He said that this was a town NEAR his. I'm no law aficionado but wouldn't they have a tough time confiscating a vehicle of a non resident? If I drive through some little town in say Georgia that has a law against white cars, I wouldn't know I was breaking the law. Extreme example I know, but you get my point.
If you get stopped for loud mufflers or ??????, it also gives them a chance to check you out. (How many PBRS have you had, what else might not be legal). I learned a long time ago not to draw attention to myself for no reason. Keep a little lower profile and pick your fights. Larry T
Ignorence of the law is no exception would be my guess.Its getting tough to have a car that stands out from the norm nowdays.If it looks or sounds peppy to the right cop at the right time your not gunna like the outcome.Im not trying to stick up for the system (because i think it sucks) ,im just trying to let people know what can happen from my personal expierence.My car at the time from my episode was a Gasser with a straight axled frontend ,flames,and open headers .I was screwed from the get go ...
Bingo ,heres a man that has either learned the hard way as i did,or was smart enough to figure it out without going through it.Thats what i do now .I drive a plain old pickup daily ,and kick up dust at the track with my Dart (as my avator picture implies)...
Go check state statutes, normaly the first one says all trafic laws will be uniformaly enforced. zerox it . then ask how they can be enforced if it is only his opinion.
LarryT knows of what he speaks ..In our little town, once they found one thing wrong, and you fight it, win or not, you are a target from then on, and then so are most of your buds....make the car legal, then try to change the term of legal...
Invest in mufflers and stop worrying. This is sorta like when I was a kid delivering papers. Every time I rode by this one house a german shepherd would chase me down the street. Pretty quickly I changed the way I rode my route and didn't have to pass the house. Problem solved. I guess I am saying if it's a small town either follow the rules or stay out of town. Normal people don't want to hear our shit from 2 blocks away. chuck
We all read your thread about this, we all read your other threads. No offense but most folks who read your shit realize you are a squirrel. Dont taint this discussion with a skewed experience. I said taint
If the officer feels its to loud. I would like to see that hold up in court. Being a retired Fire Fighter/Fire Official (Fire Inspector/Fire Marshal) if I would have show up in court and said In my opinion. I would have lost the case. Lawyers would beat you up with that statement, asking what makes you the expert.
i will shorten this in most states Federal law it is ileagle to modify the exhaust systom in any way from stock this is including changing a stock muffler with a like original one still quiet i found the law a few years back i am not trying to make an issue i learned not to make myself a target a Judge wrote on a ticket recept this license can suspended till hell freezes over i had a 33 1/3 lomg playing albem
i'd have to go with the shocker on this. a cop can and will stop you for whatever they feel like. can they make it stick all the time? probably not, but why chance it. also a town i lived in said you were "disturbing the peace" if you could hear noise from a residence while standing in the middle of the street. i was breaking in the cam on my glide when i found this out (bike in the shop behind house with baffles in). turns out he couldn't hear it from the street so they substituted alley and i got the fine.
Remember, it's a small town, so I think chances are the judge would find you guilty. You may be able to get it reduced, or even thrown out, but you better believe, if the cop writes it up, it's gonna cost you something before it's all over with. This is why I get so irritated every time I see someone on here bragging about pissing off their neighbors, or running straight pipes etc. It's gonna bite us ALL on the ass!
I've outright paid some tickets where I knew I was wrong... But I'm not the kind to let things rest. I grew up getting beat up and now i'm an adult and will not accept or put up with it in any way beat up by fist law money anything. You cant win em all but if you try and lose you can sleep at night and look yourself in the eye (in the mirror ). Here's what I do. first I want to state my case and make my argument... write it down and get it notarized, that makes it a legal document...better not tell a lie here... Send it to the prosecutor of the county court the offense occurred in with a check in the amount of the citation and with copy of the citation and ask that the charge be reviewed and hopefully dropped. Call the prosecutor's office a few days to a week after it all should have arrived to "confirm delivery/receipt of your petition for review" or something like that... Ask if He/she has had a chance to review your case. they will either remember it and have something to tell you or will ask you to call back. if they say they will call you back...call them back if you don't hear from them when expected... The important things to remember are: You are working the system ahead of the court. Do not enter a plea or admit guilt. you are to be acting as if you will be pleading not guilty if the charge is not dropped= expensive Be polite and professional. you must not sound like your giving out ultimatums. You must be pleading for justice based in the facts you sent in, not on feelings or religion, etc. Be sure to send the money...The first thing any Prosecutor is going to think is "This guy just wants to save some money or is trying to get away with something". Your putting your money where your mouth is... what usually happens for me is the money is accepted to settle the charge and the case is dismissed and does not tarnish my record. Don't forget to call the court to see if your ticket is active or has been dropped at least a few days before the court date!!! sometimes the only thing the little guy can do is make sure it's more expensive to f*&k with you than they will get out of f%#king with you... not threaten it... set it up to be so and make it inescapable but let them get the idea "this is going to be expensive" on their own...don't throw it in their face, give them the opportunity to take the road more appealing. Fight smarter not harder...the side of the road with an officer is not the place for a fight. Try to get started fighting before the system does. If your in the right, the prosecutor is the next person after the officer to make a decision regarding your case.
