Can You Buy a License To Speed In California?

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "Alex Mayyasi reports that in the parking lots of Silicon Valley's venture capital firms, expensive cars gleam in the California sun and a closer look reveals that the cars share a mysterious detail: they nearly all have a custom license plate frame that reads, 'Member. 11-99 Foundation.' Are the Bay Area's wealthy all part of some sort of illuminati group that identifies each other by license plate instead of secret handshakes? The answer is the state highway patrol — the men and women that most people interact with only when getting ticketed for speeding. A number of the frames read 'CHP 11-99 Foundation,' which is the full name of a charitable organization that supports California Highway Patrol officers and their families in times of crisis. Donors receive one license plate as part of a $2,500 'Classic' level donation, or two as part of a bronze, silver, or gold level donation of $5,000, $10,000, or $25,000. Rumor has it, according to Mayyasi, that the license plate frames come with a lucrative return on investment. As one member of a Mercedes-Benz owners community wrote online back in 2002: 'I have the ultimate speeding ticket solution. I paid $1800 for a lifetime membership into the 11-99 foundation. My only goal was to get the infamous 'get out of jail' free license plate frame.'

The 11-99 Foundation has sold license plate frames for most of its 32 year existence, and drivers have been aware of the potential benefits since at least the late 1990s. But attention to the issue in 2006-2008 led the foundation to stop giving out the frames. An article in the LA Times asked 'Can Drivers Buy CHP Leniency?' and began by describing a young man zipping around traffic — including a police cruiser — and telling the Times that he believed his 11-99 frames kept him from receiving a ticket. But the decision was almost irrelevant to another thriving market: the production and sale of fake 11-99 license plate frames. But wait — the CHP 11-99 Foundation also gives out membership cards to big donors. 'Unless you have the I.D. in hand when (not if) I stop you,' says one cop, 'no love will be shown.'"

Comments

selective enforcement at it's finest.

[rogoshen1]

Heh, in AZ you can buy a specialized, state issued 'honoring fallen officers' license plate-- with similar effects.

Re:selective enforcement at it's finest.

[mythosaz]

To people outside of Arizona, we've got 35 (!) choices for our plate outside of the default, each costing $25 extra, and $25 extra-extra if you want it personalized.

A few of them have restrictions (purple heart, alternative fuel, veteran), but the rest are a pure style choice. Anyone with $50,000 and a NPO can get a plate into production - since $17 of the $25 goes to your charity.

So, yes, there's no doubt that Families of Fallen Police Officers plates, as well as Veteran, and Purple Heart have a higher bar set for the threshold of getting pulled over. In addition to those plates, you can by-hand order Congressional Medal of Honor, Former POW and Pearl Harbor Survivor. All of which I'm sure are mostly free from traffic tickets -- just not something you can purchase on a whim. Survived Pearl Harbor? Fuck it, Mr. Have a nice day.

An aside... ....there was a guy from a native tribe here who was a fairly famous war veteran. [A quick search of CMH winners doesn't show him, but I'm sure it'll pop into my head some day.] He lived NW of Phoenix, and reportedly the van that took him to his Elks Lodge or VFW hall used to drive like a bat out of hell across 93 through Joshua Tree -- and the cops smiled and waved.

Re:selective enforcement at it's finest.

[Jeremi]

All of which I'm sure are mostly free from traffic tickets -- just not something you can purchase on a whim. Survived Pearl Harbor? Fuck it, Mr. Have a nice day.

I know gut instinct is what the Slashdot comments section runs on, but what actual, non-anecdotal evidence to we have that police officers give preferential treatment to people with these license-plate holders?

Has any of this actually been studied in a scientific way, and if so, what were the results?

Re:selective enforcement at it's finest.

[general_re]

To people outside of Arizona, we've got 35 (!) choices for our plate outside of the default, each costing $25 extra, and $25 extra-extra if you want it personalized.

Amateurs. Here in Virginia we have over 200 choices, not including the ability to have your own custom business logo on the plate if you have a large enough fleet. You can't tell me some of those don't get you a little special consideration when you get pulled over.

Re:selective enforcement at it's finest.

