Toyota Stalking, er...um, SPOTTING with Charlie™ (Cars, vans, SUVs, Lexus, Scion, and brochures)!

Literally two minutes later...

 

A few years ago l was at a car show and a guy approaches the stop sign I am standing near, he starts to rev it up. He couldnt see around all the people but I could see a cop literally a few feet from him so I said to him not to light em up cause there is a cop right there but he proceeds to do a massive burnout anyway and the cop pulled him over immediately.

 

I did not see what he did, but people who actually witnessed it told me that he attempted a burnout and the cop was right there, and then I also heard that he tried to run but got caught at the light; Considering that the cop didn't pull him out of the car and cuff him, I think that was a bit of an exaggeration on the part of the people who witnessed it. My truck wasn't exactly designed for burnouts even when it was new, with a 2.7L 4-banger mated to a 4-speed automatic; With almost 150K on the clock, I'm sure that the horsepower and torque have diminished. That said, I did a "burnout" on gravel when leaving a car show back in November 2019; I made sure there wasn't a cop around before I did it...

 

Silver 1994 Corolla DX wagon linked in first quote...

 

Perhaps but a more profitable venture than DD I presume

 

I got pulled over for laying a slab in my Camaro long ago. Saw a motorcycle going the other way as I laid into it, turns out it was a motorcycle cop. My buddy was scared to death freaking out b/c he thought for sure I was going to jail, told him STFU or I will slug him. Cop tears my license and reg out of my hand while yelling at me and then gets an armed robbery call. Tells me smarten the F up or else next time I'm going to jail and it's $150. My buddy is just starting to breathe again, I said "at $30 a foot? I left a lot more than 5 feet of the shit!"

 

Yeah, but I want to preserve my truck now; Effectively everything underneath it is brand new and only has about 8,000 miles on it. Also, if I were to go into that business, I'd want something with AWD; Never know what kind of weather you're heading into!

 

I mouthed off to a cop once; Ended up with a speeding ticket that I probably wouldn't have gotten had I been more polite. Pretty sure that I've never come close to getting arrested though!

 

True, though if it's profitable enough you could buy a second vehicle for work I suppose

My one time getting the bracelets had nothing to do with my language, though I'm sure that didn't help

 

There was the time in January 2019 when a series of unfortunate factors combined to cause trouble for me; A girl I knew who has autism like me got kicked out of the apartment she where she living after the chick who was the primary leaseholder found out she (the girl I knew) had slept with a guy that she (the girl who paid who of the rent) was presently sleeping with. With no place to go, she showed up at Puck with all of her possessions including a flat screen TV, hoping one of her friends who played open mic night could take her in. I called up a friend of mine who agreed to let this other girl crash there, and we loaded her stuff into my truck; She got in the shotgun seat and we headed to my friend's house. I was totally sober, but I had just worked all day at the detail shop where I used to work; I was drowsy, and I had a drunk female next to me yammering in my ear. I was also going straight at a 3-way intersection where I was used to making a left turn, and we were listening to the radio (the radio was not on really loud, but it was still just another distraction).

So, I made a right from Printer's Alley onto East State Street; I came to a red light at the intersection of East State Street and South Main Street. I was used to going left on South Main, but getting to my friends house in Chalfont required me to go straight and stay on East State. The combination of work-induced drowsiness and the distractions I mentioned above caused me to zone out; I looked both ways, waited a few seconds, and treated the red light like a stop sign. It was almost midnight and there was literally nobody around, so while I did technically run the red light, it was not like I blatantly went through it when there were cars around because I didn't feel like waiting. It was 100% an accident, and I think any reasonable LEO would have cut me a break.

So, unbeknownst to me, there was was a sheriff's deputy in a prison transport van to my left heading up South Main Street. Even though that jerk claimed that I almost caused an accident, my rear-facing camera shows that his van didn't enter the intersection of South Main and East State until I was probably half a block away; I didn't know anybody was around until the red and blue lights came on.

I am a total automotive nerd, and I knew that the Central Bucks Regional Police did not drive full-size GM vans like the one that was attempting to pull me over, so I was initially thinking that maybe this was someone impersonating a police officer; At this point, I didn't realize I had gone through a red light, and my passenger believed we were simply being harassed because it was late and we'd just left a bar.

So, the guy in the van was for real, but he wasn't a traditional cop; Until that night, I had no idea that the sheriff's department was allowed to conduct traffic stops. The Bucks County Sheriff's Office is a separate entity from all police departments in the county, generally dealing with stuff like prisoner transport, courthouse security, and foreclosures, among other things. I later found out that the sheriff's office is allowed to conduct traffic stops, but due to having a separate union from the police department, they don't actually write tickets...?