man, the flow masters sound are illegal in some places. the world really is going crazy. all i know is that i normally hit third gear when passing parked cops going 25 mph. all though getting on the freeway i've hit 70 in second gear. i try not to give the black and whites or cops any reason to roust me. i had one tell me my brake lights were out, untill i hit them about 3-4 times while he was running my plates. i was lucky, he let me go, cuz my brake lights really did work. the california state is broke, that's why they enacted the cash for clunkers program, buy a new car, state revenue is formed from the dmv and crazy registration fees, smog laws paid for, a whole slew of money going to the state. me driving an old car daily, low insurance and low registration fees yearly. i pay for gas, that's it. they really have tried their best to take my money, and when they can't, they will attempt to give you tickets to extract what they couldn't take before. keep cruising and take it easy around the black and whites.
okay not so much california but the whole country, my bad, but cash for clunkers in general creates revenue for what state you live in. that's my conclusion. i don't know much but i love driving my bbc 55.
And the reason for these laws? People complained about loud cars and bikes.Like to run open pipes? expect more laws like this.You are free to do what you want until what you are doing annoys another person.
Sieze your vehicle for an equipment violation? I can see a ticket being issued, but take your car? That is crazy. The people that write and pass these ordinances should be voted out of office. I wonder if the law will sieze your neighbor's lawn mover if you make a noise complaint at 6am when you are trying to sleep off the night''s before fun.
There has to be a STANDARD for "too loud", it just can't be somebodys opinion...end of story. Subjective "opinions" don't hold up in the law...
Bottom line is that you can probably beat it, but it's not gonna be cheap and they will NEVER let you slide on any kind of violation again. As far as changing the law, go ahead and do it. It's the right way to go about things. But how many of your neighbors are gonna vote for a law to let you wake them up at 6 in the morning? Larry T BTW, I've ridden modified Harleys since the 60's, never ran drag pipes.
I get a kick out of the PC hot rodders. "Don't make too much noise in your HOT ROD." That's funny. I LOVE living in a redneck town with redneck cops. I ran open pipes on my last pickup with a 350. I run open pipes on my current stovebolt. Hell, right now, I'm running 18" dump tubes off the Fentons. I've been stopped several times by the police where I live. Without fail, it was to tell me how nice my truck looked/sounded. I have a tag that can't be verified (year of manufacture tag on the rear unregistered per state law & real tag inside the vehicle), run open exhaust, and sometimes I play Hank Williams on my stereo really loud. I ride by the local police station multiple times a day on my travels. I've never been pulled over. The times I was talking about being "stopped" by police earlier was at a store or some other such place. So all you yankees and all you Californians, move on out to Concord, NC. No emmissions tests or safety inspections on vehicles 35 years old or older. We can run a year of manufacture plate on our vehicles with no special registration or extra fees. We have a noise ordinance, but it's used mostly for morons blasting cursing dope music during church. All the cops around here like loud bikes and cars unless it's some import. And that's more due to the type of characters that come with the import lifestyle. Other than having to jump through hoops to get a NC title for an out of state old vehicle purchase, we are a hot rodders paradise. I've never heard of anyone having their vehicle impounded for anything other than drug trafficking. Around here, the police really do have better things to do than hassle law abiding citizens. So come on down, take your shoes off, relax, have some sweet tea, and chill the f out! That doesn't mean you can do burnouts in front of the courthouse though. Just act like you have some sense and don't insult us with the typical Southern stereotypes and you'll love it here. Just ask all my carpet bagger yankee buddies!
All of this is nothing new. In the 60's getting stopped and ticketed for "loud pipes" (based on personal experience) was just part of hot rodding. And it was all based on the officer's opinion, no decibel meters and such. It gave the police a legal excuse to check for other infractions and harrass some of the locals that they didn't necessarily like.
Obviously youre on their field playing with their ball and bat. I'd suggest, unitll you get active and involved, play by their rules. 2010/2012/2013,,choose your revolution.
Just read all 63 posts of this thread. Toward the end I came to realize one thing about getting old. It's a whole lot smarter to conform with the law (cheaper to) and find some other way to have your kicks. When I was younger it was kind of a sport to tangle with the establishment (parents, teachers, law enforcement) just to see how far you could take it. It's part of growing up especially if your a male. There is a point after you've lost about 98% of those encounters that makes "fighting city hall" less appealing and taking an alternate route to the same goal more logical. Of course the ass kickings (you don't win every physical encounter) broken bones, scars, and empty wallet help to drive the point home. I know it would be easier to get out of bed in the morning if I had realized this earlier and my bank balance might little higher but all of that is in the rear view mirror. Besides, who am I to deprive the younger generation the joy of beating thier head against the wall only to find out that the wall usually wins. Frank
The Jalopy Journal
