Illegal off road roof lights...

I thought you would be exempt from "equipment laws" if you are out of your registered State? Thats the way it works here in Canada, if you have a NWT Licence Plate and are in Alberta, the laws are different and since that is not your place of residence you are just visiting and those laws do not apply to you.

If its not the case, what do you do if you live in a State with no front licence plate and travel to a state that does have them? You get a ticket for no front plate? I mean lets use a little common sense now, the real problem is that we are over-governed with stupied laws, its time to start electing automotive loving politicians!

Jeff
 
It is the operators responisibility to know, and understand the rules of the road and equipment requirements of the places they plan on traveling to, or through. That includes lights, lifts, exhaust or anything else we may "get away with" at home.

For example:
If your LEO let's you get away with playing it so loud that the trim rattles, but another communities LEO enforces the law in their area, that's the breaks, too bad, you got caught; and yes, you should have known.

It sounds like the officer was a bit less than casual, be we were not there to hear what transpired.

* The original poster admitted he should have known.
* The Officer was within his rights, moving or unmoving to let him know the requirements for Off-Road equipment.
* He now has a source for said equipment.
 
G.Q. Jeeper said:
I thought you would be exempt from "equipment laws" if you are out of your registered State?

I mean lets use a little common sense now, the real problem is that we are over-governed with stupied laws, its time to start electing automotive loving politicians!
Click to expand...
Ideally you would be exempt in another state, but some cops are just stupid and mean so they will ticket out-of-staters for anything they can because they figure its easy money.

There are some automotive loving politicians, but the lobyers get to them and make them go along with stupid laws or even beter unenforcable laws... like driving while using a non-handsfree cellphone or driving with headlights on while your wipers are on (the taillights are as important if not more than the headlights when its raining/snowing)
 
G.Q. Jeeper said:
I thought you would be exempt from "equipment laws" if you are out of your registered State? Thats the way it works here in Canada, if you have a NWT Licence Plate and are in Alberta, the laws are different and since that is not your place of residence you are just visiting and those laws do not apply to you.

If its not the case, what do you do if you live in a State with no front licence plate and travel to a state that does have them? You get a ticket for no front plate? I mean lets use a little common sense now, the real problem is that we are over-governed with stupied laws, its time to start electing automotive loving politicians!

Jeff
Click to expand...

It is very selective in that respect, PA just repealed their helmet laws, NJ requires helmets, go over the border from PA to NJ without a helmet and you get a ticket. South carolina I think does not put plates on small trailers, one of the members here came up to to PA to pick up the YJ we were selling, no plates but he never got stopped. Like I said, it's selective on the cops part. To my way of thinking and the ICC I believe, if you meet YOUR home state requirements they should not have a foot to stand on with reguards to meeting local out of state requirements but that can get expensive to fight in court. While we here in the US pride ourselves on a 'fair and just' system it's only fair and just if you have the money to insure it's fair and just, the more you can afford the more 'just' it is. Cops love out of staters, they are a good source of revenue for the state as they generally won't fight it. While there is no 'quota' system here in PA as long as they include 'projected ticket revenue' in the yearly state budget they can deny the 'quota's' all they want, until that 'projected' revenue comes off it's there whether they admit it or not.
 
RichP said:
It is very selective in that respect, PA just repealed their helmet laws, NJ requires helmets, go over the border from PA to NJ without a helmet and you get a ticket. South carolina I think does not put plates on small trailers, one of the members here came up to to PA to pick up the YJ we were selling, no plates but he never got stopped. Like I said, it's selective on the cops part. To my way of thinking and the ICC I believe, if you meet YOUR home state requirements they should not have a foot to stand on with reguards to meeting local out of state requirements but that can get expensive to fight in court. While we here in the US pride ourselves on a 'fair and just' system it's only fair and just if you have the money to insure it's fair and just, the more you can afford the more 'just' it is. Cops love out of staters, they are a good source of revenue for the state as they generally won't fight it. While there is no 'quota' system here in PA as long as they include 'projected ticket revenue' in the yearly state budget they can deny the 'quota's' all they want, until that 'projected' revenue comes off it's there whether they admit it or not.
Click to expand...

