This is why you just pay the bail by mail. You don't want to attract any attention to yourself by showing up in court because you will lose.


Everyone keep a ref ticket fund saved up. As I said before you don't have to fix it if you pay the bail. It just doesn't protect you from getting popped the next day.

What I can tell you is the CHP is the worst, if you get pulled by CHP, prepare for that ticket. Just smile and take it.

 

Why are people surprised they get in trouble for removing SMOG equipment? This isn't 1965 people.

 

^^ Hi hater!

 

You know the better your engine is running and converting HC, CO, and NoX the more CO2 it puts out. So effectively a crappy running car with no smog equipment contributes far less greenhouse gas emissions.

The problem is the whole smog program is a complete joke. It regulates the emissions of an end-user product that seriously probably contributes less then 5% of the total pollutants. The major players are factories, airplanes, transportation big rigs, etc etc....

Even creating a brand new car causes far more pollutants and energy use then just buying an old car and driving it around until it dies. Funny how Obama pushed the cash for clunkers initiative when all it did was stimulate the economy of other countries and effectively create more pollutants around the world.

This state is so stupid it is terrible.... although I have no problem with loud ricers getting pulled over and reffed lol.

 

well this should just want more people to go v-mount. ill be getting mine back on the road soon ill have to ask my neighbor if there is a way to be able to drive away if there is no probable cause and they want to be dicks

 

Hello,
took my replica Dino Ferrari to the Smog Ref in Oxnard, they took one look and didnt know how to test. Went back to DMV to tell them the smog ref cant do anything, then DMV said go to the CHP and have them check it out. Told the CHP that my car is a Specially Constructed Vehicle and should be smog exempt. They signed off on it and back to DMV and got a Certificate of Sequence, now smog exempt.

 

If you get pulled over by a CHP, ask him/her if they were one of the escorts for the Governators (aka Sperminator) Escorts.

 

CHP the worst

 

what ever happened to your ticket???

 

Update. I won my court case last week, only have to deal with the stupid fix its (tint and front plate).

The ref ticket was dismissed under the circumstance the officer had no probable cause to pull me over and issue the citation. On top of the fact that I already currently had a citation relating to the same issue.

 

Cali is seriously screwed up. They should look at one thing and one thing only. Tailpipe emissions. That's it. If you want loud exhaust, it's freedom of expression in my book. Look at how the Bike Lobby has fought to keep their rights. It blows me away how Cali on one hand can be such a huge source for aftermarket parts manufacturers and automotive creativity, then slaps down their population for wanting the very things that these companies produce.

 

Wow congrats man.

 

Yeah due to being military in cali i have my 83 FB and my motorcycle registered in georgia.. Just gave my dad general power of attourney and he takes care of it for me.

 

while i somewhat agree, the amount of older cars on the road and the fact that they basically do not allow you to even replace your muffler in california with a non OEM one is way over the top. you simply don't see 80's cars out there billowing out black smoke anymore.

the easiest way to bypass all the drama is to build up a pre '75 vehicle and simply not worry about it at all, since that is how they have made it work.

tailpipe emissions alone is how it SHOULD work but as i said, this is all about selling new cars and county income generation.

for the noise bullshit you mentioned, it's not an expression of freedom it's called being a d-bag and they should more strictly enforce it over 100% stock emissions equipment IMO. i can't count how many times i've had some harley ride by my house shaking the walls, wake me up and i just want to grab my Kimber .45 and get rid of the shallow end of the gene pool. it's disrespectful. while i do have modified exhaust i don't flaunt it in urban areas in the middle of the evening, or fly past the 80 year old grandma popping flames at her...

 

 

Ive had 2 ref tickets before in my sr20 swapped 240sx.. First time, my buddy was driving the car and we had a chain of other cars at 1am leaving a friends house to go get something to eat, they just profiled the car because it was at the end of the chain (mis matched bodykit color didnt help). They pulled him over in my car (because I wanted to drive his sweat 240z so i let him drive my 240sx) , he could not turn the car off because of the turbo timer so they hassled him and had him throw the keys out to the ground lol.


But yeah they didnt know what they where looking at, 1 male and 1 female officer, they had to pull out a book, and i kept hearing the girl ask "is this illegal? what about this? oh " lol

I went to court and pleaded guilty and just got a bail amount, and then told them I couldn't pay all at once so they gave me payment options.