Anyway, so the deputy was younger than me (I was 29 at the time) and he asked if I knew why he'd pulled me over; I truthfully answered that I did not, and I believe that this was my first mistake because he thought I was being a wiseass. He told me what I'd done, and a combination of being both tired and aggravated likely caused me to come off as kind of a dickhead, and that I really didn't give a shit that I just ran a red light.

 

@ABA180

He requested my driver's license, insurance, and registration and I handed it to him; I was fully cooperative and didn't do anything wrong, but my best guess is that the deputy thought I was being a wiseass and trying to brush off the seriousness of what I'd just done, when in actuality I had no idea what I'd just done and thought I was being harassed for "suspicion of drunk driving".

So, the deputy disappeared back into his van and I had no idea what was going on; I called my parents. It was chilly out and I had the truck running so I could keep the heat on, but the windows were cracked, and my high-powered stereo likely amplified the conversation I was having with my parents on the Bluetooth. I went on a rant about the police in Doylestown that was likely overheard by both the deputy and the regular cop who showed up. My friend and I sat there for a good twenty minutes before the regular cop showed up in a marked CBRPD Tahoe, but he didn't even come up to my truck or make an attempt to hear my side of the story. Another five or ten minutes went by and the regular cop walked to my truck; No giving me a chance to speak, just said here's you citation...

Exasperated, I responded with a "dammit!" He said "Sir, calm down, you're being recorded." I believe that at this point, I pointed at my dashcam and said "So are you." He then says "you almost caused an accident" and went on to tell me that if I made any attempt to fight the ticket, he and deputy so-and-so would be there to testify; Straight-up intimidation as far as I'm concerned.

I then name-dropped the influential lawyer who owned Puck and said I worked for him. It was not until I got home over an hour later and reviewed the dashcam footage with my parents that I realized I had in fact run the red light.

Long story short, I hired the aforementioned lawyer, who knew every cop in town and made a few calls; I have no idea what was said, but I'm guessing it was something along the lines of "Charlie is a good kid and a hard worker with no criminal record, who has autism and also has a job at a car dealership that requires him to maintain a clean driving record." I was working in the detail shop at a large dealership at the time, and Puck was less than a month away from closing indefinitely, so this was about to be my only source of income.

I still had to pay both a fine and lawyer fees, but the charges were reduced so I didn't get any points on my license and my driving record remained clean. I admit that I was wrong, but in that situation the behavior of both LEOs involved is what ultimately drove me to fight the ticket as a symbolic way of giving them the finger. I wholeheartedly support the police 100%, but seeing as this was the very same department that stopped me for taking pictures of old houses back in 2013 (Four cops interrogated me on the street for like 20 minutes because someone called 911 claiming I was casing the neighborhood ), I am not particularly fond of the Doylestown Borough/Central Bucks Regional police department.

 

2019 86


April 10th, 2022:

Hatfield, Pennsylvania

 

@ColoradoTJ

2006 Lexus IS350


April 10th, 2022:

Hatfield, Pennsylvania

 

1998 Lexus GS400, with badges from its JDM twin, the Toyota Aristo; 3rd time seeing this car in roughly a year!


April 10th, 2022:

Hatfield, Pennsylvania

 

2016 Scion IM; This is NOT the same car that showed up at a cruise night in Quakertown a few years ago (before COVID). I don't remember if the Rugrats-themed "Reptar Wagon" was a Scion or a Toyota-badged Corolla IM, but that car had a manual transmission and this one is automatic...


April 10th, 2022:

Hatfield, Pennsylvania

 

If I remember correctly, I lost some of the photos in the vast expanse of my external hard drive and only posted a few at first, then found the rest once we were well into the COVID pandemic; I cannot believe that this was almost four years ago!

 

Going back to the IM that I saw at the meet on Sunday evening, this thing had a hell of a sound system; The car's factory stereo is still intact, and this system basically bypasses. There is a single-DIN head unit in a box on the front seat, as seen in the last photo, and it is hooked up to the massive system in the backseat!

I absolutely love this system, but in the early stages of research before I actually put the subwoofer and amp in my truck, I did a lot of research so I could have a system that was practical and among other things did not cut into my interior space; In a regular cab Tacoma, space is at a premium. This system is a work of art in my opinion, but it renders the car almost completely unusable for more than one person.

 

2001 Lexus IS300; This is the third 2001 IS300 I saw that day, and if you look closely at the trunk you will see that it used to be yellow...


April 10th, 2022:

Hatfield, Pennsylvania

 

Actually, I'm thinking that this car was always white, that it was damaged in the rear, and that it got a replacement trunk lid from a totaled donor car that happened to be yellow...

 

2010 Scion TC


April 10th, 2022:

Hatfield, Pennsylvania