[pspahn]

A truck I bought after high school had several IAFF (firefighter organization) stickers in the window. I thought they looked pretty cool so they didn't bother me. The previous owner, however, told that I should keep them since cops will be more lenient if I am pulled over. His dad was a higher up in the fire department in that city and gave them to his son for this specific reason.

I was pulled over probably 3 or 4 times in that truck. Never got a ticket, which includes the time I charged over Donner Summit during a blizzard without snow chains and a bunch of drunken friends in the back (it was a 2WD truck).

Anecdotal? Sure. Did the stickers still do what I was told they would do? Absolutely.

Re:selective enforcement at it's finest.

[Fnord666]

Pearl Harbor Survivor is not a licence(sic) plate HOLDER.

It is a state-issued alternative license plate.

Dude, chill out. He didn't mean a physical license plate retention device, he meant a person who has been issued that license plate. Kinda like when someone holds an office, they don't literally have a bunch of office furniture in their arms.

Re:selective enforcement at it's finest.

[I'm New Around Here]

I was pulled over probably 3 or 4 times in that truck. Never got a ticket, which includes the time I charged over Donner Summit during a blizzard without snow chains and a bunch of drunken friends in the back (it was a 2WD truck).

How many of them survived the journey? and how many of the others did they eat? ;^)

Re:selective enforcement at it's finest.

[Dahamma]

Yeah, but in AZ probably 1/3 of the plates are "disabled parking" and the drivers generally make up for the speeding by driving at half the speed limit.

Re:selective enforcement at it's finest.

[Cederic]

If you are a 90 year old Pearl Harbor veteran, you are a goddamn hero, no one denies that

I deny that. Unless you can offer some proof.

Hiding in a bomb shelter is not heroic. Sensible, but not heroic.
Manning your post in a ship under fire is not heroic. You get trained to do it, failing to stay at your post would be the thing worthy of a title, not merely 'doing your job'.

But maybe he pulled the charred corpse of his colleague from the AA gun chair, swung it round, shot down four Japanese fighter bombers, took three rounds in the chest but then stayed there shooting at torpedo bombers. That's heroic.

I guess we'll never know. But don't go pretending I have to accept that he's a hero, just because he managed not to die.

Re:selective enforcement at it's finest.

[DarkOx]

Good point, 2500 USD is pretty cheap for bribe...

Some of the 'pricing' that goes into a bribe are

A) chances the person taking the bribe will be caught accepting the bribe.
B) chances the person taking the bribe will be caught doing whatever they were bribed to do
C) risk level after considering any negative consequences for the bribed associated with B
D) actual difficulty executing B
E) how likely the briber can expect his payoff to secure the desired outcome

Lets look at this situation:

A)
Group of officers starts a "Fraternal Order of Police" or something similar its ostensibly a charity for injured officers but also throws some fancy thank you and holiday parties for the force (the payoff). They pass out window stickers to contributors at certain levels. They know this helps because people like show off how generous they are (legit reason many charities do this (the cover)), they also know some people will cynically believe it will buy them special treatment and this badge is how they prove their entitlement. The officers with a nod and a wink agree to actually provide this special treatment because they think it will increase the donations leading the fancier and more frequent parties.

B)
Will they get caught? Not very likely unless someone does anything very stupid. They time when they collect the funds vs the time when they commit the act are widely separated. They act itself is in the negative. Not pulling someone over in the first place because you saw an FOB sticker in the window creates no audit-able event. Even fairly honest members of the public are unlikely to call the mayors office and complain that they just blew an officers doors off and he sat and did nothing. If there are lots of people around and the behavior is egregious they can pull someone over and warn them, none of the whiteness are likely to be able to tell if a warning or a ticket was issued.

C) The risk is low because the odds getting caught are low and even if someone suspects their shot at proving anything is almost nil. It will be very hard to make any conspiracy charges stick, the worst the will likely happen is officers might be dismissed for under performance. Proving negatives are not easy; especially when there is already a discretionary element to writing tickets or not in the first place.

D) Could not be any easier to execute, in fact its probably easier than doing their job correctly.

E) Not every officer, likely not even most, will be in on the conspiracy, the payer cannont know for sure he won't get pulled over by an honest cop.

So considering the situation the 'price' of this bribe should be low.

Re:selective enforcement at it's finest.

[joelgrimes]

Manning your post in a ship under fire is not heroic. You get trained to do it, failing to stay at your post would be the thing worthy of a title, not merely 'doing your job'.

