Long-Time-Ago Speeding Ticket Stories
"The Older I Get, the Faster I Wuz..."
Back in the day when 'Smokey and the Bandit' was in first-run theatrical release, Fuzzbuster (cheap) and Escort (expensive) radar detectors were still pretty new stuff. Lots of drivers had them and also the CB radios needed for talking about all the 'Bears' and 'Countie-mounties'. The era's quaint cat-and-mouse games between speeders and authorities were lots of fun, and occasionally could even be epic -- hard as that is to believe today. Motorcycle 'Track days' and racecourse-based performance riding schools did not exist yet.
The universally disliked 55 mile-per-hour energy-saving speed limit helped encourage widespread scofflaw behavior and civil disobedience. Supposedly fast riders would boast: "I never get tickets" and go on to describe in detail their combined stealth-riding tactics, methods, road-wisdom and technology countermeasures. A few even used highly illegal radar jammers.
Photo Location: Outside Anchorage, AK
Photo Credit: Mike Nothom
Story Behind Photo: Photo taken while I whizzed by our chase vehicle just prior to receiving a Performance Award from the local Sheriff. When asked why I was so far ahead of the group (of Harley riders) I exclaimed: "They're chasing me, they're chasing me!" He chuckled and wrote me up anyway...nice guy though.
One time on a road trip to Bike Week in Florida I had a pretty fancy one of those jammers. Never could quite figure out how effective it was at jamming, but it sure was fun to play with other speeding dudes driving radar detector-equipped muscle cars. They'd fly by and get about 100 yards ahead and you'd flip the jammer on and their detector would like up like a Christmas tree and they'd nail the brakes really hard (which was tactically correct). A minute or two later you'd be half a mile or more ahead again and they'd take their Camaro (or whatever) back up to flank speed and blast right by. After they'd gone a little ways farther you'd hit them again with the jammer and the brake lights would pop back on and the entire scenario would repeat as I tried to keep from laughing. Once or twice I even got a puff of tire smoke from the outlaw dude's tires as the car tipped forward into its brakes a little too aggressively. Despite the great amusement of this game, I put this sociopathic toy away after that trip. Permanently. It was just too mean.
To all those moto-speeders who liked to boast they were so skillful they could ride really fast most of the time, yet never get tickets... Well yeah, sure. After riding with a fair number of these boastful narcissists I eventually concluded their stories were largely BS, and formulated a private theory: If you think you are riding fast a lot but are not getting tickets once in a while, then you are not really riding all that fast. The only way to be sure you are riding illegally fast frequently and for longer distances is if you are getting tickets occasionally. Really fast riders all get tickets. They are unavoidable.
Confirmation of this came one day at the old Jan Cutler - Steve Losofsky Reno BMW store. I was there once only, passing through on my way from somewhere to somewhere else. Jan and Steve were among the hardest-core originals when it came to long distance illegal high speed riding and their shop was a Mecca for many like-minded riders. It featured a wall where hundreds of fast riders had pinned up their tickets, or copies of them. This display was a thing of beauty. A shrine. I stood before and marveled. And today I wonder if anyone back then was smart enough to take a high-res photo of it? No phone-cameras existed so this would have required 35mm film inside a dedicated camera. If anyone has one (?) let me know and maybe we'll make and sell a poster-sized print. It was that inspiring.
The only certain way to know you are a too-fast rider is if you are getting enough tickets to be worried about losing your license on points. I'm not there (anymore), and most riders today don't care very much about such outlaw horoics, but even now almost every speeding ticket has memorable story potential. Here's one...
About twenty years ago, when the Aerostich company was about ten or twelve years along, I was riding a little too fast on some rural two lane road around southern Ohio. Or some nearby state. Heading back from Bike Week maybe. I've forgotten all these specifics but still clearly remember the exact roadside location, scene and situation.
The cop had pulled me over and asked for and received my license and registration and had gone back to his patrol car to write me up while I sat there on my bike forlorn but also a little confused. He'd sure been looking at me and my bike funny while talking about my speeding as I was getting my wallet out. All law-enforcement firm and gruff, but there was also something slightly odd about his manner. I could not quite put my finger on it.
He comes back with my ticket, hands it to me and I sign it. Then he says, brightly: "Isn't that one of those new Aerostich suits?" Our innovative riding suits were then getting a lot of coverage in most of the motorcycle magazines. Oh crap I thought, now stone-faced. This hick county cop was a rider! Aaagh! I'd missed it completely while he was talking with me after the stop. Post-signature and now we had a nice conversation (through my slightly gritted teeth) about his riding and the Aerostich suits. At the end I still had the stupid ticket. &%#*?!!! If only I'd been able to somehow figure out he was another rider BEFORE he'd gone back to the patrol car to write out that ticket. It could have been a warning instead. Except he was too professional and I missed it. Without that cop's Aerostich suit interest this ticket incident would be completely forgotten by now, just like so many other long-forgotten tickets from back in the days. One of too many.
Now let me tell you about another one. A "100+ mph" big ticket received on the side of California's 1-5 when folllowing at-a-good-distance some guy absolutely flying along, driving a late-model BMW 7 series car...and about one from the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police aka 'Mounties') twenty miles south of Sudbury...and about the roadside warning received only fifteen miles from home on I-35 after deliberately (and very slowly -- only 1.0 mph) passing a MN Highway Patrol car which for some reason had been holding everyone else up at exactly 55.0 mph for the previous seventy miles...and about...and about...and...
Share your speeding ticket stories in the comments below! We'd love to hear them...
I slowed down and kept going until he was turned around and behind me with lights going.
