njkmr

Yesterday called on a mate of mine who has a TVR Griffith 450.He wanted to see how his compared to my Scooby(wr1).Its now had 1000 mile service so I thought why not.We went onto the east lancs road(national speed limit in most places and several sets of traffic lights.Did a few starts from the lights and fluffed most of them,2nd into 5th etc so pretty ****e,my mate didnt do much better either.Cars fairly even to be honest.Mine still tight ,feeble excuse for not beating him .
Anyway as we were heading in one direction we saw a police bike on the other side going in the oposite direction,he did look over but we were not racing.It made me a bit nervous tho as we were turning round at next set of lights and going back the other way.
Did another start from lights,(the noise of a tvr next to you with your window down is emense,the roar and screech of tyres made me **** myself with laughter,another excuse for my poor attempts to beat it).
Never got to mad speeds ,we were just interested in performance from start to 70 ish mph.
Over round abouts and few rolling accelerations away from them.
Came to next set of lights,right hand lane behing my mates car,and the police bike pulled up behind me(oh **** me thinks!!!!!!)My mate did not see him behind on my bumper,roar ,screech off he goes,I flashed him like mad to get his attention.He then eased off about 100 yards in front of me.I pulled in to near side lane waiting for bike to pull me,along side he comes me staring ahead innocently,as he drew in front he waved his left hand to signal SLOW DOWN SONNY!!!!!!!!! I acknowledged this with a hand up to say YES BOSS!!
He acknowledged this with a THUMBS !!!!!!!! FFS what a relief.Gets to next lights and my mate turning right.I carry straight on to pretend we are not together and were not racing,Ahem!!!!
He leans into my mates car at the lights and says to mate,Sounds great that pal,but it also attracts attention when you accelerate like that,slow it down a bit,keep your eyes open and look out for me,im not difficult to see(dressed in white orange etc)
I consider this a RESULT!!!We were never driving dangerously but obviously we were in the wrong so to get a decent cop like this,who didnt get heavy was great.I still dont know were he came from but he must have been parked up somewhere when we went past.
Lesson learnt, and Bruntingthorpe here we come so we can test them out properly without getting banned.
Thought Id share this with you ,just to let you know not all cops are jobs worths.My opinion of them wasnt great before,years ago got ticket any time I got stopped,without fail,no let offs.Apologies if this is to long.

King Eric

I was once stopped after just passing my test with 3 of my mates in my new motor...going a bit quick down the M3 by a hants traffic officer in an unmarked BMW 328i with all the kit on it....

He clocked me going "well" over the limit over a fair distance....

Pulled up behind me and gave me the blues-my heart sank...my mates were cacking it (probably because i was the only one who had passed at the time and they wanted me to drive 'em down the coast every weekend to cruise etc)

I gets out, walks straight to passengers side door of BMW and opens it (traffic cop already got his leather wallet out and is scribbling away) gets into passenger seat and say to him no questions asked "I know why you have stopped me-I was speeding"

He looked at me and put his wallet in the back seat and dropped his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose and looked at me like a headmaster....and simply said "Who's car is it?"...I explained it was registered to my mother and i was a named driver. He then checked the car over his radio..i showed him all my documents to which he lectured me about carrying them (i was thinking-for gods sake just crack on and do me as this is painful) and at which point he says "Give me your mobile"...so I did and he asked for my mothers work number (which i gave him) and he proceeded to tell my mum what i had done, how fast i was going and that i had 3 of my mates in the motor.

Believe me when I say that was punishment enough.

He then told me a very sad story about 3 lads he had seen not long before this a few weeks previous and also the reaction of telling the parents their kid and his mates were all dead because he was driving like a tool-and well beyond his ability.

Left a lump in my throat and he let me go along my way---to that day I have never driven like I did that afternoon.....

One let off was more than enough to scare the life out of me...and his actions I hold as a thanks for the fact I now drive a WRX UK300 and have a clean licence.

The cops in my opinion are pretty much top notch

talizman

iTrader: (1)

Its refreshing to hear positive tales about run-ins with the law.

All too often on ScoobyNet its the negative run-ins that we hear of (naturally) so this in turn gives a very bad image of the police in general.

After all, we all rant when we have something to complain about, but how often do we take the time to share good experiences?

