Can cops do this?

[Kevin Doyle]

So by now this is just another weekly routine for me. Today i got ticket 6 and 7 for my coupe. One fix-it for no licence plate, and one regular one for window tint.

This fine sherrif of the orange county area has already pulled me over last spring break. I didnt remeber and he did. So he said i dint have a front plate then asked for me to roll up my windows. Then he started asking why i put my tint back on and i there was really no staight answer given before he interrupted and said, "do you even hear what you are saying to me, you just admitted to something illegal blah blah blah. Yeah i did because in the past excuses have got me no where.

Here is where sh** went wrong.....

So he writes the ticket and i plead to get out and he even recognized the for sale signs on my car and said "selling your problem to someone else," in the usual a**hole tone. So my window ticket isnt a fix it ticket and im getting a $213 fine with it. and i have to go to court to try to get it lowerd. Then he says "im placing an ordincance (or some other BS term) on your car so you can only drive it with tint if you are going to a shop to remove it. And if i pull you over ANYTIME past today i'll make sure to put a misdomeaner on your record"

So seriously WTF? does he have any sort of right to even be saying this stuff to me. he is by far the worst cop who has ever pulled me over

[mcheddadi]

So by now this is just another weekly routine for me. Today i got ticket 6 and 7 for my coupe. One fix-it for no licence plate, and one regular one for window tint.

This fine sherrif of the orange county area has already pulled me over last spring break. I didnt remeber and he did. So he said i dint have a front plate then asked for me to roll up my windows. Then he started asking why i put my tint back on and i there was really no staight answer given before he interrupted and said, "do you even hear what you are saying to me, you just admitted to something illegal blah blah blah. Yeah i did because in the past excuses have got me no where.

Here is where sh** went wrong.....

So he writes the ticket and i plead to get out and he even recognized the for sale signs on my car and said "selling your problem to someone else," in the usual a**hole tone. So my window ticket isnt a fix it ticket and im getting a $213 fine with it. and i have to go to court to try to get it lowerd. Then he says "im placing an ordincance (or some other BS term) on your car so you can only drive it with tint if you are going to a shop to remove it. And if i pull you over ANYTIME past today i'll make sure to put a misdomeaner on your record"

So seriously WTF? does he have any sort of right to even be saying this stuff to me. he is by far the worst cop who has ever pulled me over

I dunno but If I were you I'd just remove the tint and get a hideaway license plate

[Rob.Vegan]

Ya seems to me all your tickets are tint and plate.Ya it looks ugly but its worth it to take the tint off.and its easy to mount the plate onto the fascia just put some mesh in there and ziptie it

...Glad to see you still have your coupe

[legend_217]

lol. That sucks man. Maybe your car with all mods on it will be so easy to recognize it. But I would take out the tint if I was you and put my license plate on the windshield.

[Sensors]

So by now this is just another weekly routine for me. Today i got ticket 6 and 7 for my coupe. One fix-it for no licence plate, and one regular one for window tint.

This fine sherrif of the orange county area has already pulled me over last spring break. I didnt remeber and he did. So he said i dint have a front plate then asked for me to roll up my windows. Then he started asking why i put my tint back on and i there was really no staight answer given before he interrupted and said, "do you even hear what you are saying to me, you just admitted to something illegal blah blah blah. Yeah i did because in the past excuses have got me no where.

Here is where sh** went wrong.....

So he writes the ticket and i plead to get out and he even recognized the for sale signs on my car and said "selling your problem to someone else," in the usual a**hole tone. So my window ticket isnt a fix it ticket and im getting a $213 fine with it. and i have to go to court to try to get it lowerd. Then he says "im placing an ordincance (or some other BS term) on your car so you can only drive it with tint if you are going to a shop to remove it. And if i pull you over ANYTIME past today i'll make sure to put a misdomeaner on your record"

So seriously WTF? does he have any sort of right to even be saying this stuff to me. he is by far the worst cop who has ever pulled me over

I've never heard of putting a misdemeanor for having window tints. Now you can be arrested for speeding or anything like that since its "illegal" but it will probably never happen because its just not worth it. This Police Officer is really giving you a hard time, I would just take off the tint, and throw your licence plate either in the windshield, or in the mesh like others have stated. I'm sorry to hear about all the things going on with your car and you

[Hussain]

put my license plate on the windshield.

thats illegal in California, you cant put it there.... most cops dont care and wont pull you over for it but an a** hole cop might.... in my area the cops dont care... but ya, i'd just zip tie the plate to the mesh (thats what i plan to do) and i made sure not to tint my front 3 windows so i dont have to deal with tint tickets....as far as the cop being able to do that, he might be able to but i'm no expert....

