Cars That Are Cop Magnets?

[MA-Caver]

Reading this I wonder if it's true?...
http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/850/is-your-car-a-cop-magnet

Wonder if the obverse is true as well... cars that get the LEAST amount of tickets... Surprise surprise... the Jaguar XJ ranks #1 on the least ticketed auto on the road today... (according to this report anyway)...

But do officers actually pull over cars simply on the make and model... I don't think so... you got to GIVE the officer a REASON to make them want to pull you over, failure to signal, running a stop (or a "Californian Stop" ) or whatever.

LEO's on this forum what say you to this report/article??
Also is color (i.e. Red) really that much of an attractant?

 

[CoryKS]

It probably has more to do with the type of buyer that a certain car attracts rather than the make/model itself. Most of the highly-ticketed cars on that list are sporty higher-end models - the type that attracts flashy, status-oriented attention seekers. Selfcentric people are probably less inclined to think the traffic laws apply to them.

 

[Tez3]

Here, it's not so much the sporty or powerful type of car, it's the boy racers police watch out for, it's mostly small cars that have been customised and are driven by young men (though some are female). I'm not sure if you have the same sort of small cars in America. It's things like the Citreon Saxo, Vauxhall Corsa, Renault Clio, they are only 1.1 or 1.2 as insurance for young men is expensive. They do tune the engines up though and they speed but don't have the experience to be able to control the cars at high speed. In my area we've had several deaths in RTAs involving young men and speeding. One of our fighters who's only 20, has had 3 accidents and written off 2 cars already since getting his licence at 18 (the youngest legal age here to get a licence), he was banned from driving for 3 months and had to do an advance driving course, he doesn't drink or smoke but dear lord, he speeds!
The other problem with boy racers is that they congregate in car parks at night to show off. They also speed up and down town streets. The car they lust after but can rarely afford is the Subaru Impreza, the police however do have them, in the top of the range, very fast 0-60 in 4.25 secs, max speed 155mph thing lol!



Other than the boy racers it's the 'rep' cars that are most likely to be stopped, usually the Ford Mondeo and the Vauxhall Cavalier, these are the most common fleet vehicles used by companies and the drivers are nearly always in a hurry. The 'white van man' everyone hates public and police, they are always in a hurry, they cut you up, have no road manners and are usually speeding to the next delivery. They're usually stopped for not wearing seat belts, mandatory here.

 

[terryl965]

Well we have a mini van and we are not even on someone radar, thank god.

 

[redantstyle]

i cant follow the logic here.

cops pull you over because you have a mechanical violation or are breaking a traffic law.

 

[Carol]

Some cars get pulled over more often than others.

Red is the longest wavelength, it catches one's eye more readily than other colors. There was a reason my candy-apple red Camaro was also called arrest-me red....

There's also a reason why I drive a much more conservative car now...

 

[seasoned]

Maybe it's not the make of the car, as much as the type of people, that buy and drive these models. Maybe the cops know that who ever is behind the wheel of one of those most stopped cars, is that same old person that will give them sh--, every time, just maybe.

 

[redantstyle]

Some cars get pulled over more often than others.

Red is the longest wavelength, it catches one's eye more readily than other colors. There was a reason my candy-apple red Camaro was also called arrest-me red....

ah, i see. so certain vehicles are more liable to catch the eye, and therefore increase your chances of getting a ticket if you got one coming.

that makes perfect sense.

 

[sjansen]

I recieved plenty of tickets until I got a high priced car. Once I got a vehicle that cost more than $20,000 I was never pulled over. Cops don't want people who can afford a lawyer to come to court and fight a ticket.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

I've been pulled over numerous times in my Subaru WRX buy have only got warnings.
I wonder why that is.

 

[jks9199]

There are a combination of factors that figure into whether a car comes on my personal radar.

If I'm running radar, it's going to be whether or not I have a good visual estimate of the speed, which the radar confirms. Yeah, a more visible car is probably going to catch my eye. Same principle if I'm watching a stop sign or even just driving down the road. If your car or your driving makes me look twice, you got a better chance of being stopped.

Otherwise, there are other indicators I look for that, through training and experience, are often associated with criminal activity. No -- I'm not going to list them, though you can probably guess a lot of them.

But I think a part of it is indeed the personality of the person likely to buy a particular car. The folks likely to buy some cars are also more likely to drive fast or kind of reckless...

 

[jks9199]

I recieved plenty of tickets until I got a high priced car. Once I got a vehicle that cost more than $20,000 I was never pulled over. Cops don't want people who can afford a lawyer to come to court and fight a ticket.

Sorry...

I for one (and just about nobody I've worked with) let the value of the car decide whether it'll get stopped.

Just maybe it's that, once your car was worth more, you began to drive with more respect for the car and the law? :shrug:

 

[grydth]

One suspects that driver behavior has much more to do with tickets than car make.... although some drivers seem to actually drive like the stereotype they imagine would be at the wheel of a certain car.

 

[CoryKS]

One suspects that driver behavior has much more to do with tickets than car make.... although some drivers seem to actually drive like the stereotype they imagine would be at the wheel of a certain car.

