scathing

Not everything is an argument with me. Just when people talk shit, that goes against my old-fashioned sense of justice and consistency, I'll let them know what fools they are. I realise its not the "in" thing with people anymore. And people who realise that they're stuck on the wrong side of making sense usually try to silence their detractors since they can't actually come up with a compelling argument. I don't recall ever saying that street racing isn't dangerous. I don't recall ever justifying it. If you'd learn to actually read, I originally never passed judgement on the actions of random Joe public, since the thread was started about the actions of police and what they do, not the actions of a street racer. That street racing is stupid is a given. What I thought we were talking about (you know, since the thread topic and first post focuses on it) is whether cops winding street racers up is dangerous and stupid or not. But since some people are clearly too dense to work that out, I ended up stating my position on both the civilian street racer and the police street racer. Feel free to re-read this for my attitude on people who street race (which is before your first post) and this for what I think should happen to the both of them. Ironically, Mark Webber has publicly stated that won't even drive on Australian roads anymore. In an interview a while back, one of the reasons he gave was because of the heavy-handed law enforcement that focuses on catching / fining people for minor but easily detectable infractions rather than taking measures to stop accidents from occurring. And as for my "motorsport opinion", in the context of the topic (try looking up the word "context" so you know what it means) what I think is dangerous is the police creating a situation where street racing occurs, and what I find unethical is the police then busting people for something they started unprovoked and participated in while being immune to the same laws. But since you can't even keep your story straight from one post to the next, your opinion is worthless so you'll have to excuse me if I don't break out the little violins over what you think of me. You could want to ask me out in a few posts time....

That's why I hate the Nasho. You can't help but bottom out in the high speed sections. My car's ride height is practically stock, which I do realise is pretty low, but I'll scrape out like a mofo through there.

I went for a drive up the F3 last night. Half way between the Berowra off-ramp and the Mooney Mooney exit, there were 8 highway patrol cars parked on the southbound side. At first I thought 2 of them had pulled a cruise over, but as I went past I saw all that all the cars were cop cars (aside from 1 unmarked. I assume its unmarked, or that must have been one dangerous Commodore driver to have 7 pursuit vehicles chase him down and pull him over). On the way back south they were still there, but as I got to the Berowra on-ramp half of them blew past me doing at least 130km/hr. I went down Epping Road a bit later, and some guy in a soft roader had been pulled over by a regular duties car and 2 paddy wagons. I later got RBT'ed (yeah, right) by a regular duties car as I went up the Pacific Highway on the north shore on the way home. Are they looking for a bunch of armed robbers driving high performance imports or something? Is Toretto's gang back in business? Because it looks like f**king overkill to me. 3 cars to pull over 1 Vitara (and they weren't even boxing the car in, he was just pulled up at a set of lights).

I'll give you $5 for them. But you have to deliver at that price.

Well then, if you're not saying that the cop is safer because of the training, its irrelvant when it comes to the safety of the two participants of the street race and they're both just as dangerous to the general populace. Which is what we were talking about originally. So why did you bother bringing it up in the first place? And, now that I think about it, can you reconcile your "not saying the cop is safer" comment above with what you said earlier: Or are you perhaps saying that the trained ability of the cop to control the car does not make them a safer driver?

I never disagreed with him. What I'm trying to say is that the training is irrelevant. A guy with a C4 has driver training too, and that training is for wheel to wheel racing (like in a street race) at unlimited speeds (unlike HWP driver training) but it doesn't mean he's any safer in a street race. At any rate, the traditional "omg won't somebody think of the children!" reasons for banning street racing is the danger to people who don't see / hear these cars screaming down the road and just walk in front of them, or other road users pulling out of side streets and getting crashed into. All the pursuit training in the world isn't going to stop you from ploughing into some deaf and blind ped if you're going for it down some narrow road with cars parked on either side, or make their SS Commodore with 100-200kg of extra weight pull up from high speed when some guy turns in from a side street without actually checking the traffic on the road they're entering.

Uhh...the concept of letting people who are apparently qualified to drive fast to do so on the road is your theory..... And your standard trackday license (as issued by individual tracks or a CAMS L2S) doesn't let you drive wheel to wheel in race conditions.

That doesn't mean shit. What if I have a CAMS C4 license? I would have had to pass a driving test for that. NSW cops aren't allowed to do more than 180-200km/hr on public roads. Above 150km/hr they have to call in for permission. With a C4 I'm qualified to drive as fast as my car will go, but good luck using that as a justification in court. And its not like the train cops and let them practice doing high speed manouvres on public roads, and with a C4 license you can race bumper to bumper, so its not like their "trained" skillset is any better.