[BlackNWhite]

I don't know about the whole ordinance bulls***, but I know the whole fine instead of fixing the ticket is true.

Same thing happened to my gf. She was in a hurry and got stopped by CHP for her tint. With her thinking it was just another stupid fix-it ticket ACTUALLY told the CHP if he could hurry with her ticket cuz she had places to be.

He smiled, wrote the ticket for her quickly but hit her with the fine.

Anyways, if he puts some bulls*** ordinance on your car about the tint... what is to stop you from merely stating that you ARE on your way to the shop to remove the tint.

Of course, if it's like 2am and obviously all shops are closed... then you're f***ed.

[BlackMamba08]

...he is by far the worst cop who has ever pulled me over

LOL... how many times have you been pulled over?

you've already been pulled over for it before and you chose to do it again. that's the reason for not getting a fix-it ticket again. you're in the system. each city has it's own ordinances, so i'm not too familiar with SoCal and whether or not he can only allow you to go to a tint shop. sucks that it was the same officer that got you, but hey, you chose to make your car stand out.

Nice car though...

[Infantry1327]

thats bull. My cousin has had 5 window tint tickets in his civic and never gotton more than a fine. If I am not mistaken, a police officer does not have the right to restrict your driving privlages what so ever. A judge is the only one that could give you a misdomeaner. He can make it mandatory for you to appear in court and the judge could mess you up pretty well. Just go pay some shady eye doctor to write you a note saying your eyes are sensitive to light. That would give you some leaway with the judge. But since you never mentioned that to the cop before, they probably wont believe you now. I got 3 tickets the other day by an ahole CHP. 1 for tint (a fine, not a fix it) 1 for no front licence plate (fix et ticket) and 1 for not haveing my headlights on in the rain. It was barely drisling and 1 was a block from my house. I had my lights on automatic but it wasn't even dark enough for them to come on. It was like noon. So I feal ya, F*ck the CHP. I am going to go to court for mine thow. I drove by the police station the other day and took a picture of all the policemans cars. 75% have limo tint on there cars, and the bad thing is my eyes really are sensitive to light. hahahah Sorry fealt like ranting

[Northernstar]

easy~just go to your local traffic division and ask one of the staff

[ESP]

Wow...way to "serve and protect" there, piggies.

Kevin, you said that the cop asked you to roll up your windows, right? I take it that means you were driving with them down? To the best of my knowledge, having tint is a moving violation only. ie. if you're parked or have your windows rolled down while you're driving they can't do s**t to you about it. As for the plate thing, I agree with Mehdi...get yourself one of those nifty retractable plates. It'll cost you about $180 IIRC, but it'll save you so much hassle!

Seriously though...don't cops have, y'know like, criminals to catch? Here in Calgary our city officials have been whining for months about how we don't have enough cops patrolling the streets. I take a walk downtown and I can pretty much guarantee that I'll see at least one drug deal going down (usually in the same "notorious" area). Then I take a drive through suburbia and what do I see? Speed traps and our lovely d-bag officers pulling over middle aged women who are doing six kilometers over the speed limit...or ticketing respectable and courteous tuners (such as myself and my friends) for tint and "oversized exhaust".

Ugh. /biatching & moaning.

[Rmuth25]

If I were you I would go to the court and complain about it, but at the end of the day just accept defeat and take off the tint or put on the tint percentage that is legal in your state.

[RobPaulson]

I always thought DRIVING with your windows up and tints applied was illegal.

if your windows were down when the cop pulled u over, he does not have the right at tell you to roll them up. Its none of his business.

At least thats how i understood it, but i'm somewhat ignorant with car/mod laws etc so who knows

[JAFO]

If you feel you are being wrongly accused or even discriminated against by this officer, don't pay your fine and go to your court date. Explain your side to the judge and let him decide. You'd better have an airtight case though. If this officer has pulled you over numerous times for tint fix-it tickets and you STILL haven't taken care of it, don't expect any sympathy.

[dangeris]

Know your rights and the law before pursuing a court date.

But in the same time, try to get a copy of the citation he is citing you for. For instance, A PA trooper pulled me over for having tints and the Stillen Banner on top part of my windshield. I didn't get a ticket but got a warning instead. Probably because he was surprised not to see a teenager in the car. Anyway I quietly accepted the warning. Now what a lot of people don't know is in the state of PA, if you get a fix it warning, you have to have its signed by a local LEO or Mechanic and return the warning to the trooper barracks NLT the specified dated listed on the ticket, usually 7 days form the time of issuance. If you don't, that warning has now become a $500 fine. That's how these shady troopers roll in PA.

