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

Upper Dublin Township has banned plastic bags, which I literally just found out the hard way when I stopped at the CVS to get my girlfriend's prescription and bought some stuff...

 

When l was young in the 1970s a trip to the store was glass jars, bottles and paper bags. The save the trees crowd insisted on plastic bottles and bags, so now l guess those are out of favor now too.

 

Did you get any tickets for those so-called moving violations?

 

Nope it was all BS stuff. After the cop ran my plates and license he said he looks for petty stuff late at night in hopes of catching drunk drivers.

 

The only time I have been stopped after midnight was at a DUI check point.
The officer asked if I had been drinking. I told him, “Not yet, but if you’re here in about 4 hours. I might have a different answer.” The cop laughed and sent me on my way.

 

Yup, I'd get stopped fairly often in my early 20's just because I worked until 11-12 at night. Owning a hot rod too of course..never got any paperwork back from the officer but for what I gave him, surprise.

I got stopped with my brother in law Black Friday 2016 at a checkpoint, only time I hit one. Cop said "we're checking for people who have been drinking" I answered truthfully "you found 2 sober guys, which I'm sure is what you hope for" He asked where we were going "we just left a Five Finger Death Punch show in Worcester, I'm driving him home and going home myself" done and done

 

I think that's exactly what happened to me on Friday night, but I was sober (albeit very tired), I wasn't that far over the speed limit, and my truck is 100% legal (inspected, insured, etc). It seems like police are getting very aggressive, much more so than they were even before COVID...

 

I think that DUI checkpoints are unconstitutional, a violation of the 4th and 5th amendments. My uncle was a cop in New Jersey for thirty years, and he believes that DUI checkpoints are not only unconstitutional, but a waste of police resources...

 

I've gotten stuck in them twice over the years, they claim if they advertise first that they are having one then it's not unconstitutional.

 

Like they're going to tell you they don't play by the rules..

 

@ColoradoTJ
@steelcity2
@Stitchgirl90
@wilcam47

I believe that police should not be conducting traffic stops in unmarked vehicles, especially late at night, and my parents agree. My mom told me that had she been in that situation, she would have driven to a well-lit and/or highly populated area. I that knew it was a Dodge Charger behind me before I knew it was a cop, but I was so damn tired that I didn't realize it was an unmarked car; I was so tired in fact that I barely remember anything leading up to getting pulled over, other than seeing the car behind me and wondering if it was a cop. I got my answer when the red and blue lights came on...

That said, I was driving on County Line Road this morning maybe a mile from where I got stopped in the wee hours of Saturday morning, and I saw a blue Ford Explorer waiting at the entrance to a subdivision; I knew it was a police vehicle despite it being unmarked, but it was still unmarked. 2011-present Ford Explorers have replaced the Crown Vic as the ubiquitous police vehicle, and I freak out whenever I see one in a "boring" color behind me nowadays. I freaked out a little bit when I saw the blue Ford Explorer waiting in the neighborhood to my right, immediately checked my speedometer, breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that I was going maybe 3 MPH over the speed limit. In Pennsylvania, 6 MPH over the speed limit is the minimum it takes to get points on your driver's license, and 5 MPH is what people (myself included) get their tickets reduced to in order to avoid points. So, I went past the cop and the cop made a right into traffic behind me, then got into the left lane and blew past me...

The cop in the blue Explorer ended up behind a grayish silver late model Jeep Cherokee, driven by a large Hispanic guy; I ended up next to the Jeep, at which point I happened to glance over and notice that the guy wasn't wearing his seatbelt. He had the windows down and the radio on, and he was just chilling and listening to music, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there was a cop behind him. In Pennsylvania, not wearing a seatbelt is only a secondary offense for those 18 and older (minors must wear seatbelts), meaning that the police cannot pull people over just for not wearing a seatbelt and they must be committing a primary offense like speeding or driving with expired inspection stickers.

The Jeep had been behind me on the 202 bypass, not driving in a particularly dangerous manner, but I'm thinking that the cop must have run the guy's license plate and found something amiss. The light turned green, everyone started moving, and the cop pulled over the Jeep for seemingly no reason. The Jeep driver signaled and immediately pulled over, and he didn't seem to be particularly pissed off about being pulled over. The cop had not been in front of the Jeep from what I could tell, so he wouldn't have been able to tell if it had expired inspection stickers. The "Click It or Ticket" campaign ran from May 15th through June 4th of this year, so I don't think he was pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt; I'm guessing the registration was expired or something.

On another note, this traffic stop occurred on County Line Road, which as the name implies divides Bucks County from Montgomery County. The cop in the blue Explorer had been sitting on the Montgomery County side, and it was an unmarked vehicle so I don't know what department he was from; I honestly don't even know which Montgomery County department has jurisdiction over that area, but it was definitely MontCo.

It has gotten to the point that I just will not drive on certain stretches of road because now because torturously low speed limits and a high police presence. The stretch of Maple Avenue where I got stopped a couple weeks ago is a legit speed trap. I refuse to drive in certain parts of Jersey now as well because it is such an over-policed state; I also will no longer drive after about 9pm unless absolutely necessary because of, you guessed it, I don't feel like dealing with the police!

 

I guess I’ve been lucky.
Or don’t take things too personal.

But I don’t really get nervous around or avoid police.

I did go out of my way to avoid those damn speed cameras.
Thankfully they got rid of them a few years ago. They kept the red light cameras though.
I never got a ticket from one. But I was always paranoid.

