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393$ for speeding


Jan Olsson

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Got stopped by the police yesterday when driving to the city to pick up my wife.

Here in Sweden Volvo drivers have some kind of a complex, if you try to pass them they all of a sudden finds the accelerator and does anything in their power to stop one from passing. I'm not the only one saying this, my theory is that all the Volvo owners think they have a sports car because their current Volvo is faster than their old Volvo 240 or something. This is rather tiresome because you can't make a regular pass. If you try to you'll find you'll have to accelerate forever without passing them (that is if you're trying to do a "normal" pass with just a couple of mph in speed difference).

When you finally have passed them (going 20 mph faster than you expected to because the retards have stepped on the gas) and let the cruise control resume to a speed higher than the Volvo had to begin with, you'll have the retard only a couple of yards behind you.

Here's the story...I was driving past a couple of Volvo V70s with her Jeep Wrangler (didn't want to get dirt on my Caddie ;) ).

Soo, I passed the Volvos and resumed my desired speed and noticed that one of them stayed behind me at my speed, which I didn't think much of at the moment because I assumed it was just a typical Volvo driver being a jerk as usual. The speed limit was lowered from 56 to about 44 and I eased off the throttle a bit, then all of a sudden the darn Volvo was really close to me. Knowing that the particular stretch has a lot of deer in the nearby woods and also knowing that a tap on the brakes would make him hit me hard made me quite crossed...

Well I changed lanes to take the next exit and the Volvo made a sudden lane change to follow me (I still thought it was a jerk trying to prove something)...I was getting increasingly xxx off because he stayed right behind me through this 270° exit (just a couple of yards behind) so I floored it when the road straightened out again (didn't want to step on the gas to hard in the curve because the Jeep has got new studded tires and I wanted to be easy on the studs) and then the Volvo turned on the blue and red lights....xxx..

Needless to say I was so angry I could hardly speak, the officer started the usual speech about my speeding, I just starred him in the eyes and was going to tell him to cut the crap and hand me the ticket or maybe ask him if he really felt that he did a great job or something like that when he asked me if I admitted to the crime. I thought about it for a while and said "No I do not".

They have the episode on film but there is always the possibility that they missed some crucial information (time, exact location where I did speed, was the instrument calibrated, how was it calibrated etc etc) so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I generally have nothing against the police force but when they are going to fine me almost 400$ for speeding on a wide road with low traffic after doing anything in their power to trick me into speeding I feel they have to earn the money first...

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Don't get me wrong. I did travel too fast and the prize you sometimes have to pay is a speeding ticket. Fine with me..but I question the driving pattern the police man had. Generally when someone drives like that they want to race :P

And...if I would have been a beautiful blonde I would probably just have received a

warning. I know a lot of girls who looks afraid/sorry and apologizes and just get a verbal warning..the law should apply to ALL of us.

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Here in the states that called Entrapment, when a person that is supossed to be enforcing the rules & Laws is actually breaking them and forcing others to break them as well. Of course it's hard to pin entrapment on an officer but I have seen it done. Good luck and watch out for the Volvos they just may be Police!

Sean M.

1997 Cadillac DeVille

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Here in the states that called Entrapment, when a person that is supossed to be enforcing the rules & Laws is actually breaking them and forcing others to break them as well. Of course it's hard to pin entrapment on an officer but I have seen it done. Good luck and watch out for the Volvos they just may be Police!

Darn Fords. The funny thing is that I'm always casious when passing a SAAB because the police once had a lot of them (because the Volvos wasn't fast enough I suppose).

I read in the local papers that this week is a "traffic safety week" :ph34r:

The positive side is that my fines equals 2.83 cents/mile since 1992. I can live with that :lol:

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Jan,

Sorry to hear about your ticket, but that was a fantastic story to read :D

I've heard of people around here being "dragged" by unmarked cars up to ~130km/h (most country highway speed limits are 80), before the cop lights up the reds&blues. Pretty dirty, but at least here 99% of police drive Ford Interceptors or Chev Impalas, so they are easy to spot

-Chris

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That entrapment type crap is liable to get real ugly at some point.

Some years ago when I had the Big Red Dog (a '94 Concours that really liked to howl), I passed a truck on remote rural 2-lane highway at well over 90mph (the speed limit was probably 60 or so).

I thought there was a slower car in front of the truck and was going to take it as well before a curve.

Just in front of the truck I noticed that it was a Sheriff's car and manuvered to tuck in behind it, (with the nose nearly on the pavement from the hauldown in speed). In the next second or two I noticed the guy in cuffs in the back seat staring at the Caddy's antics.

