Cops & Ferraris

We know.....Is there an echo in here....

 

I have only received a couple...what makes you so special?

 

Actually, I think he presented his opinions in a very straightforward, non-confrontational manner, and he was very convincing. You took it very personally and kept going off on tangents. Hope you are happy now that you have convinced yourself that the crowd is on your side.

And that's how we won the war on Cuba...

 

Yeah congratulations mate, you responded to an unfortunate click before getting the whole post. Cheers.

 

Oh boy!! Here's another one. Have you lost it too? How many times do I have to say I don't take it personally for people to believe me? If you think he said things in a straightforward, non-confrontational manner AND he was very convincing, there is nothing more to say to you...you and he should be very happy together.

And at what point did I say the crowd is on my side? What side is that? What crowd? So far, there is one guy that agrees with me and a couple I agree with...since when did you make this into a battle. I thought I was just presenting my opinions and he his...although in a warped, diarhea of the mouth kinda way. If you call cops idiots, how is that non-confrontational?

Who cares...I am so very sad you are not on my "side". Hopefully I will be able to get over it so I can sleep tonight.

 

There is one simple fact that continuously shows up in this section of threads. If anything remotely associated to Law-Enforcement is discussed about 10 members of F-Chat jump in and start casting disparities toward all of Law-Enforcement. I just have one question. If you think LE is so corrupt, unethical and ridiculous why don't you apply for a job and change it? Can you see how common it is that LE is the only occupation that gets consistently bashed by just a few members over and over again. I agree that name calling is silly but I wish you could understand it is very hard to allow people to just make general attacks against one specific career without becoming a little offended. In any event, it doesn't matter because we are definitely used to being used as an excuse to b_t_h about whatever. It is usually someone who's family member or themselves who has had a negative contact and finds some kind of relief from their responsibility to just blame us as a group. Anyway, can you honestly imagine the insanity if "we didn't just do our job" the phrase that seems to offend the LE bashers.

 

Who says it is a **** job? You? What do you know about being a police officer? Own up to what? You clearly said in a previous post that traffic cops are idiots---You did not say SOME or a PORTION of traffic cops---You said traffic cops are idiots----You therefore lumped me into that category with your post---Not knowing who I am, what I do, who I work for, etc... That is simply assinine. I write very few tickets because I scrape up idiots off the roadways after there reckless or speeding endeavors on the highway....Fortunately most fatals crashes kill the irresponsible driver and not innocent persons...The next time you tell a parent there 4 year old daughter is dead while playing in her yard as a reckless, speeder lost control, went off the road and into the yard and smashed into her---tell me how you feel-----that is the job of a traffic officer.......

 

+1000

 

Most active and retired CHP that I know personally tell me exactly that. You seem to be taking it wrong the way though.

Well for starters you don't seem to want to own up to the simple fact that there are plenty of *******s out there who are traffic cops. You seem to think that a disparaging remark made towards the profession automatically is a disparaging remark towards you. And its not. You are behaving like the lawyer who immediately gets offended and pissed off when people take a piss about ambulance chasers. You also don't seem to want to own up to the idea that sometimes cops do idiotic things, and that when they do them, they're idiots.

No, I didn't mate. You do not have to specify 'some' or a 'portion.' It should be the assumed. Statements such as 'all balls are blue' are almost always going to be false. A statement like 'All traffic cops are idiots all the time and are a leech on society who should be burned at the stake' is so obviously wrong that I can't quite figure out why you assume that is the automatic meaning of my statements instead of the much more reasonable statement 'some traffic cops are idiots some of the time.' That you want to assume stupidity and irrationality on my part, that you wish to believe that I think, unequivocally and without any kind of mental reservation, that all traffic cops are automatically idiots in all aspects of their life. Well that is your prerogative and its what you decided to do.