Nice one guys

Stiff

I got stoped on Friday night (well, 1.30 Saturday morning), nothing on the road at all. T5 passed in the opposite direction. 2 minutes later he`s in the mirror and flashing lights come on. Now I knew my number plate lights were out, as was my dash lights but couldn`t do anything till the next day. Usual questions later and he said "Well, you`ve got a nice car, just keep your speed down." No producer, nothing. Probably making sure I hadn`t nicked it. Must be over 10 years since I`ve been stopped but within a week of owning the WRX I get pulled. If it`d been nicked earlier in the day this is exactly what I would`ve wanted from the Police so I can live with that. Thumbs up to most of them.

BlueBoy

I''ve had a few runs down the East Lancs with several mates and I've never had any plod batting an eyelid (and that includes the 4 of us coming back from Lancs with me racing my mate in his WR1) - but they are pretty reasonable round here as long as you don't go that extra length into proper "dangerous" driving at speed.

Must have been that noisy TVR I expect - I've had a little race with my mate in his Tuscan, but we've yet to go on the East Lancs run yet (and if we do I want it in the wet or at least with a roundabout or 2 as part of the package)

Iwan

Another "nice copper" story.

A few years back i was coming back down the M4 from visiting my GF in Cardiff. It was about 2am and the motorway was totally empty, so i had it (2.0i 16v Cavalier) "wound up a fair bit".

I was cruising along somewhere between 110mph and 120mph and in the far distance behing me i spot a set of headlights appear and slowly start reeling me in. After about 5 minutes the headlights had caught me up and the car slowly drew up alongside matching my speed, it was a Volvo 850-T5 in full livery. Bugger

Both coppers were looking across at me looking very serious, i was looking across at them with what must have been an ultra sheepish "oh-bugger-i've-just-been-caught-big-style" look on my face. Please note that this was less than a year after getting my licence back having had a 12 month ban for similar antics. I was looking at some serious $hit.

Just as the impications hit me, the passenger shook his head and did the "tut tut" wagging finger motion.

I backed off the throttle a bit and the Volvo drew ahead then pulled across into lane 1 in front of me, i carried on decelerating slowly (without using the brakes) down to about 70mph ish. The Volvo sat in front of me for about a minute (longest minute of my life) before gradually accelerating away and leaving me on my own, reflecting on the lucky escape i'd just had.

Cheers guys!

mynickers

Agreed. Alot of people forget that it's the plod that have to go to the scene of traffic accidents and take out tangled bodies and the like. I suppose everyone works on the assumption that it won't happen to them, but the police, know it does happen, and have the nasty job of dealing with it, not to mention going to peoples doors to tell them one of the reletives has been killed in a motoring accident etc.

Traffic cops, particularly bikers are often quite - dare I say it 'cool'. Funnily enough my Misses flat mate is a traffic cop in London got a big ol' honda. He is bike mad, and he has his own very fast bike, the model escapes me but it's bright yellow!

I chatted to him on the topics mentioned above, and he basically said that he speeds, he and most of his collegues accept most other people do too, and as long as you do it sensibly, show you can handle yourself, and choose the right (safe places) to open up your toy, and of course dont' rub it in their face, to a degree they'll turn a blind eye. Often they're quite into motorsport themselves, and I have heard of people being pulled so the plod can have a butchers at their car! Her flat mate doesnt' mind me smoking skunk either which show's he is quite a 'groovy' cop if there is such a thing.

I also had a similar good cop experinece story from when I was a nipper, I was driving my mum's Renault 5, there was a strip of cobbles in my home town just before a junction onto a wide road, in the wee hours of the morning this area is totally dead. If it had been raining the cobbles were like black ice, but it was only a small strip, before the junction, followed by tarmac, I worked out if you set the corner right you could hit the strip of cobbles at an angle to get the car sliding, and then accelerate through the junction corner as an apex out on to a main road, normally you can get a good look to make sure it is safe to do what is essentially not safe (road) motoring manuvere, but it was 5am. I got it nailed quite well, and once sliding you don't really have an option but to follow through. Unluckily, I commited myself to the corner just as a Copper was coming down the main road. D'OH. He saw I was looking, he saw I clocked him, followed through my move successfully, but then before they had a chance to pull me, I indicated to pull over, waited for a safe place, and pulled into a side road and got out the car. Similarly to above walked straight over to them with my hands up, fair cop guv etc.