2nd time I got a ref ticket, i was flying around a corner at the university so I was asking for it.. Did same thing, pleaded guilty and made payments.
I still drove the car while the ref tickets where pending since I had no other car to drive and I would state that if I ever got pulled over during that time.
I recently went on vacation and drove across the country, and it amazes me all the bullshit taxes and fees we have. in PA, no tax on clothing, in Nevada no tax on food. Freaking awesome.

Prior owner of my fc had it registered out of state . When i registered it, I put a front plate on. Being a clean solid color helps too. Car is not loud at all. All those help, I was daily driving it. My car otherwise has no emissions stuff on it.

But with modified cars, I really dont drive it just anywhere, usually only when i have to go somewhere, school, work etc. Try not to go to the malls etc. But I love using the car for dates.

 

Just need to get a petition to abolish the police roadside visual inspection. Make some valid points that it will save the state and people money. I'll deal with the smog checks, just get rid of visual.

I think it could be possible if you could get ahold of every single car on the road and tell them to duck and avoid a ref ticket, so than for a while they wont make money off ref, while still paying ref stations, they could lose money.. and then use that as cause to abolish the roadside inspections

 

They can still give you a ref ticket even if your car is out of state and you do not meet one requirement by cali state laws to register your car here. ask me how I know... **** CALI! VOte to fix this place or it will never get fixed. I cant wait to be done with school and the **** out of here.

 

We're actually in agreement. My comment wasn't intended to support noise, just point out how there are double standards in the industry with bikes having no consequences, yet cars seem to get hassled to the nth degree. It's all about revenue generation for the states...

 

Realistically you can get a ref ticket even if your car is stock, just because cops are dicks.

However, there are plenty of options to fight it with. Including lack of evidence or lack or probable cause for the stop in the first place such as in the OPs case.

 

The hottest month for me was getting pulled over 3 times in 1 month. I also had an inspection done, popped the hood and everything by CHP. Everything under the hood looked stock, so no ticket(s). I also got harassed for having tinted tail lights, even though they are stock on the FD...

A car approaching 20 years in age, and it still gets pulled over. lol

 

All said and done, pay to play...

Awesomeness = harassment forever

 

Unfortunately, you can still get tickets even if the car is pre 76. I've gotten pulled over many times in my Datsun Z but lucky enough to be let off with multiple warnings. Common thing I'm always asked is, "What have you done to the car." I just tell them engine overhauled and replace broken parts. What really gets them going is my exhaust though (canister type). They'll end up following me around for a little and then pull me over. Even with motor swaps in old cars, it becomes a gray area. Lots of the swap are alway imported engines that were never made available here in the US which still doesn't make it legal to swap over. If swapping in a 20B, SR20, RB2X isn't legal in the first place, putting that in an old school isn't going to be legal as well. It's just that there's a gray area with old school cars that most of the time they let it go.

 

yes it still isn't legal with pre-smog vehicles but unless you do something very stupid, i have yet to hear of a single pre-smog vehicle get sent in for a referree inspection for original smog equipment. generally because even the pencil pushing ticket tagging officers know that you couldn't get much worse emissions wise than those vehicles came factory with, doing a swap increases mileage and even straight piped they burn cleaner, i'd straight up tell a cop that too to perhaps enlighten them to a simple concept.

 

It's a damn shame that people who are supposed to be protecting us from the truly dangerous idiots running around loose are put in the position of having to even concern themselves with a problem that from a simple standpoint of scale doesn't make a beer-fart-in-a-whirlwind's bit of difference with regard to actual, perceivable air quality; that being the emissions of the tiny remaining population of older performance-modified but otherwise scrupulously tuned and maintained cars.

There simply are not (and never have been) enough modded cars on the road to do more than jiggle the last decimal place in actual air quality now. Far worse are the more numerous rolling crap-pile pickups and other 'exempt' vehicles that are not maintained, but fall outside of enforcement of any emission standard

A smart, non-ideologically driven enforcement process would simply let you buy, for a few hundred bucks a year perhaps, exemption from the as-manufactured smog limitations for a vehicle, perhaps even tying the fee to annual miles driven, which would be a self-regulating limit on the pollution generated; you buy however many miles worth of exemption as you will use.

The money gained through the purchases, not to mention the savings from wasted LE, court, & documentation man-hours alone would be staggering - - and could be used to clean up actual, public-health-significant sources of pollution.

But it's not about logic or even about revenue per se; it's about an ideology approaching the level of religious zealotry, masquerading as public policy.