Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!rutgers!husc6!panda!genrad!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!fluke!marauder From: marauder@fluke.UUCP (Bill Landsborough) Newsgroups: net.cycle Subject: Which bikes get the tickets. Message-ID: <1428@vax2.fluke.UUCP> Date: Wed, 1-Oct-86 10:55:29 EDT Article-I.D.: vax2.1428 Posted: Wed Oct 1 10:55:29 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 4-Oct-86 09:09:52 EDT References: <5301@decwrl.DEC.COM> <865@wang.UUCP> Reply-To: marauder@vax2.UUCP (Bill Landsborough) Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA Lines: 56 Keywords: Look fast = get tickets In article <865@wang.UUCP> lee@wang.UUCP (Lee Story x77155 ms 1989) I commute about 70% >by Honda VT500, 30% by Toyota, and a year or two ago was stopped three days >in a row for absent-mindedly letting the Camry glide down the long, >gradual hill at 65 to 70 (probably 0.1 MPH faster than the average >traffic?). I've NEVER been stopped while on a motorcycle in about 14000 >miles of riding, and have often wondered why. Do the State Police want to >avoid possible high-speed chases? Do bikes fail to show up clearly on >their radar? Are there other less obscure reasons? > Lee Story @ Wang Labs My experience with motorcycles and speeding tickets has been very interesting. I have always had fast bikes, which look fast also. (GPZ 1100 Kawasaki's) And they have been magnets for police especially in California. I read an article in one of the bike magazines that if you carry a lunch pail on your unwashed "commute-to-work" bike, your chances of getting tickets is reduced by 200% or so just because you are no longer portraying a displaced canyon racer looking for a race, but just a regular guy going and coming from work. I have found that it works although I must admit that I have trouble going out for a ride with my lunch pail strapped on the seat! :-) As far as State Police wanting to avoid a chase, I know that is the rule with them. Picture this scene: A fast rider on a high performance bike goes by a cop on a windy road. The cop being a old motorcycle racer himself, turns his siren and lights on and takes off after the rider from about 1/4 mile back. The rider looks and says I can smoke him cause he doesn't have my licence number yet! So he gasses it and the chase is on. At any other time, the rider under no duress, could easily outrun the police car. But now he is very excited and scared and trys to go 10% faster than he has ever gone before. So he goes into turns at 95 instead of his normal, pretested, 85 because this is "the real thing so I have to go faster than I ever have". The result is obvious. He packes it into a tree or oncoming traffic and the cop gets to clean up the mess and write a billion reports why he pushed this 19 year old saint into a chase. His superior points out that if he had not given chase, or if he had slowly caught up to the rider without lights and siren, gotten his licence number and then slowly pulled him over, that the kid would have been alive today. The bottom line is that cops will almost always avoid going after a fast motorcycle just for that reason. The rider is better off getting away with speeding, than being dead. And if the rider has composure the cop is not going to catch him anyway. BY THE WAY!!! I am not encouraging riders to try to outrun police!! I have never beaten radio waves yet. And neither will you! Bill Landsborough --- "If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless." James 1:26