What are you, Sergeant Slaughter? Being trained to do a job doesn't take away your fear. When doing your job involves facing enemy fire in defense of your country then simply not running away is a heroic act.

I got this beat

[SternisheFan]

I have the very special CHP 11/99 "Gold" plate, gets me off for up to 5 vehicular homicides.

Re: I got this beat

[Anonymous Coward]

In Ottawa we have something called "red plates", which pretty much provides this, but for a different reason. It's well-known there that if you see a red plate, to stay _very_ far away, especially as a pedestrian.

Re: I got this beat

[en.ABCD]

Near Washington, DC, we have something similar -- except that ours are light blue with a red header that says "DIPLOMAT", like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... . You still have to stay far away, though.

Go figure

[spankey51]

Well... If you can do it with congressmen and senators, then of course you can do it with lower-level stateworkers.

So you CAN buy a license to speed

[Anonymous Coward]

'Unless you have the I.D. in hand when (not if) I stop you,' says one cop, 'no love will be shown.'"

So what he is saying is you DO get love (aka get out of jail free) if you show the card.

Re:So you CAN buy a license to speed

[Sentrion]

Yes. As long as you don't offer cash or gifts directly to the officer he has the discretion to let you go with a warning. You can still offer bribes; they're just illegal and could get you into more trouble if the officer follows a code of ethics or too many run-ins with internal affairs. Supporting these charities seems to have almost just as good of an effect without the liability.

Re:So you CAN buy a license to speed

[OneAhead]

Oh I'm sure there are people out there for whom the time wasted on the preparation and payment of the tickets is worth that much money. It's ballpark 1/100 of the price of a basic yacht and the more you speed, the more you get out of it. Also this is just one officer they interviewed; there might be others who won't stop you at all, which means even more time saved.

Re:So you CAN buy a license to speed

[pla]

I don't know about California, but in Oklahoma a speeding ticket is going to cost you at least $200. If you avoid two tickets a year, it would pay for itself in 12.5 years.

No one really cares about the tickets themselves. For someone making $200k a year, they would gladly pay $200 every week for the right to zip through crawling traffic.

The real problem comes from getting "points" and the eventual loss of your license. And once that happens, you have drive like a frickin' choirboy or they start giving out real punishments, like spending weekends in a cage (c'mon, let's not pretend people actually stop driving when they lose their license - In 99% of the US, "not driving" amounts to a sentence of death-by-life-on-welfare).

Re:So you CAN buy a license to speed

[zugmeister]

As a teenager driving a rusted, orange longbed truck with no muffler, I managed to accrue enough points to get my license suspended for six months. Two days before that was up I got pulled over for not using my turn signal, and that time I got a year (and more fines, of course). At no point did anyone suggest there would be any leeway for things like getting to my job or college, and there was in fact not. Maybe I chose the wrong state to grow up in?

Re:So you CAN buy a license to speed

[belmolis]

People who give to a charity for good reasons do not need special identification on their vehicles to let the police know that they deserve special treatment.

Re:So you CAN buy a license to speed

[tgv]

So, it *is* corruption.

Re:So you CAN buy a license to speed

[drinkypoo]

Any legal system which does not require police to make an arrest when they witness a crime being committed is inherently corrupt. It leads to more and more bad laws being passed and used for selective enforcement of the type which we are discussing now.

Re:So you CAN buy a license to speed

[Idarubicin]

If indeed they were speeding to a ridiculous degree, and it was a safety issue, and it caused them to be at fault in an accident --- some silly license plate frame is not going to get them out of it, or protect them from the multi-million$ personal injury lawsuit from the impacted driver.

Which, I'm sure, is a great comfort for that now-crippled or -deceased driver. The guy with the license plate frame is probably very sorry after the fact, and would probably do things differently in retrospect. Meanwhile, the guy who lost his legs doesn't want a million dollars; he wants his legs.

In occupational health and safety, it is generally and widely understood that serious or fatal accidents seldom occur out of the blue. A fatality will nearly always be surrounded in time and space by a cloud of (usually unrecorded or unreported) near misses and minor incidents. Relatedly, there is the concept of "normalization of deviance". Essentially, the idea that if you let your standards slip a bit and nothing bad happens, the tendency is to allow that lower level of vigilance to become the new acceptable standard. Lather, rinse, repeat until a major failure occurs. (The Challenger disaster is an oft-cited example.)