Oh well. It appears to be what Gil decided to do as well. I can only assume you're both a touch sensitive about it. In fact I really don't want to respond to more to Gil's posts but respect for his job and to hopefully shed some light on this for both of you I will.

He still hasn't quite got the concept I'm working with here. Person A can be the most stand up individual in the world. And when he is out running a Child ID program, Taking Drunk drivers off the road or any other number of things he is just that person. When he is enforcing a pointless law on an otherwise safe driver, he is not that person. People who are incredibly intelligent and virtuous can also be idiotic and sinister at times. The world is not black and white, nor is an individual. Just because a cop is working on a murder at one moment does not stop him from being an idiot, for whatever reason, the next. It depends solely on what he is doing and what he is thinking. We are not all perfect people all of the time. Being an 'idiot' in this sense is not a permanent definition of someone. Its a temporary state. Refusal to accept this is, I suppose, why neither of you want to deal with any kind of specific case. Issuing a 5 mph over in a 25mph when the road is safe up to 49... is idiotic. Plain and simple. The cop who issued it was an idiot to do so. You can defend the cop and say it's his job to enforce the speed limit regardless of the basic speed law. You can say he can't be sure what is and isn't safe and its for someone else to decide. But when the day is over that ticket will get over-turned and that cop will have made a stupid decision. I'll hope that you will note that I've not made a lasting remark about the character of the Cop in question. I've not said he is a two-faced *********** ******* who should be hung. I've said that in terms of issuing that ticket he was an idiot. For all I know he had yanked a drunk driver off the road an hour before that would have run over a crosswalk full of school-childern. For that he'd deserve a beer. For that other ticket he gave out, he's an idiot. I'd still probably buy him the beer though.

I've not called you an idiot in the sense you want to think I have. In fact I don't think I ever did directly insult you at all. So far the only person who has been unequivocally insulted in this thread is me. Its rolling off my back. I certainly hope you can let comments about a generic person doing an idiotic thing, and thus being an idiot, roll off yours. If you want to sit there and say that you personally have never done an idiotic thing in your life, that you have never issued an idiotic ticket and that you never will. Then well my hats off to you.

What irks me is you think I don't. There are distinct differences between the case I described and pulling a drunk driver off the road, of issuing reckless driving tickets to someone engaging in a street-race on the freeway, of impounding the cars of someone going drifting at 1AM on residential mountain roads. I have the utmost respect for Traffic Cops and for the things they do. I also have an intense dislike of Traffic Cops for some of the other things they do. Sitting here and preaching that I only love or hate cops based on a small aspect of their job would be moronic. Sitting here and saying that sometimes Traffic Cops are idiots because they enforce idiotic laws that are part of an idiotic system is not moronic. Perhaps this point was not made perfectly crystal clear in my previous posts. I certainly hope it is by now.

And that is why its a **** job.

This one is an aside to the thread because it simply puzzles me to be honest and I'd really like an answer to this coming question. In California all non-freeway speed limits have to be backed up by a traffic engineering report. This is simply the law. Is this not the case in NC? If a speed limit is set substantially below that Traffic Engineering Report then you're going to stand a damn good chance of getting the ticket dropped. The only reason I've beaten the tickets I've received is because the tickets were for speeds that were not in excess of the traffic engineering report. So the basic question for you is, how are speed limits set in NC that you think 'enforcing the laws his engineers say are idiotic' is um, a valid statement? In California those engineers are in essence the law.

 

This post answers all the questions I needed--I understand now......-THANK YOU!!! Audi 5000 G!!!

 

Wow, this is awesome!! Everyone is talking sideways!!

When a local PD or town sets up a speedtrap at the same spot every day on a major highway and herds cars in for going 10 over in a 65 in light traffic, that is nothing more than putting up a toll booth to help keep the town's property taxes down. Any driver has the right to be angry at the town, the cops or the Troopers who sit out there doing it. Lots of drunks out at 8:30 AM on a workday. When an LEO lies about clocking you (One said he'd gotten me on radar, and I asked to see his gun with the speed still on the display. Turned out he DIDN"T EVEN HAVE A UNIT IN HIS VEHICLE! His story changed to "direct observation.") you have the right to call him anything you want.


