http://www.al.com/news/press-register/index.ssf?/base/news/1219050956270500.xml&coll=3

(Also a tip to you criminals fond of tattooing yourselves…you’re just making it too easy…)

I have a couple good ones. The ones involving me (I was a passenger in both cases) are somewhat typical…friend in the back blocks cop car on road while driver pulls into a neighborhood and hides. Or, doing doughnuts in front of a cop car while cousin blocks the cops’ getaway.

Here’s a few good ones I’ve heard from others:

A friend of a friend gets pulled over. The officer comes leans in and says the usual, “Do you know how fast you were going?” The driver immediately replied with the wave of his hand, “These are not the droids you are looking for.” The officer, without cracking the slightest hint of a smile, replied, stood up and walked back to his car. This was back in the 70s when Star Wars had first come out.

In another incident, somewhere in the south, a different friend was pulled over doing about a buck twenty. The officer stomps up, leans over, and yells “Show me your pilot license right now, and I’ll let you go.” The driver was a pilot for the air force base and produced it. No ticket was issued.

RF, here’s something for MR car owners: Two guys in an MR2 from a street race and get away long enough to pull into a grocery store parking lot, jump out and loiter. A cop car approaches, a spotlight thrown on them as they’re approached. The driver says “I’ve been here for half an hour. Feel the hood, the engine’s been off,” he says, putting his hand on the bonnet of his MR2. No ticket.

ScottGSO – words of wisdom there. Couple of reasons cops don’t like runners. 1)lots more paperwork and maybe a court appearance as your lawyer tries to get you out of serious charges 2) if you do crash, even if its only your own self you’ve done in, the images of your brains sprinkled around whats left of the interior of the car are hard to forget. And 140 on a bike – not even the satisfaction of knowing that the organs will go to someone who will be more careful with them than you were.

In the mid 90’s, he was riding with a bunch of guys (about 10) that worked at an airforce (now closed) base in UP Michigan. They were cruising back towards the base maybe 20mph over the speed limit on 750-1000cc sport bikes. Apparently the leader went from 80mph to 125mph+ in very short period. They figured he was just having a little fun so everyone followed.

After they got to the base, the leader jumped off his bike after parking next to a whole slew of other sportbikes and ran inside and told everyone to do the same.

About 10 minutes after th elast bike got there, 2 cruisers showed up with flashing lights….to try to figure out which of the 10 bikes of 60+ bikes were speeding.

Nobody did get a ticket, as the cop was too far away to see license plates and everyone had gear on.

He told me whenever they went riding after that, the cops always seemed to be around watching any motorcycles going into/out of the base. He told the leader if he ever pulled that crap again he wouldn’t ride with them.

Ironically, he eventually became a copy in Indiana :)

As an attorney, I see those chases that end up the wrong way; you can go from 65 in a 35 mph ticket to 2nd degree murder in a blink of an eye if you run through that stopsign when another car is there, or more commonly, 1st degree suicide when you hit that tree.

Bottom line, pull over . ..

There is one small error in the story. Mile marker 55 is 11 miles west of the Florida state line, not east as stated in the story

That said, the only time I got stopped in a 911 C4, the first thing the cop asked was if I’d thought about outrunning him. Didn’t have the wit to make the comment about not being able to outrun Moto. Because I’d shut it down and pulled over when I saw him, and because I was only about 10mph faster than the SUV-driving soccer moms zipping by perilously close to him, I was admonished and sent on my way.

There was that one night around the summer of 1990, however, where that all went right out the window. The ride: 1988 Honda Prelude Si – my first taste of 16V revving. The scene: A party.

I decided to give a long-not-seen friend a taste of my new (to him) car. We made a right on to Farm Hill Road and I stabbed it, cracking off red line shifts first to second, second to third. Around this time, the flashing red lights in the distance drew my attention to the rear view mirror.

The split second delusion came into my head: I was faster than radio waves. I kept the hammer down as we came up the rise and rounded the bend in the road that obscured me from Johnnie Law’s sight. Quick right turn on to Jefferson, next immediate right turn, then around a bend and parked.

As my friend and I walked a short distance back to the party, we saw a two more of Deadwood’s finest heading up Farm Hill, light blazing, to join the pursuit. For this night, though, a pursuit would be all they would get.

Of course, I have never tried a stunt like that again.

The wife and I were driving home to Maine via the Mass Turnpike. I think I was going about 75, and of course it was a 65 zone. There was a black Crown Vic sitting in the median pointed toward the eastbound lanes that I didn’t see until it was too late because of all the hills in that area. After I passed by, the car pulled out on to the road. He hadn’t turned his lights on, but I was pretty sure he was observing me, since he was back a little bit in the same lane as me. Since I don’t like getting tickets, I pulled off at the nearest service center, which just happened to be coming up. I didn’t plan on turning in there, but since the cop was not visible in my mirrors when the service center ramp came up, I pulled off and drove in and parked. The service center was elevated from the highway, so we watched the cop fly by on the turnpike. We weren’t 100% sure he was after me, but it sure seemed like it. We waited a while before getting back on the turnpike, and didn’t have any further problems.

