[DeTomaso] Pandora's Perils part IX: "Your sins will find you out." Ain't that the truth...

[boyd casey]

Dear Chris,
In dealing with police officers I have found ( through an inordinate amount
of personal experience) it is seldom a good idea to tell them what they are
doing wrong ( for several reasons) Officers like officer grumpy usually
have some self esteem issues and need the feeling of omnipotence they get
by wearing a badge, Pointing out that they are flawed (in any way) tends to
exacerbate their feelings of inadequacy and they respond by demonstrating
more of their super powers over you by either arresting you or lumping on
additional charges. In some cases if you point out a procedural error that
would result in the charges being dismissed (in spite of the fact that you
may actually be guilty, they will amend their paper work correcting the
error and removing the deficiency that would have possibly gotten your
charge dismissed if you hadn't informed officer grumpy of his procedural
errors. One thing you might try is to carry a copy of the DMV code that
specifies that the states have entered into an agreement that basically
states that they  will honor the state law of visiting drivers from other
states that offer to honor the state laws of  visitors to your home state.
It is an agreement in reciprocity so when officer grumpy asked you if you
realized you were not in Washington state this would have been a perfect
opportunity to share this information with him. But alas sometimes officers
like officer grumpy are so thick headed that the level of hardness of their
skulls and the impossibility of penetrating it exceeds any element on the
"known " substances found on the periodic table of the elements or the The
Mohs *Hardness Scale.  A person I met many years ago while I was undergoing
training in sales techniques and overcoming objections said to me "the
hardest thing to overcome is ignorance" This has proven itself to be true
on so many occasions I think it should be elevated to  the status of a
"Law" (not a legal law but a Law of Nature like the laws of thermodynamics
or *Newtons Laws of motion.. I know it sounds ridiculous that one would be
compelled to resort to such drastic measures but in a case like yours where
the Washington State Law is counter intuitive it  might be worthwhile to
carry Motor vehicle code (the same book officers carry to find the  the
definition and information to write out a ticket for an infraction. You
could highlight the information about historical vehicles and the fact that
one is exempted from renewing the registration every year and the section
on Reciprocity. I hope the information I have shared with you offers some
assistance and if it's to late for you perhaps it will help someone else in
the future. Best of luck resolving your current dilemma. Have a safe and
happy trip for the remainder. And one thing  to look at on the bright side.
In many cases if an officer believed your vehicle was in fact not legally
registered they could have and would have impounded your car ( especially
since you were from out of state) and they might have even arrested you!
So count you blessings.

Thanks for an interesting and amusing message.
Sincerely,
Boyd

On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 2:11 AM, Christopher Kimball
<chrisvkimball at msn.com>wrote:

