[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by bob d

A young county officer pulled my over and said that a car fitting my car just pulled out of a gas station and left without paying for the gas.

...because of the sheer volume of yellow '32 Ford Highboys on the road at that time, right?

Actually, in all seriousness, I was out for a ride before it got cold here and saw five '32 Fords during the course of my outing. All different shapes and sizes (some with fenders, some without, some coupes, some roadsters) and all of them black.

K

[Tom Vaught]

I was getting harassed in a town called Kalamazoo, Michigan back in the 70s. Kalamazoo
was a college town with a lot of speed traps to pull in the City Money for the coffers.

I was driving the 64 GTO with the GTO letters on the size of the car and the grill and trunk. I removed those emblems for a few years and guess what, not one traffic stop to check registration/insurance from the time I took them off.

I know that I am not the only one to be targeted because we are driving vehicles with a performance image. But this is a city council issue who tell the police to generate x number of tickets each month.

Tom V.

[NeighborsComplaint]

I got pulled over late at night just east of St. Louis. I had left work around 6:00P driving from Chicago to Arkansas with a new lawn tractor I had bought for my dad's birthday in the back of my '99 Durango. Of course I got off an exit before my normal gas stop, realized my mistake and decided to drive a bit until I hit a gas station.

It was pitch black out and the road was all torn up, the lane narrowed down with no shoulder and a 2' drop off with lighted barricades sitting cockeyed half on the road and half in the ditch. I was winding my way along avoiding the barricades along the narrowed road and decided it was a lost cause. I pulled into a closed business' parking lot to turn around and head back to the Interstate. As I pulled back onto the road, a cop lit me up from behind and followed me as I had to weave along blinded by his lights until I could find a place to pull in.

I handed the cop my license, registration and insurance as he got to my window. He looked at me long and hard and said "You know you probably crossed the center line half a dozen times while I was behind you ,,, you been drinking?" I figured this was a going to turn into a field sobriety test and at minimum a reckless driving wrong lane usage ticket so I just answered very calmly Look, I know you're trying to do your job, but with the lane narrowed for construction, the barricades randomly placed and you on my ass with your lights on, I'm surprised it wasn't more like a dozen times. Every time I put a tire on the center lane, it was intentional to avoid a misplaced barricade." We locked eyes for a moment and he just walked away without saying another word..

[Simple Man]

When I drove tractor trailer regional, I had a GTO license plate attached to the front bumper. Got pulled into the Delphos OH scales on US30 for an inspection. Scale operator was watching the front of the truck, for lights out, etc. Ohio trooper walked to the back of the trailer to check lights, tires, etc.
As the trooper is walking back up front, the scalehouse guy motions the trooper to come up front, and starts pointing at something. The trooper takes a look, and walks back to the drivers side of the tractor. "Oh SXXT, here it comes" I'm thinking. He walks up to the window, and says "what year GTO ya got?" referring to my plate. I said "65, and 68, both hardtops". He then starts telling me about the 69 Judge he was restoring. I'm figuring on a ticket. and he wanted to talk shop!

[carcrazy]

I have to say, in most cases when I've been stopped, it was for good reason. However, one stop sticks out in my mind as being unfair. The year was 1975 and I was coming home from a class at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio. I was driving my 66 L-79 nova. State highway patrolman pulled me and gave me a ticket for the car being too loud. Now in this case, I had a full , stock exhaust system and on the freeway there is no way he could have heard me anyway. When we stopped, he stated, "in my professional opinion, your exhaust is too loud." and wrote the ticket!

[Keith Seymore]

I forgot about my "Right Turn on Red" in Royal Oak.

$200 - even at 2 in the morning and if the only people awake in the entire universe are you ... and the officer.

K

[Sirrotica]

FWIW, this isn't my car, this is a 2000 S/E Mary Kay Pink GP I found on the web. This picture is exactly as my car appears. In this picture you can tell the car is pink when there is a white background (snow) against it, it does under most lighting look white though at a quick glance.