While ignorance of the law is no excuse, there are some equipment laws that its just impractical or impossible to adhere to. The example you gave of the SC resident coming to PA with an unlicensed trailer is a good one. Theres no possible way he could meet PA laws in that case. Its a catch 22 because PA wouldnt let him register it with an out of state address even if he wanted to. Thats why most states have reciprical agreements to honor other states vehicle and license requirements, this is also why if you were to fight it in court, you could probably win. The same goes for lift laws, door laws, tire laws. Being an out of stater and legal in your home state, you may still get ticketed but if you choose to have your day in court, you would most likely walk away a winner. No judge would like to be the one responsible for the breakdown of a long standing reciprical agreement between states.
 
Ray H said:
While ignorance of the law is no excuse, there are some equipment laws that its just impractical or impossible to adhere to. The example you gave of the SC resident coming to PA with an unlicensed trailer is a good one. Theres no possible way he could meet PA laws in that case. Its a catch 22 because PA wouldnt let him register it with an out of state address even if he wanted to. Thats why most states have reciprical agreements to honor other states vehicle and license requirements, this is also why if you were to fight it in court, you could probably win. The same goes for lift laws, door laws, tire laws. Being an out of stater and legal in your home state, you may still get ticketed but if you choose to have your day in court, you would most likely walk away a winner. No judge would like to be the one responsible for the breakdown of a long standing reciprical agreement between states.
Click to expand...

Ignorance of the law has nothing to do with it, Unless there is a FEDERAL law standardizing requirements there is no way everyone can be legal in every state. Unfortunately they don't have a discretion class for police or don't enforce it. A ticket for having uncoverd roof lights on your vehicle if YOUR state does not require them should be thrown out by the cops supervisor and if it gets past him it should be thrown out by the JP or Judge and the cop and supervisor told to 'get the stick out of your *ss', but as long as it generates income by not being contested [gee, maybe reimbursement of the out of state ticketee should be an incentive to the state to clamp down on BS tickets] it will continue. If they had to reimburse expenses that would be a negative cash flow to the state which would be unacceptable.
I won't even go into the cash cow that DUI and 'The war on drugs' has turned into in many states where a 17yo HS kid gets wacked with a $1500-$5000 fine, you cannot watch a 17yo 24/7 and if you have a large sum of cash you can almost guarantee that it will be taken away by the police. Enough, I have two systems I need to finish today..
 
RichP said:
Ignorance of the law has nothing to do with it, Unless there is a FEDERAL law standardizing requirements..
Click to expand...

One should know the laws of the state they are traveling in and should also be assured that their home state will and should stick up for them in the event that a state does not uphold their end of a reciprical agreement. Wouldnt that be nice if your home state went to bat for you if another state oversteps its bounds. Thats the way it should be.
 
i find it rather funny that cops/people love to use the excuse that YOU should know all the lil gay laws they have in each different place you travel when they offer little to no help in displaying these laws to you. we have speed signs, exit signs, all these other signs so the drivers know whats going on but they make no effort to display anything else. it should not be the duty of an american to go spend hours researching on the internet laws of all the states, what if you dont have the internet? you live in cali and are going to texas to drop your mom off at her new house and in order to you drive through several states, every american doing this expected to request by mail code books for each state hes passing through?


bunch of crap , our gov spends countless millions of dollars to make american life faster paced yet not when it comes to them taking your money. in this case its from tickets

ignorance of the law is a scape goat for cops, it should be thier duty to make the public aware of these laws that are hidden away among hundreads of pages and thousands of laws in some office building on some bookshelf. our gov has no problems spending our money so they can get more of it, but they wont spend our money to save us money.
 
Well, ok I was being sarcastic about reading up on the VTLs before coming to PA. They guy was just trying to be a jerk though...I mean its not as if he pulled me over, he happened upon me in a parking lot 15 minutes or more later, after I had gone inside, reserved a table and had been sitting in the warm Jeep for about 10+ minutes. He claimed he saw me as I was sitting at a red light on an incline diagonally across 6 lanes where he was making a downhill right turn on a green light. I know because being the buff/whacker/whatever that I am, I usually take note of reflective vehicles. It so happens that I do have the opaque covers for them (the white Hella ones) but they are at home, and I have to venture up there next weekend and will not have them here by then...then again I've been going up there every weekend for nearly 2 years without incident... none of my PO friends from NY have ever said anything about them, so who knows, does anyone know the NYS VTL? By the way those white covers don't really look too great, anyone paint them black?
 
