Getting out of a small speeding ticket...

[sethy]

I was wondering what you think about this Roy. A while back, I was stopped for going 10 over the speed limit. He wrote me a ticket on the fact he said he saw my brake lights go on as soon as I passed him.

What do you think would happen if you know youve been tagged, but you pull the ebrake so the brake lights wont come on. Then maybe release it at a few over the speed limit. Do you think you could argue that his radar would be "wrong" ??

[V1 Dave]

Careful you don't lock up the rear brakes as that would be very embarrassing. The E Brake does not stop you very fast as about 75% of your stopping power is in the front. If I were in the same situation I would brake until he can see my brake lights then let off. Ultimately it would be nice to have one toggle switch for rear running lights and one toggle switch for brake lights. But then again if you are going to these extremes may be best to just slow down.

[compu44]

Careful you don't lock up the rear brakes as that would be very embarrassing. The E Brake does not stop you very fast as about 75% of your stopping power is in the front. If I were in the same situation I would brake until he can see my brake lights then let off. Ultimately it would be nice to have one toggle switch for rear running lights and one toggle switch for brake lights. But then again if you are going to these extremes may be best to just slow down.

I actually have a friend that has a switch to turn off his break lights like that. It was on the truck when he got it (used).

[sethy]

hahahah thats awsome! :D

[SETITOFF]

Sethy, are you driving a stick or auto? If a stick, down-shift, if auto do the same, second gear with reduce your speed at a tremendous rate and no brake lights. It takes some getting used to in order to react quick enough. But that goes hand in hand with being alert. You can't let your guard down.

I use cruise control all the time and have gotten a technique to go from 80mhp to 60 within 3 secs. If I have that much distance in early warning, I can surely beat a speed trap.

[sethy]

Thats a good tip, im driving at auto though- but my next car will be stick

[SETITOFF]

You say you're driving a Bonneville? Gearshift on the steering column? It's a lot tougher to do. Automatics with gearshift on the console is much easier, just like a 5spd, but without the clutch.

Just a bit on car specs - Maxima has a button on the gearshift for overdrive on or off. Pressing this button and setting overdrive off is equivelent to down-shifting from 5th to 4th.

[sethy]

I geuss I could throw it into 2nd gear, but if im going above 50 that will probibally throw rods...

[SETITOFF]

Damn, what year is your Bonneville? Downshifting gears causes the transmission to slow down and the engine to kick into higher rpm, but unless you have engine troubles, it shouldn't have that severe an effect.

[Radar Roy]

Hard to speak for all the different officers and personalities, but I would get real pissed off if someone passed and speeding while running radar and they didn’t hit their brake lights to slow down. If their was no reaction, figured that they needed a ticket to wake them up….

[sethy]

:lol: but the whole point I was making would be that maybe you could argue that their radar was wrong and you weren't speeding

[SETITOFF]

That's where reaction time comes in. I would be slowing down immediately once I got the 1st hit on RD. I have had a chance encounter to pass LE in an unmarked with R/L who transmitted and once I got the warning down-shifted. He may have had a lock on me anyway and began pacing me. Once he saw I was not at the speed he may have originally gotten he moved on or for some other reason. I'm sure he paced me to intimidate and let me know he was there.

Roy:
I would expect the LEO to pull someone over when they did see the brakelights as confirmation that they were indeed speeding.

[SmaartAasSaabr]

I don't know... every time I have passed an officer, I have seen brake lights on cars ahead, around, etc.

I think it's a natural reaction - see cop, hit brake - even if you're legal :lol:

If Seth's Bonnie is a later SSEi with the L67/4T65-HD then 2nd gear won't hurt him badly at most speeds. Though I would likely put 3rd before I went to 2...

I've driven a GTP (same drivetrain) extensively, in 1st gear I can get it up to 100km/h (63mi/h) so no problems there...

But a standard-shift is much easier and more predictable, I still don't like manually downshifting slushboxes... All my personal "driving" cars have been and are manual shift.

The Bonneville has a foot-operated locking parking brake, which I definately would not use while moving (since it locks...) that could be very dangerous on the road. Plus, the parking brake on the car is a "drum-in-hat" design, meaning that there is a drum brake built into the rear discs designed specifically for parking. So the braking would be poor and you could even fry the linings in there... Unless your Bonnie has the drums in back, but the SSEi has discs 8)

[SETITOFF]

Yeah, I would not recommend using the parking brake either unless you have high performance discs and pads. Not to mention Dukes of Hazard training and driving skills.

Paying attention and being alert is still the biggest pay-off. Auto-trans with gearshift on the floor is the only type I would recommend trying down-shifting - it's the simplest and all gear positions are straight in line.

Manual-trans, you just gotta know what you're doing, and

DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE...BETTER TO HAVE A SOBER TICKET THAN A DEATH ON YOUR CONSCIENCE

hope I didn't digress too much...

[SmaartAasSaabr]

You know, in the Dukes, when they did those "bandit" turns or whatever, where they drove fast and did a 180, they had the ratchet mechanism on the park brake pedal removed, so it operated as a normal brake, and they could spin the car...

And they used to put about 1000lb-1200lb of concrete in the trunks of the General Lees so when they did a jump the car would land level...

lots of interesting stuff on that show...

[SETITOFF]

I knew about the brake set, but didn't know about the added weight. But then they had more than one car to do different stunts as well. One to jump, one to walk on water, one to speed down dirt roads, etc...

[SmaartAasSaabr]

Yeah that show sure ate a lot of cars... something like 250 Chargers were wrecked, and I don't want to know how many police cars....

Sometimes they would let the clip of the jump run a little too long and you'd see how the whole unibody of the car was just destroyed when it hit the ground... :lol:

[SETITOFF]

Starsky & Hutch tore up some Grand Torinos too.