Warning About Speed Traps
Jacco Zwetsloot
A >From: v2a...@fshvmfk1.vnet.ibm.com (Chris Wuestefeld)
A >Organization: IBM East Fishkill
A >
A >In <1993Sep1.1...@acuson.com>, law...@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)
writes:
A >>In article <1993Aug30.0...@epas.toronto.edu>
A >> gmou...@epas.utoronto.ca (Glenn Moulaison) writes:
A >>
A >>>I had often heard this one:
A >>>
A >>>It's illegal for a motorist to signal to oncoming motorists the
A >>>presence of a police car (speed trap, for example) by flicking his
A >>>headlights on and off.
A >>
A >>I don't know about Canada, but this is probably not true about US law.
A >>It would be a violation of freedom of speach.
A >
A >I was pulled over and harangued by a cop a couple of years ago in
A >Pennsylvania for such a thing. The difference was, I didn't even know
A >that there was a cop. I was flashing at the van in front of me, who
A >was driving without his lights on (at about 9:00 pm in the late Autumn).
A >
A >The cop chased me down, yelled at me, threatened to ticket me, and
A >when I told him that I was trying to make the roads safer through
A >my action, he called me a liar and told me that the van did so have
A >its lights on. As the van was in front of me, I replied that it was
A >at least missing its rear lights, then. The van had pulled over at
A >a convenience store a short way ahead of us. The cop insisted that
A >we sit there and wait until the driver returned from the store, to
A >verify my story. When it turned out that I was right, did I get an
A >apology? Did the cop go get the guy who was driving with illegal
A >lights? You guess.
A >
A >Thus, it is illegal, at least in Pennsylvania.
Well, here in Australia (funny how the practice is so universal isn't it? I
like coincidences like that. They make the world more interesting, and show
how all humnas are intrinsically alike. Not to mention the cameraderie of
drivers vs the police...) the same thing occurs. I once
heard about (yeah, I know, Motto! Motto! FOAF and all that, but frankly I
couldn't give a fig what you all say, this happens) a fellow who was caught
signalling to oncoming traffic that the cops were behind him.
Somehow he was seen, and the cops pulled him over. The tendency in these
types of situations (as far as I can see) is that because I don't think the
act itself is illegal, the police will go through your vehicle
systematically loking for anything wrong with it, to slap a canary on it
(that's slang for an unroadworthy sticker) or present you with some other
fine.
Believe me, flashing headlights as a warning that cops are ahead, really
maddens them. So they are desperately looking for a fine to give you, for
whatever it is.
Cheers
Jacco `I don't drive, so why do I care. Hahah. Bad luck to you!' Z
* Origin: Empire BBS +61(3)591-0020 (4 lines) (3:635/550)
Justin D. Bukowski
Jacco Zwetsloot <Jacco.Z...@f550.n635.z3.fidonet.org> wrote:
>heard about (yeah, I know, Motto! Motto! FOAF and all that, but frankly I
>couldn't give a fig what you all say, this happens) ^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Motto!
Justin "I'll give you two figs for two fifty" Bukowski
Pull yourself together, my dear sir; what I am saying is not difficult to grasp. -Socrates
experience with the same sort of situation described here. A friend of mine in
high school, notorious for being a fast driver, once flashed another driver to
warn of a speed trap (in Greenhills, for all of you from Cincinnati). A park
ranger observed this, and promptly pulled my friend over and was prepared to
give him a ticket for driving with his high beams on (even though he merely
flashed the). The only reason he got
out of the $30 or so ticket was that he was an employee of the park system and,
therefore, was able to finagle a warning out of the ranger. The moral of the
story? A policeman has plenty of laws from which he can draw reasons to pull a
motorist over for flashing his/her lights; it's only a matter of which one he
wants to use.
JEL
Paul Tomblin
>flashed the). The only reason he got
>out of the $30 or so ticket was that he was an employee of the park system and,
>therefore, was able to finagle a warning out of the ranger. The moral of the
I was once an employee of the Ontario Ministry of Transporation and
Communications (MTC). The MTC was also in charge of the Ontario Provincial
Police (OPP - if you want to see a OPP shoulder flash, look at the famous one
on Paul McCartney on the Sgt. Pepper album). At the time I was there, I was
told that because I worked there, I would never have to worry about speeding
tickets from the OPP, now or in the future.
And yet, 6 years later, I have had two speeding tickets in my life, both from
the OPP. I've gotten warnings from the RCMP, the Surete de Quebec, and the
Waterloo Regional.
Paul "Maybe I should just drive slower" Tomblin