Coming back to the licence plate frames, I don't care whether or not someone gets a fine for speeding. I do care that we've created a pool of privileged drivers who are no longer receiving any feedback when they engage in higher-risk driving behaviors. "Go ahead and drive as fast as you want; we'll trust your judgement on that until after your first high-speed collision..." probably isn't a real solid basis for road safety.

PBA Cards

[mythosaz]

On most of the east coast, you'd better make sure to hand your PBA card over to the officer when he asks for your registration.

It's the same as handing $20 to the check-in clerk in Vegas with your ID.

Re:PBA Cards

[Albanach]

You can always take the 'just stick to the speed limit' approach. It's also pretty effective for avoiding tickets.

Re:PBA Cards

[Anonymous Coward]

On most of the east coast, you'd better make sure to hand your PBA card over to the officer when he asks for your registration.

It's the same as handing $20 to the check-in clerk in Vegas with your ID.

The "$20 Trick" is an urban legend.

Re:PBA Cards

[PrimaryConsult]

If you are equally relaxed whether the vehicle next to you is a Mini Cooper or an 18 wheeler, your survival instinct must be terrible...

Re:PBA Cards

[PrimaryConsult]

Have you ever actually observed a truck on the highway? Just drive behind one for about 10 minutes. If you played a drinking game over how many times it fouls the other lane, you'd be DUI before the time is up.
1. Trucks are wider so they have less margin on each side of the lane.
2. When taking a curve, if they are on the outside lane, they are guaranteed to foul the inside lane, simply because a straight line is the shortest path between two points.
3. If the trailer is empty, the wind will cause it to sway erratically.

Also count how many truck tire blowouts you see. That has to cause at least a small loss of control, woe is he that is next to the truck when that happens.

Plus the kinetic energy. Just two days ago: somehow I think the bus would have fared better if it was a mini cooper that crossed the divider... bus-and-fedex-truck-collide-on-i5-bus-in-flames.

Basically, anyone driving adjacent to a truck for more than the 10 seconds it takes to pass one is applying for a darwin award.

It's not a license to speed

[EmagGeek]

It's the cops extorting money. It's not just speeding. This creates the appearance that, if you do not buy the membership, you'll be stopped and shown absolutely no mercy, and may even have charges trumped up against you - or otherwise be punished.

This is tantamount to soliciting bribes.

Re:It's not a license to speed

[mythosaz]

Meh.

Generally speaking, unless it's a motorcycle cop specifically tasked to speed/traffic, when a cop pulls you over, he's got a bunch of latitude. He adds a bunch of factors up in his head and decides if you're getting a ticket.

What's next? You gonna complain that hot girls should get more tickets?

Human nature.

Re:It's not a license to speed

[Tailhook]

Oh look at the outrage.

Cops, fire fighters, city managers and the rest routinely gouge huge chunks of money out of city and state governments in the US. Most of the time they get a pass. After all, why shouldn't some LA assistant chief pull $260k a year bilking double and triple time hours recorded while getting dressed for work? That's nothing compared to some evil capitalist pig-dog bankster. Right?

That's the rationale, anyhow. So now this culture of corruption has gone and created a way to launder some of their bribes through a charity. And we're supposed to go all pitchfork and lick-spittle about it?

Selective outrage. That's all it is.

Re:It's not a license to speed

[jafac]

a.k.a. : a "protection racket"

Re:It's not a license to speed

[pitchpipe]

This is tantamount to soliciting bribes.

But it's not. Remember: money = free speech.

Rich people are allowed to convince the police officer to not give them a speeding ticket using their form of free speech (money), just as you're allowed to convince the police officer to not give you a speeding ticket using your form of free speech (words from your mouth).

Guess which one will probably result in a beating.

Re:It's not a license to speed

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

> I'm not sure what the exact charges are.

Racketeering.

We have those in South Carolina too

[Anonymous Coward]

But here's the thing. If I pull you over and you have one of our public servant honor tags, you're still getting a ticket for whatever I pulled you over for. In fact, I am less likely to let you go, because of the appearance of impropriety created by these tags. I get a lot more "by the book" when someone starts flashing special tags and membership cards at me.

