PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

I don't know about disclosing it when applying but they may ask you after they see your current license before they give you new license..

For some reason you get pulled over by police, you can tell a cop about your issue.

Some states have 'code' on the driver's license which cop can tell what issue you have.. Or you can get autism flyer that you keep it in your truck... so when cop pull you over, show the flyer to a cop. Or get a bumper sticker.. something like that.

 

One thing that I am super OCD about is making sure my driver's license never expires. In Pennsylvania, where I live, a license is good for four years; It expires the day after your birthday. A renewal notice is sent out three months before expiration, at which point you write a check for like $33 and send it back to PennDOT (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation). Within a couple weeks, you get your camera and bring it to the DMV; You hand the employee your camera card, give them the last four digits of your social security number, and get your picture taken...

You can look at your picture before it is finalized, and they will take a new one if you don't like the first one. I always go super early in the morning so there isn't a line; Easy as pie!

Despite all of Pennsylvania's shortcomings, one thing I love about it is the ease of renewing a driver's license!

 

I actually went to the county sheriff and applied for a license to carry a concealed "pew pew" primarily for the purpose of seeing if being autistic would be an issue; It was not, and I was in and out with a carry permit in like an hour!

 

Actually, I learned my lesson after the 2017 traffic stop; I have been pull over four times since that incident, all for incredibly minor infractions (rolling a stop sign less than a mile from my house in October 2020, for example, which I only got a written warning for)...

 

Yeah I understand... 4 years is kinda short. Some states have more years renewal. something like 8, 10, 12.. WVA has 8 year renewal cycle.

 

The most complex incident I ever found myself involved in regarding a traffic stop was in January 2019; A girl I knew who also had autism got kicked out of her apartment and showed up at my place of employment with all of her possessions, and she was facing a night on the street in below freezing weather. I made a call to a friend of mine, and this friend agreed to let the first girl crash at her house until she could sort things out. Even if this girl had a driver's license, which did not, she was in no condition to drive because she's been drinking...

We loaded all of her belongings, including her bedding, some stuffed animals, a large flat screen TV, and a PlayStation, into my truck. I worked two jobs at the time, detailing cars at a dealership by day and barbacking at a bar by night; I was at the bar as a customer that night, to watch some friends perform at open mic night. I had two or three nonalcoholic beers, but I didn't drink any legit alcohol, and I was stone cold sober.

Please stay with me; This is a long story, but a good one...

 

@TAZMINATOR

Also, @shakerhood, I've told you this story before; These pictures give you a visual of what went down...

The building in which the bar where I used to work is located, is circled in red. The red line shows the path I took before I got pulled over, and the red X marks the red light I accidentally drove through...

 

I understand.. it happens to us too.. you aren't only one.

 

@shakerhood

I had just worked a long shift at the detail shop that served as my primary source of income, I was incredibly tired, I had been fiddling with the radio in my truck, I had a slightly intoxicated and incredibly chatty female in the passenger seat, and I was going straight at a 3-way intersection where I almost always turned left because that was the way home...

I stopped at the red light, totally zoned out because of the contributing factors listed above, and essentially treated it like a stop sign. If it had been a stop sign, or if I'd been making a right on red, it wouldn't have mattered; The red line shows the way I would have gone to go home, and the blue line shows the route I took to my other friend's house...

 

So, it was about midnight, there were literally no motorists and only one pedestrian out; No harm, no foul...

Yes, I did technically go through a red light, but everyone I have told this story believes it went down in a very unfair manner considering the circumstances; I absentmindedly drove through a red light, and the next thing I know there's red and blue lights behind me, and I am utterly dumbfounded...

My passenger did not realize I'd gone through a red light either, and she believed that I was being targeted simply because I was leaving a bar at midnight; The red line shows my path of travel and the red X shows where I pulled over. The blue X marks the estimated location of the sheriff's deputy when I went through the red light, and the blue line marks his path of travel when he made a left and got behind me...

 

Chatty Female will distract you every time lol, there is even a TV Commercial where a guy almost plows into a Taco Truck because the lady in the passenger seat is carrying on about food.

 

So yeah, it was a sheriff's deputy; In some jurisdictions, the sheriff's department is responsible for all law enforcement functions. In Bucks County, Pennsylvania the sheriff's office is responsible for prisoner transport, court security, foreclosures, and stuff like that while each Borough/Township has its own police department that handles everything from traffic stops to burglaries and homicides. I was stopped in Doylestown Borough, and the Doylestown Borough PD merged with either the Chalfont PD or the New Britain PD (I forget which one) in about January 2014 to form the Central Bucks Regional Police Department. Doylestown Township is separate from Doylestown Borough and has its own police department separate from the CBRPD.

I am the Rainman of identifying vehicles, and I knew for a fact that CBRPD didn't haven't Chevrolet Express or GMC Savanna vans in its patrol fleet; I could tell immediately by the shape and location of the headlights that the vehicle attempting to pull me over was one of those vehicles (virtually identical except for the badge on the grille). For a brief moment, I thought that maybe this was some creeper impersonating a police officer; However, this was Doylestown and not North Philly. My guard remained high, and my plan was to roll up the window and call 911 if I
suspected it was an imposter. If I felt like my life was in danger I would have floored it, then called 911 and let me my employer, who is an attorney and knows every real cop in town deal with the aftermath. I figured out almost immediately that this was a real cop, but not a "cop cop"; He was a sheriff's deputy, and that confused me. As far as I was concerned the sheriff's office didn't do traffic stops; The van he was driving was not a traditional patrol vehicle, but a prisoner transport.

 

Don't share this story with the DMV examiner in WV unless you plan on buying a horse.