>
> In yesterday's entry, I made mention of a quote my mother likes to use,
> "Your sins will find you out."  I was chastised by the two most important
> women in my life (my wife and my mom) for failing to mention the quote is
> actually from the book of Numbers, in the Bible.  Of course, I knew that,
> but the last thing I wanted to do was start quoting Bible versus and have
> people get the idea I have a "holier-than-thou" attitude.  Well, if anyone
> ever had that misconception, I have now done my best to eliminate that
> problem:  Today, my sins, indeed, found me out.
>
> For the first time while driving my Pantera, I GOT A TICKET!!!  I can't
> tell you all of the details yet, because according to officer Grumpy (not
> his real name) the form I signed today was not an admission of guilt.
>  That's good, because there is at least one accusation that is patently
> false.  Granted, I was making very good time on the roads prior to my
> alleged transgression, so I can't complain too much, but let me explain a
> portion of what happened, since I love to write so many details!
>
> But first, let me start at the beginning.
>
> I awoke this morning in a good mood after a good sleep--no migraines to be
> found anywhere.  I enjoyed the complimentary breakfast at the same Las
> Vegas Comfort Inn at which I stayed on the way to the Rally, however, this
> time I had a waffle that was so enormous, when I had finished consuming it
> along with the scrambled egg (actually, it was a kind of flying-saucer
> scrambled egg; just one, round disc of egg--aliens probably would really
> like those), a yogurt, a glass of apple juice, and three glasses of milk
> (to go with the enormous waffle), I was forced to forego the Froot Loops.
>  I should have known that was a foreboding sign.
>
> I left the hotel about 11:20 AM and headed toward Ely, Nevada.  I planned
> to stop there for lunch, but it was too far to make in one trip so I
> stopped at another, rather nondescript spot to fill up the tank.  While
> there I received several favorable comments about Pandora, which is always
> fun, including one young man's desire to take a couple of pictures.  I
> asked if he would like to have me take a picture of him in the car. He
> happily agreed, and handed me what looked like a combination game
> controller/portable TV/phone/Star Trek communicator.  Oh, I forgot to
> mention "camera."  he showed me which button to push, and the pictures
> turned out well.  I had a momentary flashback of achieving the high score
> at Donkey Kong sometime in the mid-eighties.
>
> When I arrived at Ely (pronounce "eelee," although I didn't see any
> evidence of an aquarium), I drove through a couple of the neighborhoods to
> get a feel for the place.  It's kind of a quaint little town, and proud of
> its heritage.  I took a picture of the big sign posted at the entrance of
> the city so I could remember just what, exactly, was that heritage.
>
> I filled up at a local Shell station while explaining to several people
> what a "Pantera" is, and from whence it came.  One lady thought it was a
> Lamborghini.  Another kid asked if it cost $200,000.00.  I replied to him
> that it depends if you include the cost of moving violations (alleged,
> moving violations at this point).  Even the 70-something-year-old attendant
> took a break from ringing up pop and potato chips to come outside and
> inquire about it.  Everyone seemed so friendly, I thought I'd stay for
> lunch.  I drove to the city park and did just what the name suggests, found
> a picnic table, and settled down to read the latest issue of Road & Track
> while munching on two blueberry muffins, two yogurts (those items I
> pilfered from the complimentary breakfast that morning--hey, I didn't get
> to eat my Froot Loops, so it's a break-even for the hotel chain), a bottle
> of some exotic mix of fruit juices (have you noticed that the big thing now
> is for companies to blend multiple juices together and offer the end result
> as some new, never-before-considered beverage?  "Hey Martha, look--they
> took the apple juice and mixed it with the cranberry juice!  Can you
> believe it?  Genius!  What do you think they'll call it?"), several
> chocolate digestive biscuits (for those of you who may not be English
> biscuit aficionados, "Digestive Biscuits" are not some sort of
> medically-prescribed heartburn remedy.  They are cookies with chocolate on
> the top and are delicious), and of course--wait; I'm going to make you
> guess.  What do you think I would be drinking with chocolate-covered
> biscuits?  If you guessed milk--you're correct.  Unfortunately, I had no
> cups with me, so I had no choice but to drink right from the carton.  Since
> I was the only person in the park, though, it really didn't matter. Come to
> think of it, I believe I was the only person in about a ten-block radius.
>
> Following lunch I hit the road.  And here's where things went terribly
> wrong.
>
> At first, I was enjoying long, straight roads with no traffic.  You can
> guess how I was enjoying them.  I was always careful to slow way down when
> any other traffic was extant, since if there's one, overriding theme in the
> Pantera Owners Club of America, it's safety...
>
> About 60 miles outside of Twin Falls, Idaho, I called Clarke and Wilma to
> see if they had arrived at the hotel yet (they had).  I used the hands-free
> speaker phone built into my GPS system, for safety reasons, of course (plus
> the fact that the stupid thing connects to my phone automatically, and I
> don't know how to override it, even if I wanted to).  The hands-free system
> works pretty well, as long as you can decipher "Hey Clrk, Ime llkjhjs efoiu
> ertppisw conbpe erlo ejtopj OK?"  Actually, it wasn't that bad, and I told
> Clarke I'd be there in 45 minutes, unless (note; here comes the
> foreshadowing), "I get pulled over (yuk yuk)"
>
> Five minutes later...well I think you know what happened.
>
> It was a smooth, curvy road (that sounds like that old campfire story, "It
> was a dark and stormy night...") and there was this car in front of me that
> I thought would appreciate not having me bringing up the rear, so to speak.
>  Next thing you know, an innocent-looking SUV appears out of nowhere coming
