Modern Vespa

Who here has ever received a speeding ticket while riding their vespa? I never see motorbikes in general being pulled over. Are bikes just that much harder to radar?

Not trying to troll if this subject is taboo, just curious because I'm wondering why I haven't been pulled over a few times.

Scooter speedos can be rather...um...optimistic. Perhaps you weren't going as fast as you thought.

ha, yeah... i understand there's about a 5mph ego booster built in.

however, i'm pretty sure 55 (adjusted) in a 35 is outside the typical margin of error.

I blame the wildly optimistic speedo.

I was caught on a radar 69 in a 50kph. It was within 50 meters of the zone change sun was in my eyes had my hand in front blocking sun did not see the sign. Cop acknoledged this but gave me 120 dollar fine. I read about radar and how hard it is to hit aerodynamic objects, the area I was caught in had a series of rolling hills. I went to court armed with my leak proof case, made a great presentation to the amusement of the whole gallery left having to pay my 120 fine plus court costs of 130 lost half a day I was not amused If there is a vehicle behind you it is hard to hit a bike on radar according to the litterature I read about it. So you can have a case In my case I may have won but I made a little mistake along the way in court room procedure. I like to think of it as learning curve.

luck.

Just wait

of course, mine was in Nevada. I was caught in a speed trap in a tiny little town by a highway patrolman who had seen some 5-7 or so other bikes go by (the others on Cannonball) and decided to switch the side of the road he was watching on the bike directly before me (glasseye). Caught us both. D'oh.

Yeaup. It can happen. Doesn't happen every day to everyone on every road. Speed log enough though... And it's just a matter of the odds catching up to you.

Guilty and paid - I have received 2 of them on 2 different Vespas. I wasn't going that fast but faster than the limit so fair enough...

Haven't received a ticket yet, but it is hard not to speed! Especially when you are first at a light and some car is breathing down your neck, convinced that you are some girl riding a slow scooter on a road you shouldn't be on.

Light turns green, I hit the throttle and I am gone! O-60 in about 3 seconds. down the road and the cars are a mile behind.

I smile then look down at my speedometer! I am going 60 in a 35 mile zone! HOLY CRAP! I roll off the throttle and check for cops! Sometime it is hard to realize how fast you are going!

Like I said, so far no tickets here.

I rode by one of those portable things that flashes your speed at you, and I glanced at the speedometer, and I was going 5 mph slower than I thought...

there's not a piaggio or vespa branded bike in the US that can do 0-60 in 3. Actually, Im not even sure the GP800 can do that.

My 80+ hp Honda 599 could do 0-60 in 3.6, and was a rocket. Unless you're on a sportbike, you're getting there a lot slower than you think. A lot.

Yeah, I always punch the gas at a red light and then roll off the throttle.

Can a BV500 do 0-60 in 3 sec?

No, I think it's more like 6-8 seconds on that bike. Also depends on the year. Some of the old MASTERs had sluggish variator configurations.

+1... 0-60 in 3 seconds is faster than a bugatti veyron!! The ONLY piaggio product capable of those times is the new Aprilia RSV4, which is a ridiculously fast superbike... Not that I want to diminish the thrill of your scooter riding.

as far as speeding tickets, I've gotten a couple. Same cop (LAPD bike cop), same road. Needless to say, I've altered my route to work! A brotha can only opt for traffic school every 1 months!!!

I've wondered how accurate radar guns are on scooters. There is a permanent radar speed sign on a street near my office. As I approach it, the numbers go crazy, flipping randomly between 22 and 35 mph (the speed limit is 25). I'm usually going in indicated 30 because I want to see if it will measure my speed but I haven't been able to get it to work. The radar sign works for cars just fine though.

Don't most cops use laser now instead of radar? Those things are crazy accurate!

I can thank lane-splitting for not getting a ticket. I flew past a cop (car), but continued down the lane between a sea of 1mph moving cars. He never had a chance to get me. but I got the message to slow down a bit after that.

I've heard we are hard to radar. I have ridden past cops three times now with radar guns while going 5-10 over the limit. They may not look at the gun because they figure scooters can't speed, they may figure 5-10 over is insignificant or they may not be able to read me. I may find out one of these days which supposition is correct, but I hope not

I guess, it feels like three seconds... excuse my exaggeration.
Suffice to say, I leave all others in the dust....

At least the cars, Goldwings, and most other shifty types of classic bikes.

Going up against a ninja or some other crotch rocket... who knows, but I am not trying to race, I am merely pointing out how easy it is on a scooter to roll on the throttle and go over the speed limit very quickly. Quicker than you realize.

