CLS-55 AMG confiscated

[GravelBen]

www.smh.com.au/news/World/NZ-police-impound-car-under-hoon-law/2006/01/11/1136956230849.html


guy allegedly spins wheels of $250k Merc, cop sees, cop confiscates it.

note the penalty if he's found guilty: up to 3 months jail, or ~$6000 fine

significantly greater than what you'd get for driving past a school at 96 kph at 8-30 on a monday morning...

[Kiwi XTR2]

Wait for the finger-print analysis on the Traction-Control button . . .










It'll probably turn out to be Tiff

[chevtrev]

My mate saw it at the pound the other day after waiting 28 days for his car for the same offence from the same copper,he was done for lossing traction even though he was on private property,this copper apparently has got quite a reputation for being a nazi.

[Kiwi XTR2]

Is there any case-law yet on what constitutes a 'sustained' loss of traction.

I would have thought that unless it's 10+ seconds you're not really trying . . .

[Esprit]

Basically if a cop wants to do you, it's his word against yours... mate of mine accelerated onto the on-ramp in his 3-series, hit second gear and momentarily lost traction and the back end snapped a bit (didn't go sideways, just snapped a little and then he got off the power and back in-line).... mufti cop behind him pulls him over and accuses him of trying to drift! same deal, car confiscated..... in the end it's his word against yours... the driver of this car isn't a boyracer and is in his late thirties!

[RobDickinson]

Nazi cop syndrome. Luckily no hope of loosing traction in my 2.0 forester...

[GravelBen]

RobDickinson said:

Nazi cop syndrome. Luckily no hope of loosing traction in my 2.0 forester...

haha I know the feeling. only time I get wheelspin is in snow, mud or wet grass! If you push them hard enough you can get a bit of 4-wheel drift on sealed roads though (or more than a bit if its wet), does that count as loss of traction?

[Kiwi XTR2]

Esprit said:

Basically if a cop wants to do you, it's his word against yours... mate of mine accelerated onto the on-ramp in his 3-series, hit second gear and momentarily lost traction and the back end snapped a bit (didn't go sideways, just snapped a little and then he got off the power and back in-line).... mufti cop behind him pulls him over and accuses him of trying to drift! same deal, car confiscated..... in the end it's his word against yours... the driver of this car isn't a boyracer and is in his late thirties!

I'd go for a defended hearing.

Loss of traction ?
Absolutely. Accelerating to motorway merge speed . . . road surface conditions . . . slightly snatched gear change . . .

Sustained ?
Not a chance. It was transient, momentary and corrected as soon as possible.

Under that regulation it is not illegal to lose traction. Only illegal to sustain that loss . . .



>> Edited by Kiwi XTR2 on Thursday 12th January 21:08

[Esprit]

Graham... my sentiments exactly... still, when you get to court, you've still got to convince the judge that your word is better than Mr Policeman's ..... oh for the day when they have cameras in all cop cars so you can call on that as evidence!

[Kiwi XTR2]

"What do you have to say about this young man?"

"Your Honour, Yes my car did lose traction turning onto the on-ramp but I was trying to accelerate to motorway speed and did not anticipate the poor surface conditions."

"And what did you do then?"

"If I have jumped off the accelerator the outside suspension would have unloaded violently which would have risked a massive over-steer or possibly a spin. In the circumstances the only reasonable thing to do was to gently ease off the accelerator until full traction was restored. The whole event was over in between 2 - 3 seconds. I would not consider that to be sustained, which I would think means maintained or prolonged. I recovered the situation as soon as was safely and practically possible."

"Officer?"

"This was a full drift up the on-ramp that was sustained in excess of 8 - 10 seconds"

"If the officer is going to persist in bearing false witness I would like to change my plea to guilty"

[wedgepilot]

[peterpsg]

If you had a car with datalogging (+ GPS maybe?) and traction control though, I'm sure you'd have a better chance in court... then again, how many cars have that!

[Kiwi XTR2]

peterpsg said:

If you had a car with datalogging (+ GPS maybe?) and traction control though, I'm sure you'd have a better chance in court... then again, how many cars have that!

I've asked my barrister about datalogging before and his advice was that you should only try to enter it into evidence if an independent technician is prepared to provide an affidavit verifying the downloading and time-stamps of the data.

The other risk is that the Police prosecutor could, quite reasonably, seek discovery of ALL your datalogging records, not just the segments you want them to see.

Who would want that ?

[peterpsg]

Ok, good point, but it's still a load of utter bolix to me, no wonder the police get no respect anymore...

Best idea, have a video camera mounted watching the tyres when you go for a drive, so when you get pulled over just yank the camera out & video old Mr Pork Chop as well in a continuous sequence. Then at least you can selectivly erase parts of start of the tape (if u need 2 ;-)), whils't retaining enough footage to cover your ass in court!