> the other way, and I couldn't help but notice that his turn signals weren't
> the usual orange, but instead blue and red.  And they were all blinking at
> the same time.
> As I mentioned, I won't go into detail about the alleged infraction, only
> to say the officer claimed to have issues with what he thought I did.  The
> whole situation probably could have been less financially painful, but
> here's the problem, when he asked for my license and registration, I gave
> him the required documents.  He seemed fairly reasonable at that point.
>  However, after spending a few minutes in his portable pokey (as I tried
> not to think about all the gloating going on by the drivers of all the cars
> I had passed who were now driving past me as I sat, humiliated by the side
> of the road--that's actually worse than getting the ticket, you know), he
> approached me full of bluster and indignation.  I think I also detected a
> hint of pensiveness.  The reason for his hyperventilation was that
> according to his "official" records, "[my] car hasn't been registered since
> 2007!!!!"  I tried to explain to him that in Washington State, collector
> car plates are exempt from annual registration and tags.  He didn't believe
> me.  In fact, with a mix of bravado and nervousness (after all, for all he
> knew, I could be a convicted criminal!) he asked me to get out of the car
> and look at my license plate.  He asked, "Do you see a place on that plate
> for tags?"  What I should have said was, "No, officer oblivious, I can't
> see anything--in fact, I'm legally blind!"  Instead, I simply said, "Yes,
> but I never received tags for this car because it is a collector
> vehicle..."  He would have none of it.  He told me that this wasn't
> Washington (thanks again, officer--maybe I should have started clicking my
> heels together and chanting, "There's no place like home...") and that I'd
> have to take it up with the court.
>
> I then remembered all those cops and robber shows I watched as a kid, and
> it reminded me that the accused always got to make a phone call.  Realizing
> this guy was nowhere near old enough to remember great shows such as "The
> Streets of San Fransico," I almost abandoned the idea of asking him if I
> could call one of my friends at the Lakewood Police Department, but then it
> occurred to me that he probably had watched "Who Wants to be a
> Millionaire?" once or twice.  "May I phone a friend?" I asked.  I told him
> I could get verification of the tag question from one of my connections
> with the Lakewood PD.  He told me I could call anyone I wanted, but it
> wouldn't make any difference.
>
> I have a tremendous amount of respect for officers of the law.  Except
> this one--he is an idiot.  While he was back in his paddy wagon filling out
> all the devilish paperwork, I phoned the same person I always call when I'm
> in some sort of self-imposed trouble; my wife.  Since I was trying to use
> the ridiculous hands-free device while talking a mile-a-minute (I'm
> surprised officer dorky didn't give me a ticket for that, too), Vicki had
> great difficulty figuring out what was going on.  I finally was able to
> convey to her that I needed the phone number for the LPD, which she found.
>  I called the number and had just reached woman who could help me, when
> officer bloviate came back and stuck his head in the car.  Before I could
> say anything, he informed me I could finish my call later, once he was done
> with me.  I told the lady on the phone I needed to go, hung up, and then
> listened to officer neverwrong begin to read me all the various
> infractions.  I said, "Aren't you going to let me call the LPD back so they
> can tell you about the tags?"  Proving that his powers of jerkiness were
> exceeded only by his inability to pay attention to anyone except himself,
> he replied, "What did they say?"  Rather than bursting out in laughter and
> saying something I might regret, I said, "That's who was on the line--you
> asked me to hang up."
>
> He again said it would make no difference, and pointed to a phone number
> on the citation he gave me.  "Call that number if (he actually said, "if")
> you can prove you don't need tags for your car.  They'll work it out with
> you."  He also said although he usually lowers the speed he lists on
> tickets below what the driver was actually driving because, "I hate giving
> out big-dollar tickets," in my case he was giving me "the full boat" with
> no reduction whatsoever.
>
> The moral is, that one is never to argue with a grumpy police officer.
>  The problem is, however, when they are completely wrong, what is one
> supposed to do?
>
> Just to show him I had no hard feelings, after he handed me the $850.00
> ticket, I asked him if he'd like to take the Pantera for a quick drive.
>  Surprisingly, he declined.  In retrospect, despite that my offer was after
> the citation had been issued, he'll probably try to get me for some
> trumped-up attempting to bribe an officer charge...
>
> I have a number of attorney clients, and I'll be checking with them on the
> best way to proceed.  It sure is annoying, though.
>
> By the way, "Hey, officer bullheaded, check this out--from the Washington
> State Licensing website:
> License plate requirementsCollector license plates:May be assigned to
> currently registered passenger vehicles, motorcycles, or trucks.Are good
> for the life of vehicle.Aren’t required to display month/year tab.Aren’t
> renewed annually.
>
> Too bad I didn't have David or Donny (my sons) with me--they could have
> pulled that info up on their phone right in front of officer technoboob.
>
> The day had a happy ending, though.  Clarke and Wilma, the wonderful
> people they are, waited to go to dinner until 8:00 PM when I arrived at the
> hotel.  We made a beeline for our favorite corral, that's right, "The
> Golden Corral" and gorged ourselves silly.
>
> I was in such a mood that I ate four different desserts first.
>
> Tomorrow, Google maps says my trip to Hermiston, Oregon should last 6 1/2
> hours.  Sadly, now it probably will...
>
> Sincerely,
> Chris
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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