But you know, next time I am going to time it. Just for fun And see how long it takes me to go from 0 to 60. On the appropriate roads of course. I will let you know the official outcome. I also know my scoots speedometer is about 5 mph optimistic.

It's the illusion of speed that we like, not absolute mph. Otherwise we'd spend all of our time flying in commercial airliners (though I do like the takeoff part).

Guy riding a P200 from Richmond to Philly got stopped on a 4-lane highway for 'riding a moped on a highway' ... and was given a speeding ticket for 57 in a 55 zone as cars whizzed by. 70cc and up is legal on freeways in Maryland.

Court date pending ...

Lots of us got stopped during the 2006 Cannonball. I pleaded my way out of a ticket and so did most of the others.

Conventional radar will pick the largest mass. A sports car passing a tractor trailer will be almost invisible to the radar, which will focus on the truck.

Running conventional radar on a crowded road is difficult at best. Too many targets.

Ladar, on the other hand, can focus on a small target or one out of a group.

Got popped on radar twice last year.....47 in a 25 zone....Cop was cool, only wrote me up for 35mph.....$81.

The second was for 83 in a 50 zone....that one was pricey....ociffer cut me no slack, really seemed to enjoy my discomfort. Hope his donuts are all cooked in lard.....

Radar seems to work just fine on my scoots....

R

8)

I plan on pulling the moped card. "Why officer, my moped only goes 28 mph" It is fat lie, but I will try it if needed.

They are, but they still have to be in current calibration. And the cop certified to operate it.

65 in a 50. $120.

Actually haven't had any problems on my GTS with the Fuzz. I sort of think it's because even when the throttle's all the way open and I'm accelerating like mad, it just doesn't sound like I'm going fast.

In Arizona you can get a ticket for 'Display of speed', simply accelerating from a light quickly. It usually involves the chirping of tires and/or engine noise. It actually puts more demerits on your license than a hit and run charge gives you. AZ is CrAZ...

I got stopped for doing 43 in a 25, apparently. The cop was really confused until he saw the 250cc on my registration. He got even more confused when he saw the 300 badge on my vespa. He said I shouldn't ride with a "defective speedometer". He was nice enough not to ticket me, however. I lucked out and paid a little closer attention to the speedo after that.

I'm listening to a lot of hypocritical riders. Many of us report how bad cagers drive and how we almost got hit on MV? We shout "Stupid drivers!" we put in really loud after-market horns, headlight modulators, reflective decals, and we chastise each other for not wearing all the gear to protect us if we get into accidents.

We also need to take responsibilities for riding dangerously. When you get a ticket it is often because the police officer ('fuss' is so 70's!) is trying to save your life by slowing you down. And that often means hitting you where it hurts: in the pocketbook.

No, I don't like getting tickets, either. No, I don't want to go to traffic school and pay fines, anf have my insurance go up. But I do want to stay alive. If you do, them let your actions speak for themselves and quite bitching about the ticket you either got or almost got.

I don't think the original point of the thread was to complain about tickets, but rather to figure out if/why they are uncommon on scooters. That's a valid question.

TonyF does make a point, though, in saying it is pretty silly to treat tickets like highway banditry on the part of the cops or a badge of honor... the best way to be safe is to ride safe.

I've never gotten a speeding ticket on a scooter. First time I got stopped was for riding my P200 on the NJ Turnpike - the rookie cop didn't think it was freeway legal, and was all butt hurt when he had to give me my license & reg back after he verified the motor vehicle code that I explained to him.

The next time I got stopped was for riding my Heinkel too slow on the PCH, just north of San Simeon. The motor was tired and there was a nasty headwind keeping me around 40-45mph, in a 55 zone. I was doing fine, letting cars pass me, until the cop got behind me and started a parade of about a dozen cars, who refused to pass the cop. Then the cop has the gall to complain that I'm obstructing traffic! Thankfully she let me off with a warning though, and I went on my merry, plodding way.

The last time I got pulled over, it was for following too closely on my GTS, on the 101 riding back from the last Hedonism in 2008. That one I did get a ticket for, which I ended up paying. I was thinking about fighting it, but the fact was I was guilty. It was fkn hot, and I was annoyed with the slow drivers hogging the left lane and yeah, I was pretty close to the guy in the Lexus coupe in front of me.

I'm still waiting to get written up for going 80 in a 65... that one'll get framed on the wall.