Last edited:
88rockxj said:
i find it rather funny that cops/people love to use the excuse that YOU should know all the lil gay laws they have in each different place you travel when they offer little to no help in displaying these laws to you. we have speed signs, exit signs, all these other signs so the drivers know whats going on but they make no effort to display anything else. it should not be the duty of an american to go spend hours researching on the internet laws of all the states, what if you dont have the internet? you live in cali and are going to texas to drop your mom off at her new house and in order to you drive through several states, every american doing this expected to request by mail code books for each state hes passing through?


bunch of crap , our gov spends countless millions of dollars to make american life faster paced yet not when it comes to them taking your money. in this case its from tickets

ignorance of the law is a scape goat for cops, it should be thier duty to make the public aware of these laws that are hidden away among hundreads of pages and thousands of laws in some office building on some bookshelf. our gov has no problems spending our money so they can get more of it, but they wont spend our money to save us money.
Click to expand...

Knowing the laws of the state you are traveling in is not a "scape goat". I agree that its not possible though. We've gotten used to traveling between states so we forget that each state is a seperate government in itself. It has its own government, its own constitution, its own militia and so forth. The federal government unites states for a common purpose but other than that, they are seperate inities. Sorta like traveling between countries in Europe. States actually have the right to not allow residents of other states access. They can close their state off to other states. They dont do that, instead they open their states up to travelers by providing reciprical agreements to honor the licenses and vehicle registrations and regulations of other states.
 
I find that LEOs and their attitude can usually be determined by your age, your vehicle, marking on the vehicle, and the phase of the moon.

I got pulled over three times on new years eve and new years after work between 11:20PM-12:15AM. First was for rolling away from a green light to fast. Which I called bullshit on because I had to idle away from the light so I didnt spin the tires on the ice. Well he gave me a warning after having a conversation about my life history. Then I continued on to go pick up some grub across town. No problem there. Im heading back and get pulled over by a state trooper. I dont think he liked my "HUMMERS are for dicks" sticker because he said that phrase in a question after pulling me over and saying I was going 65 in a 55 which cant be true, because I have bigger tires and stock speedo gear which means my speedo reads 5MPH slower so when Im going 55 Im really going 50, and I was going 55 acording to my speedo because I was in no rush to get home. Then pulling onto my street a county cop pulls me over saying I looked like I was out past curfew. Im 6'6'' and he thinks I look young? So I was pissed being pulled over this many times and all warning, so the county says he'll follow me home so I said "Better keep up" which probally wasnt the smartest thing, but I left the scene before he was even in his car and was going to speed limit of 30 but I had a block on him, and he passes me when he catches up.

Many of the laws do need to be re-written to suit the people and the community. Getting pulled over for having a loud system during the day is homo, getting pulled over for having a loud system at night I believe is a good reason to be pulled over. Drinking, smoking, and recruiting laws need changed aswell. Some people want to drink at 18 and smoke at 18, well then if you do that I believe kids shouldnt be able to join the army/navy/etc until they are 21. Window tinting laws also need fixed. If you have limo tint you should be able to have it, but I believe you should turn off your engine, roll down your window and stick your arms out before the cop approaches, and out of common sence ask to reach into your glove box or under you ass for your wallet.

Remember 90% of the law is common sence.
 
Ahhh the wonderful world of individual state laws which in my opinion is complete and utter bullshit. I see no reason that one state should have lays different from another state. This country is one country and were united by many states theres no reason that each state should have their own laws we should follow a set of rules set out by the govt and thats it.

Another thing is they should stop having lawyer right the laws and have people with common sense write laws. Ever try to look up a law on a state website and after a few hours of searching get NO WHERE. For ex. I am planning to do a spring over lift for one of my buddies in NJ and I wanted to find in writting whether or not it would be legal or not, i didn't care about hear say. Well i searched many nights and have come up with nothing. It's crap like this that pisses me off. Then you call the dmv and ask and one person tells you one thing and the next person tells you something COMPLETELY different its total bs.

