$400 dollar gross polluter!!
 

I was pulled over a couple weeks ago for having no front license plate in Santa Cruz, CA.
Next thing you know,the cop asks me to pop my hood and found my uncatted headers and my intake. He writes me a citation for Modified Emissions, but instead of writing Scion/Toyota(i drive an frs) in the make, he writes Subaru(they are twins after all. He also failed to write down my license plate completely(missing 3 characters). If i fight him in court, what are the odds i will win? im not trying to pay for a 400 dollar ticket.

Tip: you don't have to pop your hood unless he has crazy probable cause because that's a search.

Him misidentifying your vehicle is unlikely to make the ticket invalid. Your best bet would be him not showing up to court - but the license plate failure (or anything else) really tends to irk some judges, who hate cop incompetence.

I'm definitely not your lawyer and this isn't legal advice. (Disclaimer)

In the future, politely decline to pop your hood. I have done so and I also have a law school license plate which usually either makes cops avoid pressing me or be extra obnoxious, but I've never had one force me.

If you want to bet the ticket, I hope you still have your stock parts. Just slap them on then slap them off after they inspect it.

If you try fight eh... All depends if he shows up or not. I seen a few cops correct their mistakes on plates they get wrong in font of the judge. "Oh I missed the last two letters?" He just writes the last two figures on the ticket. And your still screwed.

Next time, when you get pulled over turn off your car. Keep your front plate in your car along with zip ties.
If your car sounds like a fart can then... Yeah you kind of brought it on your self.

Changing parts for the inspection is not going to beat the ticket. That allows you to pay the fee, which you can't without correcting the defect. (EDIT: This does not appear to always be true, I see sometimes you can just pay an inspection fee for minor stuff like plates. Don't know if headers and intake will be the same. )

If he wants to go to court with evidence that he NEVER HAD THE PARTS, that's a whole different story. Judges aren't going to go "wow well there's no turbo/illegally loud muffler/header/underbody neon on the car now?? Well it must've been your imagination officer, case dismissed"

Not really sure what your suggestion is haha, but I really don't advise someone to commit felony perjury to get out of a $400 ticket lol

Also OP just run a front tow hook mount man it looks fine

yeah they put me through a state ref smog check, i had to pass or risk getting my registration revoked. I did swap out the parts and passed.

i think it was pretty unlucky considering i was not even bringing attention to myself. the cop actually followed me for a block before pulling one car ahead of me, (he was definitely eyeing my car, especially because he saw my radar as he passed my open window) but i guess thats when he saw i had no front plate, which gave him reason to stop me :/

You live in California and you mod your car. That's an expensive game to play. One reason I got the hell out of there.

California and NY are really the worst places to live as a car enthusiast (from a bureaucratic perspective). If you have mods that are illegal (just being frank) you really shouldn't be drawing attention to yourself or having your vehicle externally configured in a manner that provides them an opportunity to pull you over (like no front plate).

The front plate on the twins is an easy fix - a bunch of companies make side plate mounts that go in the tow hook hole. They're a lot less "ugly" than drilling the bumper.

From my multi ticket experiences the courts in CA are slammed and they'll dismiss anything they can. Go to court inform the judge you've reverted your car back to stock and have a inspection ticket signed off by a officer. hope and pray he drops the ticket with a small court fine. If he doesn't you're sol pay the fee you got to pay to play.

Good luck!


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Pay the ticket and move on.

Werd, and no need to ride illegal. Why pollute the air, pay $500 in parts and risk a ticket for 10hp?

$50 per HP? A lot of people will pay that.

Right around CARB (smog) legal supercharger $/hp numbers...

You can't. If it's a modified emissions citation, the proper fix is to have the state BAR referee inspect and sign off on it. Going to court will have the judge order this action.

The officer is just making a judgment of possible modified emissions violation based on what he saw. You can fight it by questioning his accuracy or that he violated your privacy, but when it comes to matters of emissions as long as he has probable cause the judge will side with him.

-alex

Perhaps you could instruct the court to put it on VW's tab?









(I had to)

FYI, clerical errors are not something the judge will let you win on. Best bet here is to win on a default... meaning requesting trial by written declaration first. If that fails, request trail de novo, then request extension. By the time trial rols around, hopefully it'll be at a time when officer is on vacation or transferred and he won't show up. Thus you'll win by default.

You probably won't win.

Personally, I wouldn't have popped my hood. He would have asked and I would have said... "mmmmmm no thanks officer."

Also get a tow hook plate breh, it's cheaper than multiple tickets.

He beat you though, you might luck out in court if he doesn't show or get it reduced.

Why didn't you have a front plate?

An officer can force you to pop your hood if he has what he considers a reasonable suspicion that your car is modified. Running without a front plate is probably enough to make him think you have other changes. Modified wheels. An aftermarket exhaust. Stickers. Speeding. He can pick on you for any of that. I don't think it's reasonable to pick on a car by model, but any other reason is probably fair game.

I think you'll find (if you pay attention) that your luck with the police gets worse and worse the more laws you break.

Speaking as one who has beaten tickets before^^^^This is the way to go:party0030:

This is why I run a front plate, gotta avoid this hassle.

I don't run my front plate, but i keep it in the trunk. I also have a picture of my plate on a Grimmspeed tow hook mount.

So when I got pulled over, I showed the cop both, and the price on the Grimmspeed website.