No, I don't think its a mitigating reason. Wrong is wrong. I don't think the cops should be allowed to arrest / convict people based on that evidence, though, considering they are just as guilty of a crime. Its a technicality, but then people with good lawyers have gotten off for less. Lets put it this way. If some cop A winds up a random person, and they street race, and cop B (who was not tipped off by cop A that the race was going to happen) catches them and books them both for street racing, I think that's fine. Consistent and fair. Just because a cop wound him up is not a mitigating factor to the fact that random person committed a crime. And just because the guy has a badge and a gun isn't a mitigating factor to the fact that cop A commited a crime.

Lucky I didn't pass one on my way to work. I was running a little late, you know?

Lucky I didn't pass one on my way to work. I was running a little late, you know?

Here is a custom-made Carputer rig that made my geek mouth drool.

Which brings me back to my original point. Why are cops allowed to be "plain stupid", in your humble opinion, whereas your average citizenry gets busted for it? My belief on the matter probably got lost in the loads of posts I've made, so I'll reiterate it now. I believe that everyone involved in street racing should get busted equally. As you said, its plain stupid (which I totally concur with) and you can't have a race with only 1 participant. By definition its not a race. And the law has to be consistent. No-one is outside the law. If the cops are street racing (whether its to entrap or not) then they are risking innocent people's lives just as much as the white-cap wearing P plater in the grey import next to them. So the spirit in which the "street racing" laws were enacted apply to their actions. And since they are not responding to a crime when they initiate the street race, the dispensation for them to break the law shouldn't apply. Its not like pretending to be a john to pick up hookers, which has no collateral damage. How many high speed chases (which I do personally agree with) have ended up in the suspect or the cop spinning out and crashing? In some cases injuring innocents? In the case of street racing they're not even responding to a crime, they're initiating one. I'm not talking about the actions of random "sik bro" in his Skyline or Silvia. I'll fully agree that they're idiots. The concerns I'm expressing are about the actions of the police, and whether they're ethical or not. Law enforcement always has to take the high moral ground, or otherwise they lose the respect and support of the general populace.

Classic case of tramlining. Your tyres are picking up every rut on the road and deciding that wherever they're going is a great place to be. Wide tyres (its not usually the quality of the rubber, but its width and profile) and too much negative camber are the biggest culprits. Stiff suspension can cause it too, but you said you're running stock everything else. How much neg are you running?

I just had a quick skim read of the Vicroads VSI on lighting and lamps. It appears as if you can have neons, but the ADRs surrounding what colours are permitted where etc are well beyond what I'm going to get into unless I'm doing it myself (which I'm not). If you want to be way too fast and a little furious, RTFM yourself.

I'm out too. Same reason as sl!m and craved

I'm on the late shift this Friday so I might come down for a while. I'll have to leave early, though.

Does anyone know how an ECU determines what A/F ratio the car is running at?

I said "combustion efficiency". Not thermal efficiency. I'm talking about what percentage of fuel injected into the cylinder gets burnt off, not how much of the power it is generating is actually useable rather than just heating up things that don't need to be heated up. If a car was near 100% thermally efficient you wouldn't need a radiator. Modern cars aren't perfect (they'll run a little rich to protect the engine in most cases) but in general they're not far off in terms of combustion efficiency. Anyway, here's the promised response I prepared earlier (my post is on the second page).

Its alright. I'm always argumentative, but sometimes its an effective way of sparking debate. The prostitution one in WA is quite interesting. It'd be one of the few I've found where cops can solicit for a crime (last I checked, hiring a prostitute was illegal too) to find out if someone is a criminal. Although I'm not sure why you'd cavity search a prostitute. Sure, their job entails inserting things in their cavity but if you caught them in the middle of an offense it should be quite obvious without such measures. The other one, about getting a confession by false pretenses, is a bit iffy as well in my opinion. I realise they'd never have caught the guy had he not given it up to undercover cops but its on shakey legal ground too. I'm wondering why the defense attorney didn't just say that the guy was lying to try to get into the gang. He picked a famous crime that wasn't solved (so he could claim it as his without them calling his bluff, without shifting into the bounds of ridiculousness and claiming to have killed Azaria Chamberlain) and he picked that one. Its not like the guy gave a sworn statement or affadavit that would be admissible in court as a confession when the undercover cops asked him about it. And, at that point, you can't prove that he wasn't lying and there's reasonable doubt. People lie in job interviews all the time. It'd be quite a co-incidence that the guy happens to brag about the murder they suspected him of, but co-incidence isn't good enough. Also, if this was a "last ditch attempt" to catch the guy then there must have been others, so the guy might have been picked up for questioning in regards to it before. Once again adding plausibility to his lies, and something that can be corroborated by people who knew him. ....Just read it further, and I see other people (mainly lawyers both from a professional and academic background) have alluded to that fact as well. Although clearly not the judges that upheld the method.