The police pulled up behind with a big smirk on their face. They complimented me on my manuvere (bless em), then went onto to say if I wanted to drive like a prat that I should perhaps think about a country lane, and most definatley not do it in front of police cars. Kind of a 'we were young once' slap on the back but know when and where etc. I was quite suprised, genereally since I found if you are sound with police, and show you're not a total anti-social boy racer type, they'll quite often give you a break.

It's the home botch up make overs, and tune uppers brigade that get hassle from Police, and quite often with good reason. There are some right dick heads around here, racing through the centre of town on a Saturday for example. Thats just dangerous, even if you're a good driver, only takes one kid to trip and fall in the road in front of you, or any manor of other random things outside of your controll and it's not fun and games anymore. I am pretty sure that's how the police look at it, like I said they're the ones that have to pick up the peices if it does go pear shaped after all.

sti-04!!

Hear Hear

Got to see the good outweighs the bad

talizman

iTrader: (1)

There are plenty of Scooby-loving, meet-attending, car-mad coppers out there!

sti-04!!

:

njkmr

My previous concept of dibble was from when I got banned about 15 years ago.I had 3 sp30,s(rightly so,speeding down streets etc in my mk2 escort days,as a young ******!!)and then got pulled for alledgedly crossing white lines which to this day I still say I was back on the correct side of the road before the lines started.This led to a 6 month ban.It seemed that any time I got pulled and the copper saw my ginger barnet they automatically wrote out the ticket,in hindsight I attracted their attention and I am probably still here today because I learnt my lesson and have not had a ticket since(touch wood!).
As regards to police speeding,yes they do,I used to have a fireblade motorbike and my tvr mate had a ducatti.We would go out on a Sunday morning with some of his mates who had bikes and some of them were motorbike cops.We would be full pelt in places and speeds of 150ish 6 or 7 of us blatting down national speed limit roads was the usual scenario.I tended to be tagging along at the back,cos I was fairly new to biking at the time,but it made my belly ache with laughter watching these fellas jockeying for position coming up to roundabouts so they could be first one out the other side of the roundabout and leathering it again to the next one.So yes they are human.And hopefully they all read this and treat me leniently if our paths cross again!!

talizman

iTrader: (1)

Ahhhhh..... you never mentioned that before.

Perhaps I can explain.....
There is a specific section of the Road Traffic Act that states that "any ginga caught committing a moving traffic offence must be immediately prosecuted due to having offensively coloured hair"

njkmr

lol,and I suppose truncheon up the ricker is in there somewhere as well for us!!

mynickers

Isn't that colourisist?

What about facial hair? Surely Mustache's are against the law? Lip rug's and beardos! My dad's got a beard, and he has 9 points on his licence!

talizman

iTrader: (1)

Did he tell you that it was standard procedure?

What is it with all these ginger-fancying freaks?


Yes, moustache is "go straight to jail, do not pass go!"

As for your dad..... beards are unforgiveable, he shouldn't be on the road!

Jamescsti

I guess i'm one of them, I work in West Yorkshire and own a Scooby WRX!

mynickers

What ginger and a moustache? How many points??

Me old man been nabbed mainly by speed camera's he does loads of miles up and down t'country, but he has a road angel now, 9 points is not a happy place to be when you need your licence for work and do **** loads of miles - hard not to speed! Do you think the camera's know if you have facial / ginger hair!?

My licence is clean thus far, obviously because I have brown hair and no beard?

Gary C

I was stopped after a rally once at about 5am, still had the numbers on the car when a car with main beams on started to push me on a lane, I took the bait and we drove for about 15 miles at high speed.

Got to a main road and slowed to 60, the car behind then caught up and put the blue lights on, I crapped myself, but this police man just started chatting. As we stood there a dolomite sprint (now you can tell how long ago this was !) flew past and the copper said "I'll go and race him now" !!!!

How things have changed.

T5NYW

iTrader: (4)

I can remember them but always wanted a Lotus Sunbeam

I have also have met 'Good' Coppers and that give reminders that driving safely but too quickly, is still an offence and they seem to be more worried about inappropriate speeds for 'Road' conditions

I have also overtaken many slower traveling Police Cars well above the NSL (to get by) and never been stopped, yet.