So yes, it is possible to outrun a cop in a Jetta TDI – with the help of a service center.

Once was heading south again. Detector announced that somebody had tagged me and it was a northbound trooper. He saw me and I saw him and we both floored it. For me that meant an increase of 5 mph and I immediately exited the highway and stopped at a gas station. Moments later VA’s finest blew past running I guess triple digits. A big risk of life and limb to tag a guy running ~75 mph in a 65 mph zone. I waited 20 mins, drank a soda and headed south again at the legal limit for the next 75 miles.

As for the guys in the Dodge – did they get nabbed? I hope so. Because of the shear stupidity of their driving the troopers ought to fine them several thousand dollars, give ‘em a couple weeks in the pokey, and force them to watch while their steed is squashed flat by whatever means the troopers have at their disposal. Make sure that their insurance doesn’t pay off for the loss.

Hey jerks – those people out there are my friends and family. Keep your behavior off the regular streets!

That said I had my “stupid phase” in Italy driving like a lunatic. Not the part where we regularly ran triple digits on the autostrada – because out there it is accepted and expected. To do it safely we ALWAYS stayed in the left lane and NEVER passed on the right side and NEVER on the shoulder. And we got passed by 140 mph sedans too.

We did some Ronin style city driving too but while it makes for a good movie, the reality is the chance of a pedestrian/scooter/2CV death is very, very, very high. We did it b/c we were military police and had to.

Similar experience for me. I rounded a curve and got nailed by a radar gun. The police officer hit his lights and started forward. Fortunately, no one slowed to let him in. I took one look at him stuck at the side of the road and floored it for about 10 seconds. I got a good head start and then dove into a residential neighbourhood. Slowing right down (I wasn’t a complete idiot) I wound my way down some back streets and squeezed between a parked car and a hedge. I could hear the cruiser charging up and down the adjacent streets. After half an hour he gave up. I waited another half hour and snuck home. Like Campisi said, if you get handed a lucky break.

However, the guy in this video is in idiot. Stunts like this lead to news stories that start with ‘401 westbound was closed this morning due to a high speed crash, with two people dead and another 4 taken to hospital…’

I was heading towards work on a Sunday morning. I was speeding (like I always did back then) when a cop parked on the median saw me. Luckily for me, a massive group of cars getting out of church were behind me, so the cop had to stop and wait for the cars to go by. I floored it towards work, parked behind a hedge in a small lot behind the mini-mall next to work, and nonchalantly walked in.

I didn’t mean to run, but when luck hands you a free pass, you take it.

The logic is simple. Speed traps aren’t set up for safety, they’re their purely for revenue collection. These guys running away from the cops are just getting away from an arbitrary fine. If highway patrols were more concerned with stopping actual reckless drivers then I’d think differently, but they don’t so I don’t. Of course, these guys are endangering everyone else by doing so… but that only makes them just as bad as the guys chasing em; that is to say, not that bad at all (again, both the cops and the guys running from them).

Personally though I’d never run from the police. The ticket just isn’t that bad. Still… I can only imagine it’s a thrill.

In 1980, on a trip home (back to Detroit)from spring break in Florida, I tried to let a cop outrun me….

Driving through Tifton county in my Chevy Van….solo, after the guy i went down there with hooked up with a honey from NC State and wanted to stay down there a few days extra, but that’s another story….

Caught in a speed trap on I-75 North, I was doing about 75 or so, in a double nickel zone….

Smokey bear pulled me over….I was hoping my nervousness over the ounce of columbian contraband wouldn’t show….having heard the horror stories of the lack of southern hospitality in their small town jails….anyway, the trooper instructed me to stay on his bumper and follow him to the local courthouse….thankfully without searching me or the vehicle….

So, we do a 180 on the emergency turn around on the median…and head back to the county courthouse. The trooper lights up his gumball and roars off at 75….yep, the same speed he pulled me over for….well, no one is more self-righteously indignant than an undergrad….so, I eased my van up to 55 and held it…and watched him fade into the Georgia darkness…..losing sight of him around a couple of tight turns. Just as I was about to do a 180 on the next median turn-around…when I came upon the cruiser parked on the shoulder, door open and the trooper standing, hands on hips, in the right lane. He did not look amused as he waved me to the shoulder, again. He strode to my open window, and just stared at me for a second. “Boy”, he said, “are you trying to be a smart-ass?”

“No”, sez I, “I just didn’t want to be speeding on the way to the courthouse.”

He looked me over for a minute, apparently trying to decide if I was one iota less than completely earnest. “I said, stay on my bumper. Let’s go”

Back on the road again, within minutes we pulled up at the courthouse. Minutes later, I was in front of the judge. After ascertaining that I had $40 in cash, and a mastercard for gas, the judge pronounced sentence. My fine: exactly $40 and 10 minutes later, me and my van and my contraband were back on the free road….

So, I didn’t try to OUTRUN the cop, I tried to get him to OUTRUN me….