Pulling over a driver for excessive speed is within the purview of any responsible LEO, and so long as it is done for the purpose of public safety, there's no beef. It's part of the game. But speed traps and BS stops are just revenue calls, and that is tantamount to stealing.

The cops in my town are generally totally great guys, and car guys. The Troopers on the highway scrape lots of drunks off the trees, and perform their duties with courtesy and respect EXCEPT when they get detailed to ring the register. Maybe their bad attitude comes from knowing what a crap job that is, and they resent the town/county/state pols who have them out there when they could be doing something more worthy of their training and desire to help people.

 

Wow! Sideways and up and down! Isn't enough said already? We need LEO and they are paid to do a job - sometimes over zealous but they're human. Some are bad. But if you feel you are unfairly ticketed, then have your day in court. I can see we F owners are human too.

 

+1

Regards,

Stew

 

Simple solution really - if you don't want a ticket don't break the law. If you choose to break the law, then don't whine about the consequences.

 

Do you mean like these guys?

http://www.motorists.org/blog/speed-cameras/maryland-police-refuse-to-pay-speed-camera-tickets/

In recent weeks, officers have twice been photographed speeding past a camera and extending a middle finger, an act that police supervisors interpreted as a gesture of defiance.

 

http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=52292&vf=26

 

Here in New Zealand the attitudes of cops to Ferraris is very much dependent on each individual officer (as I'm sure it is in most places).

Example 1: The very first weekend we owned our 328 we drove out of town to visit with one of the car's previous owners who we knew. He was thrilled to see his old car again and had a great time. Driving home on the Sunday afternoon and my wife was blatting along a long straight piece of road, its a beautiful day, we're in a great car, she's doing about 125 km/h (100 km/h zone). She sees a cop ahead and brakes to get the car down to 110 km/h (usually cops don't bother with speeders doing less that 5 or 10 km/h over the limit) and the cop turns on the lights, does a U turn and pulls her over. He wanders around the car and says, "This is a flash wagon. What is it?". He genuinely seemed not to know what it was .... one of the only people I've encountered who couldn't ID the car as a Ferrari straight away. He gave her a ticket for doing 112 km/h in a 100 km/h zone.

Example 2: One of the guys in the owners club was driving back from an AGM one year and was bopping along a back road when he saw a cop car coming the other way. He slowed down to 105 km/h cruised past the cop car and continued at 105 keeping an eye on his mirrors. The cop then switches on the lights, pulls a handbrake turn in a cloud of smoke and hauls a$$ after him. The guy thinks "What the ...??? I'm only doing 105 here, what's the story??". The cop pulls him over and walks up to the car. The guy starts saying "I wasn't speeding officer" and the cop says, "Yeah, I know, I just wanted to have a look at your car". Turns out the cop (whose nickname is Taffy) is a car nut and loves Ferraris, so they have a chat, the cop gets his photo taken with the car, his partner is just chuckling to himself, everyone's friendly and they all go their separate ways. The incident gets talked about in owners club circles for a while.

2 years later another member of the owners club is bopping along a similar stretch of back road and sees a cop car approaching. He drops his speed and cruises past but sure enough the cop switches on the lights, pulls a handbrake turn in a cloud of smoke and hauls a$$ after him. Guy #2 pulls over and the cop walks up to the drivers window. Guy #2 says "I wasn't speeding officer", the cop says "I know". Guy #2 says "Say, your name wouldn't be Taffy would it?". Sure enough its the same cop. Photos, chat, chuckling partner, everyone's happy and goes on their way. Obviously Taffy loves his Ferraris.