"Sorry officer someone stole my Tow-Hook mount"... Worked

While that worked that one time...
You still got pulled over for no plate and they can still give you a ticket.

Got out of another when I first bought the car too, still had dealer plates. Told the sheriff that the dealership had forgot to include the front plate kit.

So still could get a ticket but it was never mentioned any other time I was pulled over for speeding etc.

I'm not a big fan of casually lying to police. I also don't run a front plate. I will, however, probably do so when I get my vanity plates. Then again...

I did get a local ticket from Santa Barbara parking patrol. On the back of the ticket there was a clause about correction. Took a picture of the plate on my car and sent it in with a $15 dollar "administrative fee" and all was good.

You're still getting pulled over. I don't care about the ticket I'm trying to avoid cops poking around my car.


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The last time I got pulled over I told the cop " No officer I don't want to pop my hood" and then they took me out of the car. And hand cuffed me and sat me down on the curb. And proceeded to pop my hood and starts writing me a ticket. I was 28 / 29yrs old then and the fucking cop's partner asked me if I was a ganster. And what set I was from. Told him go fuck himself and write me my fucking ticket even though; what they did was illegal search. And they fucking reffed me and gave me a s $300 dollar fine.


End of the story... I fucking hate cops the over step their bounds. And your screwed no matter what with these assholes. So might as well see if you can just pay the fine and deuce out...

ended up losing the case... thats 500 dollars down the drain

Is this ticket an inspection ticket or a regular ticket? If it's a regular ticket, the clerical error might get you off since the brand of car would be on the registration (if he even looked at it) and the missing numbers from the license plate is for sure a goof. It never hurts to go to court. Dress nice, shows respect to the court. If you can find any other vehicles with the same numbers/letters on their plates you could take pics and take them to court and say that you found X numbers of cars with the same numbers/letters as yours (the ones that are on the ticket) and point out that since there are numbers/letters missing, which vehicle is this ticket for? Cop goofed, whether the Judge will dismiss it or not is another question. Obviously if the ticket is missing numbers/letters how can the cop prove he wrote YOU up?

Now the cop or judge could try and be tricky and ask if you remember being pulled over and I'd answer no, I don't drive a Subaru.

If your tag is (example) ABC 001 and the cop wrote down ABC and not the 001, there are 998 other cars out there that start with ABC and I'd be willing to bet that more than one of them is a Scion or Subaru.

If the cop car has video in it, this is probably all moot.......

CA cops=pain in the ass? Holy wow

The price you pay to live in California. I don't care how nice some parts of that state are, I could never deal with such an oppressive government.

GL!

If it was, how did you resolve this?

Why are people on this forum so blase about breaking smog laws??? I mean you selfishly spew out tons more crap out of your exhaust for no significant benefit. A few hp that doesn't effect you 99% of the time you commute maybe?? and better "sound"???!?! and people find this reasonable?!?!?!?!

There is a reason that california has such tight emission laws and why it basically spearheaded the whole emissions standards that rule the industry today. And they worked.

http://www.lacarguy.com/green/articl...-last-50-years

Cali has such a density of cars that air quality blew goats. And now it doesn't. The fact of the matter is the laws worked.

decreasing smog can add YEARS to your life.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/up...ger-lives.html


I don't understand the hubris of the members of this forum who think it's a-okay for them to break the law because they are just "one person" I don't want to breath in your extra emissions. You are just being a selfish brat. If you want to make your car not street legal, then just go trailer it to the tracks to have fun with it.

You go to court. Evidence obtained through an illegal search is inadmissible. However, without knowing his specific case, I can't say it was an illegal search. If your exhaust is race-loud, a cop can definitely pop your hood without a warrant. It's called probable cause.

In OPs case, though, it wasn't, because he popped the hood. If a cop asks you to let him search your home for no reason and you do, it's not illegal.

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No offense, but this is incredibly bad advice.

Recommending perjury (a FELONY) in terms of "do you remember being pulled over" is beyond ridiculous. Also, a perjury conviction will be admissible against you in court automatically for the next 10 years as evidence of bad character in any possible case involving you. Also, a felony conviction will ruin your life. Why would you ever be this dumb?

Furthermore, the license plate number is so far from relevant here. The cop has your DRIVER'S LICENSE, registration, and insurance. Unless your argument is that someone stole your ID and was driving a different car this is a wash. Also, in CA, a fair amount of highway cops have car cameras anyway.

But the clerical error does nothing to refute the fact that YOU were driving the car. You can do a crime in someone else's car and it's still your problem.

I am constantly amazed by the amount of people willing to lie in court to avoid dealing with their own mistakes.

As usual, insert the standard disclaimer that I'm not giving you legal advice and I'm not your attorney, yadda yadda.

EDIT: The basic reasoning issue I missed because I was so focused on the finer points is that it is a FACT that he was pulled over by the officer.

How do we know this? BECAUSE HE IS HOLDING A TICKET ISSUED TO HIM AT THE SCENE! So that pretty much erases any chance he has of pulling a "Shaggy" and arguing "it wasn't me"...

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Yes. But also because we have a serious air pollution issue here.

See below of old EPA ozone limits vs new EPA ozone limits, and look at CA vs the rest of the country. The source is from LA Times here: http://spreadsheets.latimes.com/epa-...one-pollution/

-alex

this was years ago ... When I was like 28 / 29 yr old ... I'm 40 now

I ended up paying the $300 fine