After being pulled over, and he asked me if I knew how fast I was going,I gave him the song and dance about the bike being new and how I was trying to follow procedure by varying the engine speed and was only paying attention to the engine speed, not the vehicles actual speed.
He checked the bike out along with my freshly printed bill of sale from the dealer and let me off with a warning, but alas, I had left my proof of insurance at home, so he did issue a ticket for failure to provide financial responsibility.
I had been trying to bring up my email from the insurance company with the PDF file, but being on the back roads data was spotty and by the time I had the PDF downloaded he had already written the ticket.
All was well in the end.
He took my liscense and told me that if I hadn’t had any tickets in the last year I’d just get a verbal warning. He returned to his patrol car and I was left trying to remember when my last ticket might have been. He returned my liscense, told me to ride safely and he hoped that he’d still be riding his bike when he was my age. I was so relieved to have not gotten a ticket that it was several miles down the road before I began to wonder if I’d been insulted or not. I have been riding for over 50 years and was only 75. Why wouldn’t I still be riding? My friends, by the way, were waiting at a crossroad that they’d hightailed it to after seeing the lights go on.
Roughly 10 miles from Salina, UT I very slowly crept up on a car driven by a woman. Since Salina was a planned gas/toilet/cold drink stop I figured to just follow her into town. What developed was she was one of those that continuously speeds up and slows down. The limit was 65mph and she would gradually slow to less than 60 for a time then slowly speed up to over 70 for a time. The paint in the middle was double yellow so I was resigned to just suffer her speed fluctuations.
Then, maybe 4-6 miles from Salina a long, eastbound, passing lane appeared. At that point she was going 65+ so I continued to follow. Then she began to slow again. I was following with about an 8 second distance. I decided I had had enough and vented the throttle bodies to put her behind me.
My passing technique on open highway is to minimize exposures. That means I like to get it done quickly and then put a good gap on the moving object now in my mirrors. Problem is she speeded up big time during my manuver and the end of the passing lane was evident. Now commited I clicked down to 4th and put the trottle to stops long enough to peak at 93mph indicated.
As I completed the pass and gap manuver a looming rise concealed a westbound Utah StateTrooper. I was throttling down when he lit me up.I pulled over and stopped before he was able to complete a U-turn.
Long story short I gave him my lenghty excuse about the woman. He said “yeah but 87mph? I decided to not try to explain the wisdom of my minimal exposer passing technique that has served me well for my entire life
.
While I was digging out my documents he asked and I told him I was headed to a big annual paratrooper reunion at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He must have noticed the 82nd Airborne Division and 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment decals below my license plate on the mud guard.
When he came back from his rig with the 8″ x 11” ticket (he had a printer in his vehicle) he told me,”Here is what I can do, I’m citing you for 82mph in a 65. This will squeak you into Utah’s lowest fine for speeding which is $82.
I rode away somwhat gratefull but completely at a lost for the irony. Fined $82 for 82mph in a 65 on the way to the 82nd Airborne Divison. “You can’t make this stuff up!”
In 2012, riding my ’10 Honda NT700V, I had given up on a Bun Buirner Gold on I-90 in SD. I was following a “rabbit” who was running 85. We had been passed a couple of times and I noticed a red Taurus coming up behind. When he got alongside, I looked over and he had a gold SD State Police badge on his door and was in full uniform. He nodded at me and kept right on going. When he got to my rabbit, I thought the poor guy was going to have a wreck, but he didn’t. The trooper just kept on going, so my rabbit and I followed him all the way to Rapid City at 95.
As I hunched over staring at the road between my speedo and tach, I glanced left and saw that slowly pulling up to pass us was a FHP State Trooper. He was clearly in a hurry to get somewhere with a passenger and slowed just enough to shake his head at us, then he pulled away at a very good clip. I never blipped the throttle... :)
Leaving our early Saturday morning breakfast meet-up and riding home alone at 9AM, I rolled onto the nearly empty 163 freeway towards home. Once in my lane, I whacked the throttle fully open, exhilarating in the full power acceleration of the three valve Desmo. After clicking up into 5th, I saw the speedo topping 115 and rolled out of it, exiting the freeway at my exit.safely, I thought.
Four blocks and two stop signs later, I’m surprised to be lit-up by a CHP cager. Off with the gloves/helmet and ignition, I waited for the LEO to approach me.
“Did I roll that stop sign back there, officer?” I asked, innocently.
“No but I had you at three digits on the freeway,” he said.
Busted, for sure. Wife will not be happy. She’s still semi-pissed that I flipped my pristine R90/6 to buy this bright red Italian temptress that she finds uncomfortable as a pillion.
I figure begging can’t hurt so I admit to my over-exuberance and tell him the bike is new.” I’m sorry and my wife will kill me. Any chance I can get a break?”
He looks at my multiple bike registrations and insurance cards for my 4 other bikes. I tell him that I contribute bike stuff for a couple of national magazines, cover bikes for the local newspaper and a big insurance hit will not make me, my wife, my editor, or my insurance man happy.
He looks over his sunglasses at me. There’s a long pause while he checks my current DMV record and says, “You never even saw me behind you.”
“I was more aware of what was in front of me at that point, honestly.” Another long pause.
“You’re lucky I couldn’t get close enough to pace you. Would your wife be happy if I wrote that you were ‘speeding safely?'” He wrote me for 80mph.
Two days in traffic school and a small fine. Wife wasn’t happy but I still have the Ducati. And my job.
There’s a lot to be said for 360 degree situational awareness. Learn it and live well.