Frankly, I wish more cops would give out tickets for drivers NOT using their turn signals, along with broken tailights/headlights etc.

If, in fact, your window tint was in violation of the law, hell, I'd be like the cop and have you remove it on the spot.

Don't forget, YOU have the illegal tint on.


Pay the ticket, put legal tint back on your windows, and move on. In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor annoyance.

Don't go to court, it's a waste of the courts time--unless you have video showing that you used/didn't use your turn signal.

 

If your car will scrape on the pavement if you have a flat tire, it is illegally low.

 

Ummmm, excuse me, but, we're not here to serve at the whim of the court. The court is here to serve US!! Whether or not he's guilty isn't the point. He has a right to challenge any charges made against him.

 

Maybe I need to make something clear here.
I am NOT pissed that I had to take the tint off.. It was what the previous owner put on the car, and this being the first car with tint, I don't mind not having it. Now, I haven't driven the car since that happened and with summer here, I think I may miss it, but that's to be seen..
HOWEVER, the fact that he seemed to be looking for every excuse to make my visit to that part of city any more regrettable by making me take tint off on the spot and the fact that he cut in front of me thus causing the whole freaking lane with traffic backed up I thought he was REALLY overreacting.

Anyways, this already happened and I am not losing sleep over it. The reason I wanted to share what happened to me with people here is I just wanted to see if this ever happened to others and how they handled it. Like I said last time, I just wanted to see if I admitted to not signaling at court, whether the judge will lower my fine. Afterall, I do signal a lot more frequent now. I can't say always, but I do find myself using that signal lever more frequently. So lesson learned, just don't want this to put a dent on my checkbook.

 

I just can't understand why some many people are willing to piss their rights away, or think they have no rights.

Someone posted on here that probable cause is up to the discretion of the officer stopping a car! Probable cause is a high standard. An officer may not search a car without consent, seing something illegal in the car, or incident to arrest. What the Supreme court ruled is that cops can pat down the driver (and I think the passenger as well now). That's it. Illegal searches happen all the time, but they are not lawful, and the cops often claim they had consent.

You should signal when you turn. Most cops don't. I see it all the time. You got pulled over for driving a sports car, and/or for being a younger person in a sports car. He was probably hoping you were drunk.

But the worse part of this was the cop making you take off the tint under threat of more tickets. That's called extortion. He acted as judge, jury, and prosecution. You should have immediately demanded of his office a copy of his vehicle camera tape. If he admits in court to making you remove the tint he admits to breaking the law. The fact that he did this is probably your best leverage if played out correctly. By the way, tint laws have been overtuned in at least one State that I know of, as a privacy issue.

If you want to know about your rights, contact the National Motorist Association. There are too many people who simply have no idea what they are talking about. Despite the experiences some people may have had individually, I'm sure you can make a deal with prosecutors in CA. CA has some of the most driver friendly laws in the country. I know there are BS laws too, but you have a law that says radar can only be used on roads where speed limits are based on engineering studies. You and Michigan (now). It's heaven for those who know something about the law.

Ken

 

I got pulled over twice by the same officer (same road, same time of year... just one year later). His job was to wait for DWI offenders...he was very polite (as was I), and sent me on my way with a ticket both times. The second time, I was asked if I "still" lived at the address on my license...as if he remembered the occurence.

By the way, I would rather peel off my tint than be ticketed for more offenses. He may have done you a favor (while being a dick at the same time). I've been stopped by the dickest of dick cops who made me wait in the cold for 30 minutes with no jacket while he looked for drugs (I don't do 'em)...he left me with a warning. He probably felt bad about all the trouble.

 

OK, we've both read the Sup Ct cases and should know that all they speak to is the admissibility of evidence in a subsequent trial. Nothing much stops the cops' behaivior short of a civil rights viloation. The Supremes have even upheld confessions obtained when the cops have outright lied to the accused.

All this is a long way from driving privileges which are not rights at all, just something that state law decides how far you can go. I have no idea what the laws are in the OP's home state. Some states have laws limiting just how dark the tint can be. So if the tint was too dark, and Officer Friendly says 'take it off or get a ticket' then he is not out of line at all.

my $.02

 

There's a whole bunch of misinformation being ladled out here. Aside from being stupid looking, tints are illegal in California for windshield and front seat windows only. Period, no wiggle room. The cop might have had an attitude (police are trained to establish their authority immediately and some do it better than others) but it sounds to me like he was giving you a break by letting you take it off right there, rather than having to prove and pay for proof of correction. Put yourself in the shoes of a cop all by himself on a rural road pullover late at night walking up to a suspicious vehicle he can't see into. Scary and dangerous for everybody.

Also, yes, your mods might indeed be CARB approved, but that won't in and of itself stop a "dick" cop from writing you for modifying your intake/exhaust, which is all the code specifies. (The Comptech "CARB Approved" tag - and I have two of them - looks like they print them in bulk in Tijuana.) And guess what? If cited, the burden of proof of CARB certification and proper installation is on you, the driver. You must go to an emissions ref who will then, presumably, give you the pass you'll need to show the court. And then you get to pay for proof of correction.

"Extortion, judge, jury and prosecution," yeah right, you go, Johnny Cochran. In my not humble opinion there are way too many "dick" drivers (not using turn signals equals same to me) and not enough "dick" cops enforcing basic traffic laws.

 

We know that ya

 

i got a signal ticket about 2 months ago too along with an exhaust ticket. cali cops r dicks and target s2 owners just for the hell of it. im just hoping it gets lost cause i still havent received the courtesy notice