Re:We have those in South Carolina too

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the same is true. Our department has an honor code that says we hold ourselves to the same standards we hold the driving public. While we can and do exercise discretion, we don't exercise more for ourselves than we do for others.

Generally speaking, if someone commits a minor traffic infraction, I'll pull them over and if they own up to it and don't give me a bunch of excuses, I will write them up with a warning. Honestly, the vast majority of traffic stops I do here are for equipment violations - lights mostly - and usually people really just don't know they have a taillight or brake light out and are thankful that I told them about it, and 90% of those get resolved by mail before the warning becomes a citation.

Speaking of which, to the other poster, yes, there is paperwork for every traffic stop, for the very reason you mention. We still document that the stop was for an infraction.

Re:We have those in South Carolina too

[Anonymous Coward]

But here's the thing. If I pull you over and you have one of our public servant honor tags, you're still getting a ticket for whatever I pulled you over for. In fact, I am less likely to let you go, because of the appearance of impropriety created by these tags. I get a lot more "by the book" when someone starts flashing special tags and membership cards at me.

You must be the one honest cop I've heard so much about. Nice to hear from you.

Re:We have those in South Carolina too

[alexo]

Will you ticket a fellow police officer if you observe them break the law? (Say, speeding without having their flashing lights and/or siren on)
And if so, will the ticket stick?

Re:We have those in South Carolina too

[alexo]

There are at least two reasons for his opinions.
1. Corrupt or power-tripping cops.
2. The rest of the cops that protect them.

I teach my kids to always be polite to policemen, but try to avoid any contact with them if possible.
Mostly because they are the most dangerous gang around.

And please forgive me for being skeptical about your claims.

Re:We have those in South Carolina too

[Kohath]

How about getting an honest job where you don't spend your days ambushing travelers and taking their money?

Re:We have those in South Carolina too

[dk20]

So, how many tickets have been issued to cops for illegal turns (no signals, running the red, etc)?
I often see the police doing the same thing they ticket others for doing.

Re:We have those in South Carolina too

[jensend]

How about not recklessly endangering others' lives and not showing contempt for democracy and the rule of law?

If you want to spend a few trillion dollars of your own money to build your own private road network where you can drive at whatever speed you darn well please, go right ahead. But if you want to use the road infrastructure paid for by your fellow citizens, you need to live with the rules your fellow citizens have put in place.

Protecting the rest of us from numbskulls like you is not just honest work, it's a great benefit to society. You could do the rest of us a benefit too by not touching a steering wheel or gas pedal ever again.

Re:We have those in South Carolina too

[smash]

Take a trip to Germany, and hire a car. Drive to a few countries.

Stopping a billionaire's car

[WillAffleckUW]

The problem is simple.

Unlike in Sweden or Norway, where your ticket depends on your income, the fine is a small amount to a billionaire.

And that billionaire will make the arresting cop's life miserable and throw lawyers at the "case" like confetti.

It takes a brave police officer to stand up to pressure like that, high risk, low reward, no chance of promotion or contract work ever after you're blacklisted for off-duty security work on all the top tech campus and party locations.

Re:Stopping a billionaire's car

[rhodium_mir]

The tires on the (street legal) Bugatti Veyron cost $38k for a set.

Re:Stopping a billionaire's car

[daverk]

Bugatti Veyron Super Sport has $42K Tires.

Re:Stopping a billionaire's car

[Anonymous Coward]

The wheels themselves are also about $12k a pop, and they're only warranted for four tire mountings, to retain the trueness required to operate at top speed. Supposing you were able to find enough room to get it up to top speed and keep it there, the tires will only last about 15 minutes. But you'll run out of gas in 12.