Well, the Big Red Dog simply took a deep breath, went for it and jumped past the Sheriff's car. We stayed well into the triples for the next 10-miles. I didn't think he had time to read any plate considering the action.

However, but after a bit of reflection and less adrenalin, there probably wern't any Caddys for the next 100-miles, but only a low-flying red one.

I guess that's what you call lucky the Deputy had a sense of humor.

The times I have been stopped have always been a relatively-good experiance because there is usually just chit chat. The dozen or so times I have been ticketed and lost my license (twice or so in youger days), seemed fair in consideration of what I got away with and all. They were just doing their job and as a young guy with fast company - I was simply doing my part of their job - nothing personal.

I even got my license back and two tickets dropped one time after telling the Suspension Officer in charge about being ticketed while on the way to that very suspension hearing

I really believe that a Caddy adds tremendous respectability and the various "Support our Highway Patrol" paid-donation bumper stickers probably don't hurt either.

Again, sorry about your raw deal.

Regards

Add power to leave problems behind. Most braking is just - poor planning.
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Don't get me wrong. I did travel too fast and the prize you sometimes have to pay is a speeding ticket. Fine with me..but I question the driving pattern the police man had. Generally when someone drives like that they want to race :P

And...if I would have been a beautiful blonde I would probably just have received a

warning. I know a lot of girls who looks afraid/sorry and apologizes and just get a verbal warning..the law should apply to ALL of us.

I understand that you question that driving behavior - I don't think they (police) are allowed to do that in Sweden (for those of you who don't know: I am also Swedish). Sounds like the police officer should be reprimanded for that, but his unacceptable driving will of course be hard to prove...

I also had an experience with a close-driving cop. I was driving behind a patrol car on a road where the speed limit is normally about 45 mhp, but on this particular day it was reduced to 20 mph because of a reggae festival. Behind the cop was a long trail of cars. We were driving no faster than the speed limit and I was driving at a safe distance to the cop, and then he pulled out at a bus stop. I figured that he was going to turn around or just stand there (as they had been doing earlier the same day) and I accelerated past him. Now why would I accelerate, you may ask, and the answer is that the speed changed back to the normal 45 right at the bus stop. The cop did not even stop, he just let me pass and pulled out right behind me. Then he stayed quite close to me (more like 1 second than 3) for some time. I obviously did not go over the speed limit, slowing down when the speed limit changed again, and the cop continued to stay very close. Then, after a while when I turned in to my job, he continued past me. I will probably never know what he was doing. My guess is that he thought I was accelerating to hard - I did accelerate slightly harder than normal, but I stayed in second gear (not going to first even though the speed was low) and there is nothing illegal about that. I was certainly not close to flooring it.

I have also noticed that quite a few people increase their speed when they are passed. It is very noticeable if you use cruise control and resume it after passing. I can't say that I have noticed Volvos being more prone to it, but perhaps they are. Speaking of Volvos, I was standing next to a V70 of the first generation (same as the old 850) at a red light the other day. It had some blue interior lights, and extra gauges mounted on the A-pillar, so I could tell from a mile away that it had been hobby-pimped by someone who probably thought it was faster than it was. When the light turned green, the guy tried pull ahead of me, and I floored it (gently, so as to not spin the wheels). I wonder what he thought about that - assuming that he could not identify a Cadillac DeVille for what it is, he just saw a big, heavy barge of a car next to him, and still could not pass it. :P Hi only passed me after I stopped accelerating, which I did around 45 mph (it was not a good place for going very fast).

A final note on studded tires - I once had a quite long talk with a guy at Gislaved (maker of Swedish winter tires). I was lucky, and got to speak with someone who new about the technical aspects rather than a sales rep or similar. One of the things I learned was that when you have new studded tires, the best way to break them in is to run them at country road or highway speeds for about 200 miles. During this period, hard breaking, accelerating and turning should be avoided, as should city driving and turning the wheels while standing still. After that, the tires can be driven normally. I broke in my studded tires in that way three years ago, and my studs still sit securely in the tires. I do WOT's also during the winters when the roads are dry, so I have not been babying them once they were broken in. The above episode with the Volvo was with my winter tires, for example.

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Don't get me wrong. I did travel too fast and the prize you sometimes have to pay is a speeding ticket. Fine with me..but I question the driving pattern the police man had. Generally when someone drives like that they want to race :P

And...if I would have been a beautiful blonde I would probably just have received a

warning. I know a lot of girls who looks afraid/sorry and apologizes and just get a verbal warning..the law should apply to ALL of us.

I understand that you question that driving behavior - I don't think they (police) are allowed to do that in Sweden (for those of you who don't know: I am also Swedish). Sounds like the police officer should be reprimanded for that, but his unacceptable driving will of course be hard to prove...