Yup. There's a reason why there's no song called "Bitchin' Camry". :rofl:

 

[elder999]

I like to drive fast.

I get out of a lot of tickets.

I drive all sorts of things, and ride more than a few sorts of bikes.

All of that said, a great deal of the time I get pulled over not because I'm driving fast, or because of a mechanical violation, but because of the car I'm driving, and the color of my skin. Or some combination thereof.

To be fair, I've been pulled over driving a Ferrari, a Porsche, and a Bentley, simply because the cop wanted to check the car out.....I was kinda cool with that. Certainly didn't have anything to do with the color of my skin, or anything else.....they just "hadn't seen one of these before."

To be fair, I've gotten out of even being written a ticket for driving at an excessive rate of speed, in part because I was sober, in part because of the hour of day, and, in part because of the car I was driving. (Highly modified Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite, 1982, 127 mph at 4:00 AM just off the LIE-Trooper, look at how the car smiles at me-there's no one on the road. I just had to. Wouldn't you? :lol: )

On the other hand, I've been pulled over more than once driving a Mercedes or BMW and the first question out of the cop's mouth-before "License, registration and insurance"-has been "Is this your car?" :lol:


I don't even want to talk about muscle cars, Corvettes or those PowerWagons that I love so much......:lol:

Oddly enough though, I rarely get pulled over on two wheels.......

 

[jks9199]

All of that said, a great deal of the time I get pulled over not because I'm driving fast, or because of a mechanical violation, but because of the car I'm driving, and the color of my skin. Or some combination thereof.

I don't know what may or may not have happened or led to you being stopped.

But I will categorically state that it's very difficult for an officer to stop a car based solely on the race of the driver. Especially at night or if that car is moving at a high rate of speed.

My jurisdiction is a small town; we have NO highways and the town code states that, unless otherwise posted, the speed limit is 25 mph. Even so, when I worked patrol, it wasn't real common to know the race of the driver until I walked up on the car. When I'm looking at a car for a violation, I'm looking at the driving, not the driver, whether I'm assessing the speed of the car or whether the wheels are moving, or whatever else.

Let me suggest a relatively simple experiment. Look around your community, and find a convenient parking lot adjacent to the road. Park legally, and watch the cars. Try it in the daytime and the night. I suspect that you'll find it a bit enlightening... because I bet that you won't be sure (and often, not even able to hazard a guess) of the race of most of the drivers.

 

[MA-Caver]

I've been pulled over numerous times in my Subaru WRX buy have only got warnings.
I wonder why that is.

Probably because you didn't give the officer any grief.

I've been pulled over a few times as well... cooperated totally with the officer, spoke respectfully, always kept my hands in view... let them know what I was reaching for in the glove box (registration and insurance info) BEFORE I reached for it and waited til I got their nod of okay, opened it, moved back to let them SEE inside the box and then got the info ... basically showed them the respect they're due simply because they're doing their job. :idunno: Gotten off with more warnings than anything else. Knowing how stressful a simple traffic stop can get I try to make MY traffic stop as easy for the officer as I can.
The only time I gotten a ticket was driving my friend's Red Camero doing 30 in a school zone that I had no idea WAS a school zone ... but I didn't even argue with the cop... his expression told me that he wouldn't brook no argument. Ah well... no biggie.

 

[elder999]

I don't know what may or may not have happened or led to you being stopped.

But I will categorically state that it's very difficult for an officer to stop a car based solely on the race of the driver. Especially at night or if that car is moving at a high rate of speed.

My jurisdiction is a small town; we have NO highways and the town code states that, unless otherwise posted, the speed limit is 25 mph. Even so, when I worked patrol, it wasn't real common to know the race of the driver until I walked up on the car. When I'm looking at a car for a violation, I'm looking at the driving, not the driver, whether I'm assessing the speed of the car or whether the wheels are moving, or whatever else.

Let me suggest a relatively simple experiment. Look around your community, and find a convenient parking lot adjacent to the road. Park legally, and watch the cars. Try it in the daytime and the night. I suspect that you'll find it a bit enlightening... because I bet that you won't be sure (and often, not even able to hazard a guess) of the race of most of the drivers.

**** your experiment.

Top down, broad daylight, in legal compliance with no mechanical failures.

I'll repeat: Is this your car?

 

[sjansen]

My old car was a 1988 Chevy celebrity (in the 1990's). My new car was 1998 Grand Prix GTP, supercharged. You can bet I sped more in the GTP. I just didn't get pulled over. Make whatever sense you want out of it. I speed alot in my new full size pickup too. I just don't get pulled over in that either. I ran blew through a stop sign last weekend in a brand new pathfinder on accident and a cop was going the other way less than a second after me. I figured I'd get pulled over but that didn't happen.

It might just be my experience, but it seems odd to me.

 

[mozzandherb]

I think that the police are on the look-out for specific types of cars, mainly those that have some significant modifications done to the suspension or exhausts.
It is easy to spot these cars because they are lower and they are loud. I have an extremely modified Honda, and police targetted me because of my free flowing muffler, now I have a more restrictive muffler, but it's legal and still the police have pulled me over, but now I carry around a piece of cardboard that shows that my muffler is legal.
The police do target people, areas, and for that matter certain cars