Re:Stopping a billionaire's car

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Finland that is indeed known for that and as a Finn, I don't consider it crazy at all - especially if you know how it works. If you're caught speeding, the police have some discretion in how many "daily fines" (that's the term for it) to issue you (IIRC the upper limit is 30) and such a daily fine is all your income the previous year (regardless of whether it was from work, investments, whatever) divided by 365. I consider that very fair since the wealthier people are, the more sources their wealth comes from and it's simple enough not to result in extreme bureaucracy (even though some of us joke after some successful investments that we'd better watch our speed the following year). I also consider it extremely fair if you think about what sort of punishment a fine is - it's in a sense time taken away from you (just like prison for more severe offenses but that disrupts your life in other ways too). Time you spend working and would normally be compensated for is instead "not paid for" and hence "taken" from you. Furthermore, what many people don't know is that you can choose to instead of paying that fine go to part-time minimum security prison for that number of days divided by two. Part-time means that you are allowed to go to work normally but must spend your time outside working hours there. A teacher of mine said that he had chosen to do that just for the experience (it cannot really be much worse than a university dormitory). If you're really cunning, I guess you could 1. rent out your place whilst you're doing that and 2. request as much overtime as possible.

Re:Stopping a billionaire's car

[Lehk228]

the only good way to impliment that would be offering a BAC rating on your license, you go in for a series of judgement and reaction time tests while getting progressively drunker, the results of the test determine what your personal DUI limit is and you get a special endorsement on your license

Automation

[MichaelSmith]

This is what speed cameras are for.

Re:Automation

[MichaelSmith]

Do you not think that the database would have those particular license plates listed so that no tickets would be issued?

Depends on where you are I suppose. In my state I have worked with people who set these things up, and in an official capacity with our state road authority. I know these exceptions don't exist.

Re:Automation

[duke_cheetah2003]

The rest of us get the tickets.

The rest of us breaking the law get tickets.

Fixed that for ya.

C'mon!

[briancox2]

Look the other way here, please. California is a key source for organ donations.

As the Chinese like to say, "Don't break your brother's rice bowl."

Re:The law is for the little people

[Ralph Wiggam]

I'm sure that seemed like a stinging political commentary in your head.

Re:The law is for the little people

[Sentrion]

As a middle-class American I don't see either the Democrats or the Republicans doing anything for average American families. Or should I only care about the welfare of the "little people" until I become one myself?

In Illinois...

[mishehu]

there is the Fraternal Brotherhood of Police, which would give out stickers to place in your back window. Rumor was that it would cause police throughout the state to be more... forgiving... in the cases of traffic violations.

Re:In Illinois...

[BitZtream]

I've not gotten a ticket since I put mine on, after watching how my dad suddenly stopped getting tickets when he bought one of the stickers ... sorry, donated to the order ... mind you, my dad deserved the tickets.

Patternicity

[Sarten-X]

Around here, it's supposedly the FOP badges and/or stickers that help. Or it's the parking lot stickers for the local hospitals. Or it's the toll road transponders. Or it's being the next-to-last person in a cluster. Or it's being in the left lane. Or it's matching speed with the other speeders around you.

It's just like gambling. Everyone has their system that they think works, and nobody's ever done research to actually check if the statistics hold. Somebody sees a pattern and they think it's just so good that it must be right.

Re:Masons, too.

[rmdingler]

I see you're a traveling man, said the patrolman who pulled my friend and I over in his father's "Mason-marked" truck in Mississippi, You boys go ahead on.

AZ License plates

[knarfling]

There is a reason for all the different colors of license plates. You used to be able to say that you could tell the changing seasons by the changing colors ... of the license plates. There are so many out-of-state visitors during the winter that it used to be easy to tell the snowbirds from the residents.
Probably someone decided that the snowbirds were either getting picked on or getting preferential treatment, so lots of colors of AZ plates were made. As a bonus, more money comes in!!

Did you know that AZ has very short winters? Last year it was on a Tuesday.

Re:AZ License plates

[mythosaz]

Heh.

It's not much of a secret what time of the year the Canadian and Minnesotan license plates show up. They can invariably be found in the left lane on I-10 going roughly the speed limit -- or as we like to call it here, "the minimum speed for the slow lane."

Re:AZ License plates

[knarfling]

The goal in AZ is to match your speed with the number of the freeway. On the I-10 and the I-17 it slows things down to a crawl. The 51 and the 60 are a bit more challenging, especially in rush-hour. But with the 101, the 202 and the 303, you better have those "honoring fallen officers" plates attached.

Re:AZ License plates

[richtopia]

With Intel fabs in Oregon (slowest state by far) and Arizona (one of the faster states), you feel the difference when traveling for work.

Frames are for losers

[wiredlogic]

Saint Jobs just drove around without a license plate.