I also had an experience with a close-driving cop. I was driving behind a patrol car on a road where the speed limit is normally about 45 mhp, but on this particular day it was reduced to 20 mph because of a reggae festival. Behind the cop was a long trail of cars. We were driving no faster than the speed limit and I was driving at a safe distance to the cop, and then he pulled out at a bus stop. I figured that he was going to turn around or just stand there (as they had been doing earlier the same day) and I accelerated past him. Now why would I accelerate, you may ask, and the answer is that the speed changed back to the normal 45 right at the bus stop. The cop did not even stop, he just let me pass and pulled out right behind me. Then he stayed quite close to me (more like 1 second than 3) for some time. I obviously did not go over the speed limit, slowing down when the speed limit changed again, and the cop continued to stay very close. Then, after a while when I turned in to my job, he continued past me. I will probably never know what he was doing. My guess is that he thought I was accelerating to hard - I did accelerate slightly harder than normal, but I stayed in second gear (not going to first even though the speed was low) and there is nothing illegal about that. I was certainly not close to flooring it.

I have also noticed that quite a few people increase their speed when they are passed. It is very noticeable if you use cruise control and resume it after passing. I can't say that I have noticed Volvos being more prone to it, but perhaps they are. Speaking of Volvos, I was standing next to a V70 of the first generation (same as the old 850) at a red light the other day. It had some blue interior lights, and extra gauges mounted on the A-pillar, so I could tell from a mile away that it had been hobby-pimped by someone who probably thought it was faster than it was. When the light turned green, the guy tried pull ahead of me, and I floored it (gently, so as to not spin the wheels). I wonder what he thought about that - assuming that he could not identify a Cadillac DeVille for what it is, he just saw a big, heavy barge of a car next to him, and still could not pass it. :P Hi only passed me after I stopped accelerating, which I did around 45 mph (it was not a good place for going very fast).

A final note on studded tires - I once had a quite long talk with a guy at Gislaved (maker of Swedish winter tires). I was lucky, and got to speak with someone who new about the technical aspects rather than a sales rep or similar. One of the things I learned was that when you have new studded tires, the best way to break them in is to run them at country road or highway speeds for about 200 miles. During this period, hard breaking, accelerating and turning should be avoided, as should city driving and turning the wheels while standing still. After that, the tires can be driven normally. I broke in my studded tires in that way three years ago, and my studs still sit securely in the tires. I do WOT's also during the winters when the roads are dry, so I have not been babying them once they were broken in. The above episode with the Volvo was with my winter tires, for example.

I've been using the same technique to break in tires for years now. Have used Nokian Hakkapelitta the last 10 years or so. They have a magnificent grip on ice and snow. The comfort could be better though...Usually at least 95% of the studs are still there when it is time to throw them away. I guess I need to change my driving style, 20000 miles on tires and brake pads is a normal distance for me :P

OEM pads, Nokian tyres in the winter and Michelin in the summer. Can't blame that wear on the parts I guess :lol:

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Jan,

Sorry to hear about your ticket, but that was a fantastic story to read :D

I've heard of people around here being "dragged" by unmarked cars up to ~130km/h (most country highway speed limits are 80), before the cop lights up the reds&blues. Pretty dirty, but at least here 99% of police drive Ford Interceptors or Chev Impalas, so they are easy to spot

I find myself staring at every Volvo I see now..it will propably last a couple of weeks until I feel "safe" again.. <_<

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I even got my license back and two tickets dropped one time after telling the Suspension Officer in charge about being ticketed while on the way to that very suspension hearing

:lol:

I just wished that the police over here did something about the real traffic criminals instead of collecting easy cash for the doughnuts. Tailgaters, high-beam lights on forever in the dark (even after flashing them in order for them to use the low-beam), drivers that don't use the turn signals when passing, stupid overtakes (curves, grades etc), drivers forcing other drivers off the road when the road isn't wide enough for 2 vehicles to meet, people ignoring the right-hand rule, drivers cutting the curves etc. etc. The officers was (for once) very polite, usually they act like if you were a real lowlife criminal.

Maybe I can ask the judge for a copy of the speeding movie. After all I payed for it....

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Yes, do ask for the dashcam movie, and ask for all of it, including the several minutes of tailgating, and the audio after the stop.

You probably should have a lawyer present. In most traffic courts the behavior of everyone present is entirely different is you are represented. A junior partner of a senior law firm is best because they know that they will hear about misbehavior from their seniors through his associates. A lone junior lawyer may be ignored by some brazen traffic courts because they know that the kid will have to appeal to win.

A lawyer will also know how to ask for the dashcam video in a way that will prevent them from editing it down to what will help them but not you.

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