I was riding up on palomar today and it was hot...about 4 chp cars on the tight side of the mountain, but I decided to ride and just take it a little easy on the spots with turnouts. Well a cop spotted me with my knee down and pulled me over. He said he was going to cite me for a clear taillight, licence plate unreadeable, and reckless for the knee down.
First I start bitching about how the tail light comes stock like that, even in CA, and he cant ticket me for that. He calls one of his other cars up...the "technicals" guy, and that guy talks to me about it...I gotta have something red and reflective in the rear, simple as that. Ok, so I drop that subject, I'll put on some reflectors and take em off after the ticket clears.
Then as he's about to start writing the ticket I flip my plate down and ask him if he can read it. He gets a little confused look on his face and says sarcastically "thanks for fixing it". So I figgure I might as well try to get rid of the worst part of it.
I ask him how fast I was going...he said 44 in a 55. I asked him if he saw either of my tires sliding, spinning up, anything like that...he didnt. So I argued that if I was going below the speed limit, and maintaining traction, that the bike was under my control and I wasn't breaking any laws and he dropped it.
So now I have a ticket for no red reflector in the rear. I figgure I'll take some red reflective tape and put a strip above the tail light, take it down to chp, then get rid of it once the ticket clears. I'm happy I got rid of the reckless part though. woohoo!
First I start bitching about how the tail light comes stock like that, even in CA, and he cant ticket me for that. He calls one of his other cars up...the "technicals" guy, and that guy talks to me about it...I gotta have something red and reflective in the rear, simple as that. Ok, so I drop that subject, I'll put on some reflectors and take em off after the ticket clears.
Then as he's about to start writing the ticket I flip my plate down and ask him if he can read it. He gets a little confused look on his face and says sarcastically "thanks for fixing it". So I figgure I might as well try to get rid of the worst part of it.
I ask him how fast I was going...he said 44 in a 55. I asked him if he saw either of my tires sliding, spinning up, anything like that...he didnt. So I argued that if I was going below the speed limit, and maintaining traction, that the bike was under my control and I wasn't breaking any laws and he dropped it.
So now I have a ticket for no red reflector in the rear. I figgure I'll take some red reflective tape and put a strip above the tail light, take it down to chp, then get rid of it once the ticket clears. I'm happy I got rid of the reckless part though. woohoo!