upper end of the flow which is 72-80 and I'm fine

I honestly see no reason to have a radar detector.

In 25 years of driving I think I have been stopped maybe 4 times...only 2 of those times on the highway (knock on wood). One time I was out of state in PA and a cop picked me out of a line of cars all going the same speed (bogus), and the other time I was on the Dulles access road in VA and an Airport cop pulled me over on a power trip for doing 60 in a 55. You're going to from time to time get stopped by people targeting you being out of state and on a power trip.

 

True, it is usually much harder for a cop to try and pull a needle out of a haystack than to pick up a needle that is not in one.

Interesting..first time I've heard of that feature.

I guess, though, when you spend more than 100K for a vehicle, you get things in it that you usually don't see every day.

Are you able to see the toll lanes without a toll, or does your car have one of those transponder-systems which automatically records the use and sends the bill to you in the mail or debits your bank-account?

Their actual use is outlawed in VA, although you can have one in the vehicle if it is turned off. State Police, and some local police departments, have electronic "Detector-Detectors" that can tell them when you are using one....assuming, like I said above, that those cops are actually on the road and not in the Donut-Shop LOL. .

In Virginia, they sometimes also use LIDAR and speed-detection from aircraft (it is marked with signs), but is less-frequent than conventional X and K-band radar. Helicopters are not cheap to operate.

60 in a 55? LOL. Today, most judges or magistrates would probably toss something like that out of court....with a word of reprimand to the officer. Speed-cameras themselves usually give you a 10-11 MPH leeway.......to account for things like speedometer-error, oversized-tires affecting the speedometer-reading, downhill-effects of gravity, inaccurate cruise-controls in vehicles, and other effects.

I've never had a speeding ticket in my life...only once was I even stopped and warned about a speed-incident, many years ago, in Rock Creek Park (Beach Drive) in D.C., for 37-38 in a 25-zone. You hear horror-stories every day in the press/media and in social-media about how bad the cops treat people when they are stopped (beatings/abuse/profiling/weapons, etc...). But I have found, in the relatively few times I HAVE been stopped for things like a red-light incident or illegal U-Turn, that, the more courteous and polite you are to the cop, do what he or she tells you, don't give them any bull-****, and don't try and one-up them by playing armchair-lawyer, the better they are going to treat you, and let you off or give you a warning.

There ARE some exceptions to that, though, in some places. Some of the most notorious are the classic speed-traps in small towns in the Deep South (or even father north, in Ohio), strapped for cash, and run by corrupt individuals, that deliberately target out-of-state drivers to and from their way to Florida. The speed limit automatically drops very quickly from a much higher speed to maybe 25 MPH, too quick for adequate braking/slowing down, they have a corrupt cop sitting there at or close to the sign with radar, and BAM, they nab you, just like that. They figure you're hundreds of miles from home, carrying money or credit-cards for a vacation, and more or less at their mercy. Yes, corrupt as hell, but they have gotten away with it for years, and only a few of them have ever been exposed and shut down by higher authorities.

 

All MB's have it, if you press up (resume) while you are in cruise or distronic it will drag it right down to the speed limit. Does it quick too:




Have to pay a toll, we have EZPasses. In the Pacifica we have the HOV one where when the switch is on it doesn't bill a toll since we are almost always HOV-3+

He was on a total power trip. I had begun to overtake him and his ego couldn't handle that. He started right off, totally inappropriately asking me if I disrespected police officers in MD the way I disrespected him by overtaking him in his marked police cruiser. When I told him I did it all the time and that I supposed Montgomery County cops have better things to do because it doesn't seem to bother them he did not like it lol.

He gave me a ticket for "failure to obey a highway sign" because he knew the speeding ticket wouldn't stick. I just paid it. Whatevs!

Most cops are really very courteous and respectful, I totally agree. If one stops me for something I deserved to be stopped for, then thats on me.

 

So twice in as many days!

Just now coming home this specimen decided he would make a left turn from the center lane instead of the left turn lane, in the dark, and the rain! you can see me flashing at him:

 

There ARE some exceptions to that, though, in some places. Some of the most notorious are the classic speed-traps in small towns in the Deep South (or even father north, in Ohio), strapped for cash, and run by corrupt individuals, that deliberately target out-of-state drivers to and from their way to Florida. The speed limit automatically drops very quickly from a much higher speed to maybe 25 MPH, too quick for adequate braking/slowing down, they have a corrupt cop sitting there at or close to the sign with radar, and BAM, they nab you, just like that. They figure you're hundreds of miles from home, carrying money or credit-cards for a vacation, and more or less at their mercy. Yes, corrupt as hell, but they have gotten away with it for years, and only a few of them have ever been exposed and shut down by higher authorities.
__________________

 

Thats exactly what happened to me in PA that time...

 

My dad didn’t teach me anything like that but I did teach myself. I’m constantly checking my mirrors at to see what’s behind me and i look for certain types of cars that are typically unmarked cars like explorers, durangos, etc. When I’m going pretty fast I look a good bit ahead of me and if I see a few consecutive cars braking for no reason, there is typically a police car on the side of the road taking radar. Just little things like that have saved me.[/size]

Another thing I do is as I approach intersections I look at the pedestrian crossing signals for the countdowns so I know how much time I have to make the light.

 

He was a pragmatist lol

I do the same thing with the crosswalk timers

 

Since this is the dumb drivers thread one thing that drives me absolutely crazy is there are known speed cameras in certain areas I drive though in another county (my county doesn’t have speed cameras) and they even have signs about the speed camera zone and cars will brake and slow down below the speed limit to the point where it disrupts traffic. It’s like they don’t realize that (1) you can actually go the speed limit and (2) there is a 10mph grace limit before the camera goes off. Drives me absolutely crazy!

 

Ya'll got me thinking.

I want a dash cam now, just for fun.

 

Love sitting at a light and nobody is coming from any direction, but then the adjacent crosswalk hand lights up as the lights keep going through their sequence, then when it's done flashing, there's a nice 28 second count down. With nobody around at all, just me wanting to go. I hate controlled intersections so much and I know I miss 90% of my lights.

 

That 10-11 MPH grace-limit is there for several credible reasons....which I explained previously.