Re:Frames are for losers

[mschuyler]

But it was legal because his cars were never more than 6 months old.

Re:Frames are for losers

[Anubis IV]

It's true. There was some obscure set of laws that, when put together, allowed him to get away with it because he was constantly procuring a new lease every few months for a new car.

Talk about taking minimalistic approaches a bit too far.

confirmation of the conspiracy

[frovingslosh]

'Unless you have the I.D. in hand when (not if) I stop you,' says one cop, 'no love will be shown.'

It is a shame that they didn't name that cop. This is pretty much confirmation that everything accused is going on. Goes on in other states too, often with metal "Sheriff's Association Donor" badges that are attached to cars. What a shock that there is little respect for law enforcement any more.

Re:Don't forget your yellow ribbon sticker

[Sentrion]

Since there's no cash contribution backing it up it don't expect it to get you very far. Remember, always ask "what's in this individual's best interests"? Then make your decision from there.

It pays to invest money and time volunteering for the re-election campaigns of officials who will have a direct impact on your business and private affairs.

Expecting a divorce with a major custody fight? Prepare now by volunteering for CASA. Network with judges and lawyers while creating the impression of what kind of outstanding and caring individual you are.

Expecting major surgery in the coming year? Start ratcheting up on donations to your local non-profit hospital where the surgery will take place. Not just so physicians will work harder to provide quality care, but you'll be less likely to have any BS from the billing department. Out of network services suddenly billed at in-network rates with the swish of a pen.

When regulators come around your business, always mention that you're hiring and ask if they know anyone with such-and-such skills or experience. If they refer you a close friend or relative, hire that person on the spot.

And the number one rule of business: always take decision-makers out to lunch and pay for their meal.

Forget licking their boots

[russotto]

Get a "Bad Cop/No Donut" bumper sticker, a LOT of cameras, drive the speed limit, and enjoy the eventual civil rights lawsuit.

Re:Forget licking their boots

[faedle]

.. or the beating and civil wiretapping lawsuit for the cameras.

So what the pig is telling me...

[guevera]

....is that I need to start forging the ID cards, too. Cool. I'm on it.

Re:Nothing new here

[tompaulco]

The folks that are delusional are those that believe that the United States is less corrupt than any other society.

I have visited several other societies and I can tell you that the United States is absolutely less corrupt than any other society that I have visited. Of course, I have only witnessed a few: Several Central American Countries, France, South Korea, India, China.

Failed in Tranna

[davecb]

Toronto police union tried this, but got shut down within weeks.

Re:Or you can... you know... just not speed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Been driving for nearly 30 years now and haven't yet encountered a situation that I sincerely felt warranted driving in excess of the limit.

Get the #%@& out of the fast lane!

Confession of corruption?

[jcr]

'Unless you have the I.D. in hand when (not if) I stop you,' says one cop, 'no love will be shown.'"

Seems to me that this cop has just admitted that he does in fact practice selective enforcement.

-jcr

Re:European driver license allows infinit speed

[KozmoStevnNaut]

The unrestricted parts of the autobahn have a advisory speed limit of 130km/h. If you are involved in an accident while travelling faster than that, it greatly increases your risk of being found at fault, depending on how fast your were going.

Going 200+km/h (125mph) basically guarantees that you will be found 100% at fault.

Re:Is this a "Free Speech" issue?

[novium]

This isn't about the plates- which are regulated by the state as you describe, although because it is regulated at the state level, plates look different, state to state- but by the plate *frames*, which I don't think I've seen in the UK. E.g. http://goo.gl/h6vxc2 it's the silver bit around his license plate. Some of them have logos or sayings or whatever around them.

impartial accident assessment

[Barbarian]

I'm not too concerned about getting away with minor speeding. I'm more concerned about impartiality in accident reports, and excusing criminally negligent behavior. Is this happening? If so the solution, unfortunately, is 100% recording of traffic from the police vehicle point of view, and removal of all officer discretion.

Re:Questions and answers

[gzuckier]

Are the Bay Area's wealthy all part of some sort of illuminati group that identifies each other by license plate instead of secret handshakes? The answer is the state highway patrol

How can "the state highway patrol" be the answer to a question that starts with "Are..."?

Read my upcoming book, Poor Sentence Structure as an Index of Asperger's