Tony

Brit_in_Japan

There was a time when road rallies were assisted by the actions of petrol headed policemen, effectively closing roads so competitors didn't have to give way at crossroads etc. It actually increased safety for the ordinary road user, keeping them at a distance from the rally, but there was no legal basis for closing the roads so I'm sure that these days they wouldn't risk taking such an active part.

MadMark

I have been pulled over 6 times and done once (in 16 years) albeit with loads of lucky escapes - so not a bad ratio! In the main they pretty fair ....... Mind you, the feeling of seeing a copper eating his lunch in a layby on the other side of the road as I swept down the hill past him at 144mph will live with me forever! Needless to say I kept it nailed .....

c5_wagon_work

I was doing 3 digits down the M1 on Thursday night. Durham to Hemel Hempstead long journey just want it over etc. Volvo traffic car appears from nowhere (sh&te my pants) pulled over into the middle land and the police car just swept past me, no blues on or anything?

Spent the rest of the journey at a more relistic pace wondering How? Why? Lucky BA&^%D?
Still cannot work it out? Maybe he was going off shift at 130+mph?

OCD

And how about a little French story?

When I had my 911 C4 I took it over the channel to stay in my place there. As I was travelling at the last minute, I couldn't get the night boat from Portsmouth to St Malo, so I had to go via the Chunnel- so, 450 miles to go when I got to France rather than 110.

That led to a little speeding.

I was eventually caught by the police bike and he showed my doing 160mph. Apparently it took him some time to catch me up but I had slowed down a lot by then.

Thoughts went through my mind of being imprisoned in Calais with Monsieur Big who is in the the wardens and being his bitch.

Instread, when the copper realised that I had not stolen the car, in a comedy accent, he said ' Monsieur, you most slow down' accompanied with lots of gesticulations.

He then shook my hand- very strange, and off I went.

The nagging of my wife afterwards though kind of made me wish I had been locked up.

You live and learn I guess.....

RB5_245

Save The Hassle of Points Here

I doubt you'd get close to a griffith, since a wr1 is just NOT a spec C

Dave

Supercue

iTrader: (1)

Couldnt agree more

Gangsta Smurf

"having trouble getting airbourne sir?"

Absolute classic mate!!

Supercue

iTrader: (1)

Not bad for doing 160 eh Gangsta?

Gangsta Smurf

Only you could do something like that and get away with it!

Supercue

iTrader: (1)

Thanks mate
For those that are wondering what the hell we're talking about, many moons ago I had a Lancia Thema Turbo with the Intergrale Evo engine. It managed a respectable 0-60 of just under 6.0secs and topped out at a limited 160mph.

I was driving up th A1 at about 5.00am and I had just run the new engine in and decided to give it a blast. We accelerate at warp factor 8 till the speedo is completely bending the needle all the way round

As I reach for my Bensons I just happened to look in the rear mirror and glance some blue lights way way back in the diastance. Thinking Bo11ox license gone I pulled over in the first layby I come to and sat on the boot waiting for Plod to catch up with me

What seemed like an eternity, eventually this Jag screeches into the layby and this copper gets out walks towards me with the dead pan face and asks"Having trouble getting airbourne sir?"

I am literally curled up with laughter thinking this is the best line i have ever heard from Plod. Thankfully his VASCAR wasnt working properly and he recorded a speed of ZERO

Turns out had I gone much further, there was another unit waiting to ambush me further up the road and thankfully I didnt get so much as a producer. My friendly Plod is a fellow petrol head and just wanted me to lift the bonnet before I left and look at the engine. For good measure I got the asking me was I aware that once you get over 150mph you do realise you are creating enough lift to get airbourne. I never gave that a single thought as I wound the car up to 160.

I still enjoy a little blast but I do give it a lot more thought thanks to some very good Policeman

GRIFF007

Hi - I have a Griff 4.3 and looking to get an sti PPP 08 (95% as quick as WR1 presumably) - so how should i expect them to compare? - Can the wr1 over take a flat out Griff on the straight between say 40 and 100?

Hoping that PPP will be a bad weather Griff effectively - am I likely to be dissapointed in acceleration by comparison anywhere under 120 mph?