Anywho, the citation noted the title#that I was in violation of so I decided to look that up. I had my friend who is a local LEO bring down the motor vehicles book down (title 75) and looked it up. For the tints, I knew I was in violation. When I got it done I had the shop install 20% tint knowing full well the legal limit was 70% which is 30% light transmission. Easy fix, took it off and had the shop put in 35% which is 5% lighter than what was listed. But for the Stillen banner, the trooper told me that I couldn't have that because there is a part in the title that reads that I couldn't have anything opaque on the front windshield other than the PA inspection/emissions sticker. Ok,..at that point in time when he was giving me that citation I remember reading something about that but wasn't quite sure. so I just kept my mouth shut. Later that day, like I mentioned, my friend brought down the vehicle code book and we looked it up. That trooper was interpreting the law to his favor. Yes I know..A lot of you are probably surprised to hear that.

What the code actually read was no persons shall operate a motor vehicle with opaque stickers on the front windshield that will impair the driver's vision from seeing the road or approaching intersection, other than a PA inspection/emissions sticker. LOL... Funny how that trooper conveniently left out the part of " that will impair the driver's vision from seeing the road or approaching intersection" . Anyway, Since the Stillen banner was all the way on the top where It does not impair my vision, I left it on.

A couple of weeks later, the same trooper pulls me over for the same items and this time I challenged him and guess who won... I pointed out the part he failed to remember when quoting me the section as well as telling him that I'm glad that my hard earned tax dollars, that pays his salary, was going into good use by harassing me with minor vehicle issues rather than finding and stopping real criminals.

Haven't seen him in months

[LinkNuc]

Short answer, yes. You're breaking the law and your a repeat offender, period.

[dldjros69]

I'm glad that my hard earned tax dollars, that pays his salary, was going into good use by harassing me with minor vehicle issues rather than finding and stopping real criminals.

Haven't seen him in months

Haha thats what i said to the cops when i got my DUIs!!!

whoops

[dangeris]

Haha thats what i said to the cops when i got my DUIs!!!

whoops

Might as well as said Bad Cop No Donuts too

[mrodrig2]

To everyone saying, "Don't police have better things to do." Well... tickets are an important part of ensuring community safety and pay for a lot of necessary state and city level things that otherwise don't get funded. There are obviously some cases of harassment, but in the case of the OP it sounds like the ticket was warranted. The extent of the punishment, I have no clue if it is appropriate. Just have to accept that some tickets are deserved and fight the ones that are undeserved, not the ones where you feel like you can break your states vehicle code just because.

[kyle@stillen]

A couple of year's ago a law was passed in the state of California that your second window ticket violation ticket would result in a point on your record, it is no longer just a $10.00 fix it ticket.

As far as the restriction placed on your vehicle. I have a hard time believing that they can do that but I will check with my buddies Dad (cop in Buena Park for 25 years.)

It sounds like the cops in your area are just A-holes and lookin' for any reason to pull people over. Which is basically the problem with CA cops right now. Keep in mind that California is in a HUGE debt and cops are trying to get money for the state...I know for a fact that there are more cops on the roads these days and they are being more strict about policing the laws.

I know it sucks but just remove the window tint. That's what I ended up having to do on my Titan. I haven't gotten a ticket yet for the Tundra tint but I have been pulled over for it.

[maxentropy]

Just get a doctors note that says that direct sunlight isn't good for you.

Show that to the courts and tint your car as dark as you like.

[johnny_d]

my dad just told me he heard someone got a 300$ fine for not having the front license plate. I've been thinking about putting it where the mesh would go even though i dont have the mesh, using some brackets i guess. As far as the tint, I just called the place where i got my lasik done and asked them for a letter cuz it's so damn bright sometimes ........ they said they'll try to get it done. We'll see

[Kevin Doyle]

Yeah so i taked to a sargent today and he just told me to get it removed sooner rather than later. And he said if the same cop does pull me over worst he can do is write me another. So im taking it off soon and my car is going on autotrader tonight. So i have to go to court for that and my supposed "rolling" stop sign ticket on christmas eve.

Once i have it sold i have the g35 waiting for me. and my dads getting the 370

And for the record i've been pulled over 6 times, 7 tickets (with some repeates), searched twice (once at school the other at a gas station pay window), and am still here today

[marbee]

you can only get a violation at worst and pay a fine, the only way he can get you for a misdemeanor is if you committed a crime. Now if you have received other tickets in the pass and not have paid them off, if cali is anything like NY then you will have a suspended license which you can get arrested for.

[Infantry1327]

The note isn't legal either. If you have a doctors note you are authorized to have removable window tint (ie: one of those ugly pull down window shades) you haft to be able to take it off at night or in the rain. Thats what the cop who gave me the ticket said. It all comes down to just how bad of a mood the pig is in. Some cops may accept it, while others may laugh at you for thinking it would work.