Are the police involved in the criminal act that may take place for these "stop and search" powers? Because in the street racing example they're not preventing a crime from happening, they're participating and then stopping it. Like I said, like starting a fight and then arresting the other guy for brawling. And have you got any links to this "stop and search" power? I'm having a look at the LAW ENFORCEMENT (POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES) ACT 2002 - SECT 36, and every one of the conditions listed for a search requires them to suspect that a crime has been or is being commited. There's that causality thing again. Its proving to be a real thorn in your side. That Act is for NSW, but when I found the Qld act earlier on it also made it quite clear that the crime was in present and past tense. If you live in another state I'll leave it in your capable hands to provide some actual proof that the crime doesn't need to have been committed before they can just randomly stop and search you.

What about cops pushing drugs to catch people? Because there is a world of difference. If someone approaches a police officer to buy or sell drugs then that person has initiated the contact, and thus committed the crime. For me, that method is fine. But if the cop goes out there inducing people to take something addictive, getting them hooked, and then busting them when they do take it or try to score after they get hooked....then to me its something else entirely.

Its not entrapment purely because entrapment isn't illegal in this country. US cops can't get away with it there, because entrapment is illegal in America. The spirit in which the dispensations are granted is that they are necessary to enforce the law once it has been breached. In other the cases you've listed, where police do things that are not permitted an ordinary citizens they're all reactive rather than proactive. Cops can only arrest, give chase, or force entry into the property of someone they suspect of commiting a crime. Cops can't smash down your door arrest you, and then go looking for something to charge you with afterwards. Up until they have reasonable grounds to suspect someone, they have no dispensation to the laws the rest of us have to obey. For example, cops can't run red lights unless the sirens are going, and they can't fire up the sirens unless they're on their way to a scene / chasing a suspect down. If they do run a red light outside of that, then its illegal. Why do you think cops will overtake a whole bunch of other cars to RBT you when they pull you over if you haven't been speeding / driving dangerously / any other visible infringement...and then ask you where you're heading or to pop the bonnet? Its a loophole that lets them stop you without having an actual charge, which is otherwise required to detain you. In the case given originally (cops winding up people to street race), no crime has been commited at that point. They could quite easily suspect some chromied-up, lowered, big exhaust fitted import might be amenable to a bit of street racing....but our society is yet to introduce thoughtcrime. However, in inciting people to race they themselves have become a participant. Which is a crime. They have no grounds to suspect that other person is, so there should be no dispensation to enforce the law, since no laws have been breached. Hence, my assertion that what they're doing is not legal. I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble with the concept of causality. Are undercover cops who don't identify themselves allowed to go around pushing or threatening people, and then charge them with assault / affray if the person pushes back or punches on? Because winding up a random guy who wasn't otherwise going to drag you into doing so is no different in principle. And that is what I take exception to. I reckon street racing is for morons, but two wrongs don't make a right and the end does not justify the means. I'm all for police doing what is necessary to catch criminals, but I'm not for cops doing what is necessary to create criminals.

I reckon they're talking shit. I'll dig up a previous thread about this on another forum later. Modern cars get almost 100% combustion efficiency. A year ago when this stuff first went to market, all their test vehicles were mid 80's old nuggets that could probably have had improvements from the top end seeing some servicing when they pulled the injectors out. Put it this way. If a modern car was dumping 20% of its fuel out the back, do you think that the EPA would let it pass muster when it got ADR'ed?

I have yet to see a production Carputer that I'd install in my car, but I am looking at doing it in the future. I was thinking about running a Mac Mini on it. Its a small form factor, with low power internals, so heat shouldn't be an issue. It comes natively with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and has most of the software I'd want (A/V basically, since I have a standalone GPS). Either that or I'll retire a Windows laptop for the cause.