Example 3: A group of us are off on a 3 day trip in our Ferraris (10 cars including 308s, 328s, 512 BB, 550, 355, Mondiale). We turn up at the hotel in a quiet little town where we're going to be based for 2 nights and there in the carpark when we arrive are 3 cop cars, 2 undercover cop cars and a booze bus. This is a travelling circus of cops who operate a booze bus blitz in various places. They'd working all night doing their thing but the next morning we caught up with some of them in Hotel reception and we get to chatting. One of the cops wanted a ride, so one of the guys takes her for a ride in his 308. They're gone about 30 mins and we're chatting with cops, trying on their anti-stab jackets (body armour) and playing with the lights in their cars, etc. The 308 comes back in and the cop gets out of the car a little shaky and walks up to one of the other cops. Cop #2 asks "So, how was it? Did he speed?" and Cop #1 says "Oh ...... YEAH!!!!" with a big smile on her face. Turns out he only did about 160 km/h (100 mph). The driver had told the cop before they left the Hotel, "I'll take you for a ride, but you have to leave your badge behind".

That whole group of cops were great, they had a blast and it was good PR all round.

Attitudes to Ferraris and their owners?? It depends entirely on the individual cop IME.

Muggins

 

Scott....are you kidding about being the only occupation that gets bashed??......I am a lawyer, nuff said!, BTW, I have probably 200 friends that are cops, deputy sheriffs, FBI agents, etc, and deal with them in court almost every day, I give them all the credit in the world...I wouldn't do that job for all the money in the world!

 

So how often should a Police cruiser have its timing belt replaced?

 

I didn't say the only I said the only one that (consistently) gets bashed! Its a minor point but can you argue that any profession gets more negative attention of course I do admit lawyers and politicians are close behind.

 

I have read all the comments in this post with interest. I am probably in a better position than most to comment about "Cops & Ferraris," since I have been General Counsel to the Police Officers Association of Michigan for the past 26 years, representing more than 13,000 law enforcement officers in over 400 different Cities, Counties, Townships and Villages throughout Michigan.

Law Enforcement is no different than any other higher stress form of employment. You have the good ones (probably 95%+) and you have the ones who are "less than good." Only a very few go out of their way to nail someone who they could just as easily have looked the other way and not stopped. The vast majority will leave you alone or, at most, be interested in your car, not your driving habits. Do something wrong to draw attention to yourself, then you have created your own problem with a car that merely standing still draws attention. It is simply a buyer beware situation.

Just go out and enjoy your ride. Save your elevated speeds for a track day. If stopped by law enforcement be respectful not argumentative--you would be surprised how many warnings instead of tickets that will get you.

 

Amen!!!

 

I don;t know, the cops who stop you because they like your car - seems like an abuse of a public trust to me. Than the cop who allows you to drive over the speed limit if he is in the car with you. Are these guys supposed to hold the law in their hands, it applies when they want it to and is inapplicable when they are having fun?

It all sounds like modern Samuri to me. Give me Joe Friday and Officer Gannon. They knew that they were ordinary people who were given great power in trust, never to be used except in the most professional dispassionate manner.

I get the same feeling with the "will you consent to a car search?" If you asked them to consent to your searching their wife's car you would see in about one second that that is about power. If there is no probable cause, there is no reason for them to exercise their power over your private property, just as there is no reason for you to root through their wife's trunk.

 

I hope someday LE will do something positive for you that will change your overall opinion of the profession.

 

There are good cops and bad cops. Some of them make stuff up to get you a ticket, and others don't. I've caught a few in their fibs, much to their embarasment. However, if you treat them well, most of them are decent people, trying to do their best. They do get caught up in their job through, and someone will stretch things to get that conviction.

I don't mind them pulling me over to look at the car. I do remind them that when they've done that I've got a get out of jail card for minor infractions, then I take some time to show them the car, and if they'd like give them a ride. It seems to work. Even though they've got a uniform on, they are just people, at least most of them are.

Art