 

@shakerhood
@TAZMINATOR

I was NOT trying to be an asshole; I swear on my mother, I was NOT. The deputy asked if I knew why he'd stopped me; I truthfully (from my point of view) told him that I did not...



Looking back on it, I think that's what screwed me from the beginning...



He thought I was trying to be smart with him, without a doubt; He told me that I'd run the red light, and I thought this was a lie on his part until I got home almost an hour later and reviewed the dashcam footage with my parents. I was convinced, especially after my passenger's statement about being targeted for leaving a bar at midnight, that I was being harassed for "suspicion of drunk driving"...

It did not help matters that I called my parents and carried on a less-than-polite conversation about law enforcement in Doylestown on my truck's Bluetooth system, with the window down, that both the deputy and the regular cop who eventually showed up likely both heard.

I have had a few less than pleasant encounters with Doylestown Borough/CBRPD officers over the years, NOT including the time my dad and I got pulled over in 2006 when he was giving me driving lessons in the Doylestown Hospital parking lot, because some idiot security guards thought two white guys in a 10-year old Pathfinder with Virginia license plates must be terrorists, and called 911 instead of approaching said Pathfinder and asking what the occupants were doing...



The bullshit I encountered while receiving driving lessons from my parents is whole other story...

The first police incident I had, following the 2006 hospital incident, occurred in March 2013 when probably half of what was then the Doylestown Borough Police responded to a call of a guy with a camera (that would be me) taking pictures in a residential area.

 

@Red Alert
@shakerhood
@TAZMINATOR

So, going back to the January 2019 incident, 20 minutes or so pass before a regular CBRPD cop shows up in a marked Tahoe and goes over to the deputy who has been in his paddy wagon the whole damn time; Several minutes pass, and the regular cop comes to my window and says "Here's your citation"...

My response was an exasperated and slightly intense, but not at all hostile, "DAMN IT!" The cop says "Sir, calm down, you're being recorded..."

Okay fine; You're being recorded too, I think to myself, looking up at my dashcam.

"You almost caused an accident" (At this point, I still did not believe I'd gone through a red light; I did in fact go through a red light, but my dashcam footage proved that I came nowhere near causing an accident, and that the deputy in his paddy wagon didn't appear until after I'd cleared the intersection).

I'm pretty sure the sheriff's deputy had gone on his merry way at this point; The cop then had the audacity to say "If you try to take this ticket to court, deputy so-and-so and myself will be there to testify against you."

I was livid, and I name-dropped the aforementioned lawyer who owned the bar where I worked.

 

Around 1984 a couple buddies and myself were in downtown Pittsburgh, the tallest building was the US Steel building and there was a fancy restaurant on the top floor called Top Of The Triangle. We parked in the underground lot and thought it would be fun to ride the elevator to the top floor, the first elevator went from the parking garage to the Lobby. As soon as we stepped out into the Lobby we were met with a security guard that did not like us and shoved us back in the elevator and pressed the button for the parking garage. We all got quite pissed on the way down and said screw this and pressed the button back to the Lobby.

When the elevator doors opened up there was an entire team of security waiting for us, we were escorted to a room where we were photographed, had our licenses copied and given paperwork that permanently banned us from stepping foot in the building again. We were given a full escort back to the parking garage where they photographed my car and license plate before finally letting us leave, and we had to pay for parking.

 

@Red Alert
@shakerhood
@TAZMINATOR

Here's what ended up happening; I admit that I was totally in the wrong. I didn't blatantly blow through the red light and nearly cause a crash, but from a legal standpoint I'd run a red light. The aforementioned lawyer, when I talked to him the very next day behind closed doors said "you're screwed", but he knew I was a good kid and a harder worker who didn't deserve three points on his license for a first offense. Once he said he'd help me out, I don't even think I bothered to mention that the cop had basically tried to intimidate me into just paying the tickets and taking the points.

So, lawyer works his magic and while I do not know exactly what he said to the cop and the deputy, I guarantee you it was basically "This guy is one of my employees, and he's a good kid with absolutely no criminal history." The fact that I could have lost my job at the detail shop if I got those points on my license, without a doubt, was also mentioned.

I was actually about to quit the detail shop after having been there only a couple months because it sucked, but in October or early November 2018, I found out that the bar where I'd been working since November 2014 was closing indefinitely at the end of January 2019 due to structural issues in the old building where it was located; I was stuck, and I did not feel like looking for a new job.

I also have absolutely no doubt that my lawyer, who has lots of experience with clients who are on the autism spectrum including minors, played the "He has autism and he sometimes doesn't understand how he comes across" card. I was guilty whether I wanted to admit or not, and this a matter of getting an experienced and respected litigator to plead my case so I didn't make an ass of myself in front of the judge.

My lawyer convinced both the CBRPD cop and the deputy not to come, and another CBRPD cop showed up in there place just as a matter of course; I still had to pay a fine, but as far as my driving record is concerned, it's 100% clean!

In a totally unrelated turn of events, I put in my two weeks at the detail shop in mid-June 2019 and was gone by the end of the months, because as stated above that job fucking sucked and I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into when I took the job in September 2018!

 

I am very pro-police, but I tend to not much care for security guards because I've had so many encounters with them over the last 12 years or so that I've lost count; The majority tend to be egotistical pricks!

 

Your story about you and your Dad in the parking lot reminded me of what happened with me and my buddies.

 

So, I've got absolutely nothing to hide; This happened over three years ago, and my driving record is basically clean. The DMV goes by what's on an official driving record and not word of mouth. I have another friend here on TW who is very open about a DUI conviction from years ago. My philosophy is the saying "never share anything online that you wouldn't want to share with your grandmother" and my beloved Grammy along all of my family including a New Jersey cop, and most of my friends, know about this incident! 100% of them think the whole situation was bullshit!