Let me reiterate:

I am telling folks, who are new to scootering, that it is easy to speed off and not realize how fast you are going. This is simply because a scooter is so much lighter and quicker than a car. Plus you do not have to shift as you accelerate. Twist and go. So take care.

Speaking of the speed limit...
How about you ride the tollways in Chicago during rush hour and ride at the posted speed limit and see if you don't get a multi ton truck up your a$$ or people cutting you off. I keep up with traffic, what ever they are doing. If that gets me a ticket, so be it.

Do you Americans have fixed speed cameras by the road? In Sydney they are generally signposted three times (except in tunnels), so you'd have to be a dickhead to get caught by one. These work by sensors built into the road, so there's bugger all room for error.

Problem is, everyone is too busy looking at their speedo to notice the scooter...

And yes, I'm a dickhead.

Fluffy,
The latest thing we have in my area are cameras at lights. If you go through a red light or an amber light ( a light that turns red when you are halfway through) it takes a photo of you and you get a ticket.

The big problem with these is you can't quick stop a maxi scooter so you try to judge whether you can make it through without it turning red or do a dead stop at a yellow, which is asking to be run over by a car in this area, since a lot of them consider a yellow light a sign to "floor it".

You have to do a lot of quick adjusting and timing when you start rolling up on these lights.

But no cameras on the highways except at the tolls. There was talk of having the cameras/sensors time cars between the tolls and that way they could calculate your overall speed and issue you a ticket that way. I don't think that went through.

I got stopped on a main avenue doing 52 mph in a 45 mph zone. The copper didn't stop me for speeding - in fact he said I was within reasonable limits. Instead, he said he stopped me because he thought my Vespa was a moped-class vehicle. He thought I suped it up to go faster than the legal limits of such a ride. Once he realized it was a motorcycle-classed vehicle, I was on my way.

Also, my buddy told me that he saw a Vespa pulled-over on I-526 going over from N.Charleston to Mt.Pleasant. He said it appeared she was trying to explain that her Vespa is powerful enough to be on an Interstate. Hard to really say if that's what the conversation was about, but he said she was pointing at the Gts250ie part of her Vespa with a "look dumb-ass, it's legal" kind of expression on her face.

In the US it depends on the State ... and more precisely the county or city. Most law enforcement here - especially traffic issues - is a local matter. So, if one city has cameras, the next one may not. I've seen those cameras in my travels overseas though ... and I've been snapped by one while driving a four-wheeler. The flash is blinding, and I was like, "what the *F* was that?"

EDIT: BTW, I've never seen a traffic enforcement camera here in South Carolina ... it would probably end-up with shotgun pellets in it ... like most of our rural road signs.

You must be talking about one of the small pockets of speed rather than the predominate speed. Normally, you're lucky to be doing 1/3 to 1/2 the speed limit during rush hour.

On some of our roads we now have "average speed cameras".
They work over about 5 miles with cameras placed at intervals overhead at fixed distances and take a average speed of each vehicle.
They do work... my Missus neptune told me so ?

Got caught, ticketed & fined speeding in the Euston underpass on my MP3 - a bit sneaky by the cops I thought as you're going downhill and it's really hard to keep to the limit.

I know my speedometer is wildly optimistic, because stopped dead I am still registering 5 mph as my speed. lol!
I am debating whether to get this fixed, since it's still under warranty, or just put it down as one of the 'quirks' of my GTS300.

NY state police started issuing speeding tickets by calculating the speed you were going in between "Easy Pass" stations. (ie You must of been speeding because for you to make it from one toll to another should have taken you an extra 5 minutes etc)

They gave that up due to people canceling their "Easy Pass" subscriptions.

I see sportbikes pulled over pretty often, though it's probably not always for speeding. I don't know about the ability of radar/laser to tag a scooter, but suspect many cops don't bother unless you're conspicuously hauling ass.

I think we're more likely to get pulled over for some other violation. Unnecessary acceleration, illegal turn, plates, etc. In some areas, police have started pulling over more scooters (and motorcycles) to check for proper licensing and registration.

I also know a few people on derestricted 50cc scoots who've been busted for speeding and have gotten in more trouble because they exceeded the restricted speed for that model (in their state) and then had to go through registration, insurance, etc.

Been seeing a lot more speedtraps and traffic stops in my area, possibly because cities need more money any way they can get it. For us locals, what street was that? Only speeding ticket I've gotten in LA was in my car, Cahuenga right before the Hollywood Bowl. You know those "speed checked by radar" signs? I always thought they were BS. Huh.