 

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@Taco critter
@TnShooter
@wilcam47

I see people doing stupid shit on the road all the time that should result in a driver's license revocation or even jail time, and I have even been on the receiving end before; I will freely admit that I can be a bit leadfooted at times, there were a couple of times when I was younger that I drove home after drinking when I probably should not have done so, and there were even times when I drove recklessly; I have seen people driving like total jackasses and thought to myself "where's a cop when you need one?"

 

I had motorcycle.
A Suzuki GSXR. I’ll leave it at that……..

 

I don't avoid police; I chat with them all the time when they show up at car shows during slow periods in their shifts. I just avoid driving in areas with a high police presence, because they've really lowered the standards on requirements for making a traffic stop; I would rather deal with a red light camera, because a ticket from one of those will not result in points on my license around here...

The one police department that I legitimate don't like is Central Bucks Regional Police (formerly Doylestown Borough PD before it combined with Chalfont PD) because they stopped me for taking pictures in March 2013, stopped me for speeding on a deserted road at almost midnight in May 2017, and then finally there was a drowsy driving red light incident in January 2019. Not only that, one of their officers was arrested for soliciting sex from a minor a few years ago!

I personally believe that they leave me alone now because they know that I know a very good attorney who got those two aforementioned tickets reduced to no-point offenses; I can drive through Doylestown in December, with my truck literally lit up like a Christmas tree while I blast Christmas music, and I haven't been stopped yet...

I 100% support the police, but if I get pulled over and ticketed on my truck for having Christmas lights, I will not hesitate to create a PR nightmare for that officer's department. "Autistic motorist pulled over and ticketed for having Christmas lights on his truck in December" in the news will make the department look really bad!

 

There are certain things I will never do again based on less-than-pleasant experiences...

• Date (or even have sex with) a woman who has Bipolar Disorder
• Put stickers and/or magnets on my truck that could offend people
• Work at a job that doesn't pay me either hourly or a set salary
• Ignore a fluctuating temperature gauge in your vehicle
• Use my credit card to help somebody out financially
• Drink any alcoholic beverage that has Monster Energy mixed in
• Drive without a dashcam
• Wear my leather jacket into a bar that allows smoking
• Buy a house that doesn't have public water/sewer
• Live in a neighborhood with a homeowner's association
• Drive on roads with a high police presence and an obnoxiously low speed limit
• Drive after 10pm unless absolutely necessary
• Drive while drowsy

 

These are the only 3 I wouldn’t do.
And I can’t say for sure I’d never do #2.

1. Live in a neighborhood with a homeowner's association
2. Drive while drowsy
3. Ignore a fluctuating temperature gauge in your vehicle


The rest I can think of some pretty good exceptions for when I would.
Or I just would……

 

The thing with the fluctuating temperature gauge is that it happened twice weeks apart; I immediately shut off the engine and popped the hood the first time it happened, and coolant levels were more or less normal. The truck didn't legitimately overheat until September 2022, and after getting the thermostat replaced it didn't show any signs of a blown head gasket until October 2022; I have no idea why truck behaved the way it did.

 

And trust me when I say that you do not want to date somebody who's bipolar, at least if it's poorly managed. One of my good friends is bipolar, but it is very well managed because he has a good psychiatrist and the right mixture of medications.

 

@ABA180
@BkerChuck
@ColoradoTJ
@Just_A_Guy
@RustyGreen
@shakerhood
@steelcity2
@Taco critter
@TnShooter
@wilcam47

My aunt is bipolar, and for the longest time it was very poorly managed. As a result, she was unpredictable and seemed to single me out for whatever reason. My aunt was living in Colorado by the time I was born, and I can count the number of times I saw her prior to 2002 on one hand. By the time she was regularly in my life, I was a rebellious teenager, and the way she treated me put a major strain on our relationship. Part of it was the fact that she was just very bossy and for some reason thought it was her duty to correct me whenever I did something wrong (or that she saw as wrong). For example, when she was still living with my grandma, she bitched me out for pulling into the driveway too fast. The window in the breakfast room at my grandma's old house has a panoramic view of driveway and the entrance to the development. I got out of the truck and knocked on the door, and as soon as my aunt unlocked the door, she started lecturing me about driving too fast; I basically told her to shove it, and my grandma had to break up the resulting argument.

My therapist said that my aunt saw me as her "whipping boy". Basically, she took out her frustrations on me. It did not help that my aunt was a social worker and foster parents for many years, and part her of job was keeping kids under control and telling them what to do. My aunt basic wanted to relive the glory days of a job she had to leave in her late 30s due to a back injury she received while on the job.

I had two sets of grandparents on my dad's side due to a divorce in the 1960s. My biological grandmother and my step grandmother are both still alive, but my biological grandpa died of lung cancer in November 2007 at the age of 71 and my step grandpa died in May 2017 at the age of 93. We have a "second Thanksgiving" at my step grandma's house on the weekend after Thanksgiving, and this particular incident took place after 2015 but before COVID started; I do not remember what year it actually was. Anyway, I was seated on the living room couch, two-fisting potato chips from a bowl on the coffee table. My aunt decided to bitch at me about eating too much, and this had been the umpteenth case of my sticking her nose in my business, so it was the straw that broke the camel's back and I flipped out at her; I immediately ran into the kitchen, and my aunt made a bizarre comment along the lines of "run to daddy".

Fortunately, the whole family saw the incident, and everybody sided with me. That was the very last time that my aunt ever pulled that shit. My aunt and I are on decent terms right now, but I haven't seen her since before COVID because she now lives in Georgia.