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by mr.72
Tue Feb 17, 2009 10:20 am
Forum: LEO Contacts & Bloopers
Topic: Pulled Over By Lakeway's Finest
Replies: 12
Views: 2121

Re: Pulled Over By Lakeway's Finest

Back in the 90s I worked in Lakeway, lived in NW Austin. I have always had sports cars and during this time in my life I had a '72 240Z. This car was loud (headers, glasspack, nothing else), it attracted a lot of attention, and I was young. It also turns out that I had just swapped the transmission in this car for a 5-speed from a 280ZX and I was unsure that the speedometer was reading correctly.

One day someone broke into my car overnight in my apartment complex parking lot, and as a result the driver's side quarter window was broken out. I still had to drive it to work that day and since it was not raining I just left it alone and drove in. Of course I get into Lakeway and I got pulled over just before turning into my office. The officer came up behind the window, asked me for my name and ID, I handed it out the window, then he just handed it back and said, "ok, just checking". After asking him what was up he said he noticed the car was loud and probably going faster than normal, and with the broken window he wanted to make sure it was not stolen. He also mentioned that he recognized my car, since I drove to work there daily. So once he had established that I was in fact the owner of the car I was free to go. So then I caught him while he was about to walk away and asked if I was speeding. He looked puzzled, said nobody had ever asked him that, and he said he didn't know because he wasn't checking my speed. Then he asked why I would ask, and I explained that I knew what my indicated speed was, but I wasn't sure what my actual speed was due to changing the transmission in the car. So he says, "ok, tell you what. You go on down the highway. Drive '55' on your speedometer and then at the next light pull over and I'll tell you what your actual speed was". So that's just what I did. I drive 55.0 on the speedo, then pull over at the next light, he pulls in behind and says "ok, you were going about 78. So if you keep the speedometer on about 40 then you should be fine. Have a nice day!"

I had been driving through Lakeway to work for over a month going 23 mph or more over the speed limit and didn't get pulled over until they suspected my car was stolen.

I got the impression that since they recognized my car and knew I was a regular person working in Lakeway, they sort of looked the other way on speeding. But who knows for sure.

Anyway, this and several other encounters with Lakeway PD made me quite a fan of that police dept. Years later I was a coach of my daughter's softball team and one of the parents of another kid on the team was a Lakeway PD officer and he told me that they try to be pretty easy going with the regular people, and since it's such a small community they can keep a pretty good watch on who 'belongs' and who doesn't.

I have a ton of other fun police traffic stop stories, but I'll quit now since this is the best Lakeway story.

Needless to say, I went on and changed the differential in my car with the same one from the 280ZX and got the speedo reading right on, and I never got pulled over again in Lakeway.

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