If I would have pulled it up against another white car, it would have been evident that it wasn't white:

[Jim Scites]

Back in the 90s another Uncle came out to visit from West Virginia who was a Vietnam Vet. One of the things he wanted to see while he was here was the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. We got into his Monte Carlo SS and he asked me to drive. A co-worker gave me directions there so off we went. The directions said to go up 395 to 14th Street and turn left on Constitutions Avenue. So I come up to Constitution Ave and there are No Left Turn SIgns, I am second in line to turn left, the lady in front of me turns left and I look over to see a police car which said Park Police. I think to myself.... Park Police... He's nobody. Well I made the left turn in front of Nobody and he got out of the car and flagged the lady in front of me and me over. After a $75 ticket he proved to me that he was somebody. But we went on to the Memorial and it was worth it for me to get him there.

[Greg Reid]

Originally Posted by Simple Man

He walks up to the window, and says "what year GTO ya got?" referring to my plate. I said "65, and 68, both hardtops". He then starts telling me about the 69 Judge he was restoring. I'm figuring on a ticket. and he wanted to talk shop!

This reminded me of one of my stories..everybody in this crowd has a thousand cop stories I'm sure....anyway, back in the early '80s I got caught in a roadblock on my way home from work. Roadblocks were frequent back then and I actually had my license suspended for 6 months or so because of one. I kept driving because I needed to work.
During this time, about 3am I get caught in one of their roadblocks in the city of Atlanta. I was driving my '68 GTO. The cop comes up to the driver's door....'What year is that Goat?'...."It's a '68 officer".... "Nice, I got a '69 Z-28, blah, blah, blah...alright man, take it easy.." "Yeah, have a good morning officer.."
This cop never even asked me for my license...which I did not have. So, that's one instance of a muscle car getting me out of a ticket!

[goatman1970]

Just before Christmas 1979, headed home to SE Ohio for Christmas, leaving from my AF base on the Florida panhandle, riding with my buddy Stan from Cleveland (we were in the same AF unit) in his old late-60s 4-door Oldsmobile (which is a very mechanically sound car but looks a bit rusty and needs a paint job and has loud glasspack mufflers) who is going to drop me off on his way, pick me up on the way back. We were making a beeline for I-65N to Montgomery, AL on the back roads, after dark around 11PM, and right when we crossed the Florida/Alabama state line we hit a little village called Dixonville (go figure), and right in the middle of this podunk, we got flashed over by a cop. We pulled into an old abandoned gas station just across railroad tracks running through town, this cop pulls up behind us, gets out of his car, lights still flashing, draws his gun and points it at us, and my buddy who is driving rolls his window down and the cops yells at us to put our hands on the dash and leave them there. Next thing we know, we are surrounded by nearly a dozen marked and unmarked cars with lights flashing, all of them pointed directly at us with their headlights on, and they are all getting out of their cars and drawing their guns and crouching behind the open doors. We are ****ting our pants at this point, two young airmen just trying to get home on leave for the holidays. We hear someone on a bullhorn issuing orders to the cops. After a bit, this police captain comes up to our driver window (my buddy was driving) followed by several officers with guns drawn, and asks for our ID and starts grilling us. We are on leave, going home for Christmas, show him our drivers licenses, military IDs, and leave paperwork (thought we were busted because our leave started on Monday and it was Friday night, but we always used to get a head start like that). They back off with our IDs and paperwork and after a while they come back and tell us, a bank was just robbed nearby and the robbers got away in a car that looks and sounds like our car. Then they let us go. When we got down the road, we pulled over with the shakes from the tension. It really felt like touch and go for a while, we had no idea what was going on and all we could think of was Deliverance. lol But it turns out we were the original plot for My Cousin Vinny!