But to the original poster, just be glad you didn't get a ticket and have to go through the trouble of fighting it. The problem is more and more people are becoming cops that don't deserve it and shouldn't be a cop b/c they abuse the system. I know many people that went to my HS that are now cops in my surrounding area and I see them abusing the system each and every day. So take it with a grain of salt and just be glad you didn't get a ticket

off my soap box before i type a story about how the laws in this crappy state i live in suck
 
I dunno its almost worth the $100 to fight something like this and win...esp. the way the VTL reads and the fact I'm from out of state ...not that I'm asking for trouble but stuff like this is BS plain and simple. I mean if he wants to pull me over for a moving violation, fine at least I would have earned it, but theres no cause to make trouble over this in an Applebees parking lot, and in a vehicle that is basically marked....
on another note I asked my girlfriend if she would wink at him as he walked away from the window for a minute...but she was no help...I was all alone there :-(
 
matt6669 said:
Ahhh the wonderful world of individual state laws which in my opinion is complete and utter bullshit. I see no reason that one state should have lays different from another state. This country is one country and were united by many states theres no reason that each state should have their own laws we should follow a set of rules set out by the govt and thats it.

Another thing is they should stop having lawyer right the laws and have people with common sense write laws.
Click to expand...

You need to remember something, the legal system in this country is a business, an industry and it makes people money, big money, millions to lawyers. Same with the tax structure, you have people who go to school with the intent and purpose to learn the complexities of the legal and tax systems and to continue on in the same manner, not to simplify it so a normal person can read and understand it. Consider the basic UCMJ, it's pretty simple and straightforward, only when you get into particulars does it get confusing but nowhere near as confusing as the civil legal system. Laws are writtne by special interest groups, money changes hands to get laws written in a particular way for those special interest people. Unfortunately there is no real way to get laws removed, they are much harder to delete than create and there is no incentive for legislators to do that, not when they are constantly bombarded by interest groups to create more.
 
RichP said:
You need to remember something, the legal system in this country is a business, an industry and it makes people money, big money, millions to lawyers. Same with the tax structure, you have people who go to school with the intent and purpose to learn the complexities of the legal and tax systems and to continue on in the same manner, not to simplify it so a normal person can read and understand it. Consider the basic UCMJ, it's pretty simple and straightforward, only when you get into particulars does it get confusing but nowhere near as confusing as the civil legal system. Laws are writtne by special interest groups, money changes hands to get laws written in a particular way for those special interest people. Unfortunately there is no real way to get laws removed, they are much harder to delete than create and there is no incentive for legislators to do that, not when they are constantly bombarded by interest groups to create more.
Click to expand...



And thats the problem with the system. there is SO much wasted money out there its ridiculous and it all trickles down to use the tax payers. The cost of living is becoming outrageous and stuff like this all contributes to it. I don't believe there is a way to fix the system now as its too far gone and its only going to get worse as the years go on unfortunetly. It's sad that everything has turned into a business these days, even college has gone from a service industry to a we don't care were just here to make money now industry its ridic.
 
We are way OT by now, but I enjoyed this little gem :)
XJoshua said:
Remember 90% of the law is common sence.
Click to expand...
My response? That is such a load of crap.
The law is not common sence, it is in actuallity enforced morality...

There are laws against fudging animals, because some sick fudger did it, and his neighbors were horrified.

There is a rule mandating covering Off-Road lights because some azzhat shined drivers infront of them. Someone else thought that was a bit much and proposed a rule to stop it.

There are DB limits on your sound system because folks got sick and tired of impolite people rattling their windows at stop signs and in residential districts and people got (rightously) annoyed.

Who decided this morality? Your neighbors, the legislature and the courts. You don't like the rules? Go change them and QYB. You have the power.
 
XJoshua said:
...after pulling me over and saying I was going 65 in a 55 which cant be true, because I have bigger tires and stock speedo gear which means my speedo reads 5MPH slower so when Im going 55 Im really going 50, and I was going 55 acording to my speedo because I was in no rush to get home.
Click to expand...
If you have bigger tires and stock speedo you are going faster than what your speedo says. A bigger tire has a larger circumference, a larger circumference means the tire travels farther per revolution than a stock tire which means you were going faster than 55 if thats what your speedo read.
http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html
 
I have a set of 6" 100w fogs on my front bumper that I use at dusk rather than my headlights and I haven't had any trouble. I would think the bright yellow light would draw some attention as well.
 
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