[michaelthepsycho]

The note isn't legal either.

Yup. In CA, there's no such thing as a "note."

[DAAN.]

This man speaks the truth

Soon in Calgary we will have the green light speed cameras to worry about, on top of the tint / speed worries

Kevin, you said that the cop asked you to roll up your windows, right? I take it that means you were driving with them down? To the best of my knowledge, having tint is a moving violation only. ie. if you're parked or have your windows rolled down while you're driving they can't do s**t to you about it. As for the plate thing, I agree with Mehdi...get yourself one of those nifty retractable plates. It'll cost you about $180 IIRC, but it'll save you so much hassle!

Seriously though...don't cops have, y'know like, criminals to catch? Here in Calgary our city officials have been whining for months about how we don't have enough cops patrolling the streets. I take a walk downtown and I can pretty much guarantee that I'll see at least one drug deal going down (usually in the same "notorious" area). Then I take a drive through suburbia and what do I see? Speed traps and our lovely d-bag officers pulling over middle aged women who are doing six kilometers over the speed limit...or ticketing respectable and courteous tuners (such as myself and my friends) for tint and "oversized exhaust".

Ugh. /biatching & moaning.

[ESP]

Ugh...Daan, don't get me started on the green-light camera business.

- A 2008 University of South Florida report found: "Comprehensive studies conclude cameras actually increase crashes and injuries, providing a safety argument not to install them.... public policy should avoid conflicts of interest that enhance revenues for government and private interests at the risk of public safety."

- A 2007 Virginia Department of Transportation study found: "The cameras were associated with an increase in total crashes... The aggregate EB results suggested that this increase was 29%... The cameras were associated with an increase in the frequency of injury crashes... The aggregate EB results suggested an 18% increase, although the point estimates for individual jurisdictions were substantially higher (59%, 79%, or 89% increases) or lower (6% increase or a 5% decrease)."

- A 2006 Winnipeg, Canada city audit found: "The graph shows an increase of 58% in the number of traffic collisions from 2003 to 2004.... Contrary to long-term expectations, the chart shows an increase in claims at each level of damage with the largest percentage increase appearing at the highest dollar value."

- A 2005 Virginia DOT study found: "The cameras are correlated with an increase in total crashes of 8% to 17%."

- In 2005, The Washington Post found: "The analysis shows that the number of crashes at locations with cameras more than doubled, from 365 collisions in 1998 to 755 last year. Injury and fatal crashes climbed 81 percent, from 144 such wrecks to 262. Broadside crashes, also known as right-angle or T-bone collisions, rose 30 percent, from 81 to 106 during that time frame."

- A 2004 North Carolina A&T University study found: "Our findings are more pessimistic, finding no change in angle accidents and large increases in rear-end crashes and many other types of crashes relative to other intersections."

- A 2003 Ontario Ministry of Transportation study found: "Compared to the average number of reported collisions occurring in the before period, the average yearly number of reported collisions increased 15.1 per cent in the after period."

- A 1995 Australian Road Research Board study found: "The results of this study suggest that the installation of the RLC at these sites did not provide any reduction in accidents, rather there has been increases in rear end and adjacent approaches accidents on a before and after basis and also by comparison with the changes in accidents at intersection signals."

Just the mere fact that speed cameras and red light cameras exist should tell you something. They do almost to improve safety, and in fact might actually make our roads more dangerous, leaving the only useful purpose being revenue generation (much like pushing local police to do nothing but write speeding tickets all day long). Adjusting speed limits to appropriate levels (instead of keeping them low for revenue generation) and adjusting traffic light timing properly is the safest way to handle these sorts of concerns. Seriously...having all sides of the intersection facing a red light for a full two to three seconds would drastically reduce the number of accidents IMHO.

Instead of being reasonable, the city continues to milk the traffic camera cash-cow at the expense of the safety of its citizens. But then again, how often are cops truly reasonable?



...once again, my apologies to the OP for the highly unwarranted thread jack and my obtuse ranting & raving...

[DAAN.]

One way to steer these cameras from cash cows to safety devices would be to install a countdown timer and allow drivers to make a safe decision ahead of time.

We are also being harassed for tint up here Kevin, sorry from both of us Calgaryans.

[Rob.Vegan]

if I was you and put my license plate on the windshield.

The front license plate has to be securely mounted to the front bumper.

Window tint (on the front 3) is a moving violation, so you CAN have every one of your windows with a 5% tint just don't drive around like that. with the driver and pass. windows they can be tinted but have to be rolled down while in motion. If he gave you a ticket for window tint after making you roll them up there's no wrongdoing in your part.

a cop tried busting us in my friends Xb for tinted windows but they were down and he (driver)stated that it was a moving violation and we were on our way