But that ain't the half of it. Over Christmas, Stan traded his old Oldsmobile in on a brand new 1980 AMC Eagle, which was the first model year for the first 4-wheel drive crossover SUV, and it had radial tires (which were still fairly new on passenger cars then, I believe) and the hard rubber donut spare tire. It was snowing pretty good on the mountain tops in WV on our way back, nothing down lower where we were driving. In fact the mountain tops were all covered with snow and it made a pretty picture. But we're driving straight through. Some time after midnight in Kentucky, the snow was close to a foot or more deep on the highway and still coming down and no other tracks on the road except the ones we were making and Stan is telling me how great this 4-wheel drive car was handling. I started suggesting we find a place to spend the night, but Stan wanted to keep going. We top this hill with the highway curving to the right and all of a sudden Stan notices he had started on an exit ramp to the right and the highway was visible to our left and he yanked the wheel to the left and we spun out and took down several reflector poles and messed up the right front end of the car pretty good. The right front tire was flat, rim was bent, suspension damaged. We stuck that donut spare on the right rear and moved the right rear tire to the right front of the car and tried to keep going. We got into Kentucky and it wasn't working out very well, lots of noise, vibration, and bad handling. Around 2 or 3 in the morning, we found a truck stop and pulled in and asked their employees if any tire shops or junk yards were nearby, ended up waking up this guy who had a junk yard, but the tires on the Eagle were an odd new radial size and he had nothing similar but did have a bias ply tire of a slightly different size with the same bolt pattern and we finished the trip on that tire, rear end whining because of the different tires sizes on the back, steering messed up and front end vibrating.

That was a Christmas I'll never forget.

[1965gp]

Three situations stick out in my mind-

1994- junior year of HS: trying to catch up to my dream girl in high school I cut through a neighborhood driving way to fast. Car pulls out and I lock up the drum brakes on the 70 LeMans. We spin around, don’t hit a single thing and the car doesn’t die- so I take off the opposite direction like we planned it- it had to look cool right? Off duty officer did not think it looked cool and gave me 4 tickets. He said he would be looking for me every day after school. I went home and spray painted my faded silver car with black primer so he wouldn’t know it was me. To be stupid and 16 again....

1995 summer after first year in college: Hanging out in Chantilly, VA watching street races- I had just bought my 87 GTA. Nothing compared to the 11 sec street cars but I was proud of it. All kinds of high end cars, Supra’s, blown C4’s, extreme 5.0’s and even a few cars from the fastest street car shootout. Guy pulls up in a Nissan pick up and gets out looking around. As a 93 Saleen SSC (white with yellow graphics and factory roll bar- just beautiful) pulled up behind me after finishing a race the guy from the Nissan truck pulls a gun and points it right at us!! No idea who the guy is- I think my car is getting stolen. Nope... an off duty cop that was driving by. They confiscated the Saleen because they said the could since it was being raced on public roads. The owner eventually got the car back because there were too many witnesses that said he just pulled a gun- didn’t say he was an officer.

Now: I never drink and drive- way too risky but I for sure would never attempt it in my General Lee. That car gets pulled over all the time so officers can take photos with them pulling me over. I play along- it’s all in good fun.

[gtospieg]

Back in the early 80's they used to "profile" cars like our old Pontiacs...not even sure how many times I got pulled over for no reason but one time sticks in my mind because I "won". I was cruising one of the backroads around me bringing my friend home when the lights came on behind me...here we go. I was so sick of this there's a "chance" I might have had a bad attitude about what was about to unfold..... Cop comes up to my window and I said "What's the problem?" He says "You were doing about 45 mph back there." I said "Well there's no posted limit on this road so that makes the speed limit 55, was there something else?"...no ticket, end of story...I win one finally!

[Mr Anonymous]

Goatman70, I feel your pain. I was headed back to Ohio from Lex KY one winter evening in the late 80s, and due to no fault of my own, ended up being the only car on an interstate CLOSED due to snow. I must have been hidden by the terrain when it was blocked off. I drove almost to Cincinnati before seeing another car. It was an ice storm near dayton. 2.5 hr trip, took me almost 6. Road in front of my parents house has about a 1* down slope. Made it all that way just to slide past their house on the ice. Couldn't go back up after I turned around. Left my car at a neighbors house (we knew everybody) and walked home.

Years later, visiting GF (wife later), got 30" of snow in Viper KY (south of Hazard). Company car, got it stuck in the ditch 250ft from her house - leaving Sunday on a long trip to Louisville. Paid 3 underage kids a case of beer (Always be prepared) to push it out. Followed a road grader plowing the road... for over 30 miles. Took me around 10 hours to get to Louisville. 8am Monday morning I pull into the dealership where I was to train people, it was closed! ***K!!!!

Company car was a 95 grand am. Road graders make for a very rough vehicle to follow when they have chains on their tires. It was like a 200 mile trip on the shoulder of the road where the vibration strips are. The damn car had screws falling out of the dash eventually.