Miata Mailing List: January 1994, Message #79
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   From: Al Jenab 
Subject: Back-Up Light Switch and Ticket Avoidance
   Date: Mon, 10 Jan 1994 14:46:51 -0500

Miata Gang,
Had an interesting adventure yesterday.  In Virginia, you have to get your car 
safety inspected yearly.  I had my Miata done in early December '93, and 
failed because of no backup lights.  I knew this, as the inspection prior to 
this one done in Dec. 92 had pointed it out, but I didn't get failed then (
considerable variation in inspector leniency).  When you fail a safety 
inpection, they put a little pink sticker on your windshield saying "REJECTED" 
with a little black circle and bar across it.  My poor baby was traumatized.  
So I dutifully bought the backup light switch from a Mazda dealer ($10.60 with 
club discount), and promptly stuffed it in my toolbox and forgot about it.  I 
should mention that you get 15 days to fix rejection items with only a one 
dollar fee to get re-inspected.

Well yesterday (a month later)I was tooling down the road after some quick 
shopping trip, and noticed a very persistent police cruiser checking me out.  
I had by now gotten to be somewhat proud of my "REJECTED" badge.  Well, the 
policeman wasn't and pulled me over.  I have not been pulled over in probably 
ten years, and immediately , memories of college and all sorts of naughty 
stuff I used to do came rushing back.

After the hormones had settled down a bit, I perceived that the incessant 
buzzing sound coming from the window region was in fact the officer asking me 
for specifics of why my car had been rejected.  I should point out that 
driving cars which have failed safety inspections is a large No No.

I told him about the back up light etc. and he began hassling me about why I 
hadn't fixed it.  No garage, recent rain, snow, & gravel driveway etc. were 
not acceptable excuses.  Then I said that I just don't let anybody touch my 
car but me.

The officer then noticed the little SCCA sticker on the window, the Miata club 
sticker and the roll bar, and say, "Hey, do you race this thing?"

And I replied, "Well, it's knows its way around a lot of racetracks."

"Which ones?"

"Summit Point, Charlotte, .."

"What's your best time at Summit?"

"1:36"

"Not bad.  We rent out Summit Point track police driving schools."

What then ensued was a pleasurable discussion of the Point, and driving fast 
on tracks.  It ended when he said "Please hurry up and install your back up 
switch."  And walked off.  No ticket, no lecture.  Cool.

So I spent an hour or so yesterday afternoon in my frozen gravel driveway 
under my Miata in sub 20 degree F temperatures installing that stupid switch.  
{Reminded me of the time years ago when I had to adjust a cantankerous Jeep 
carburator in -25 degree weather, and I forget that gasoline has a much lower 
freezing point than water (i.e. it ain't solid at that temp) and got my 
fingers wet.  I had this subconscious assumption that liquid on cold days has 
to be solid, therfore any liquid was safe to touch.  But gas at 25 below is 
still 25 below, so I got a mild case of frostbite while adjusting the float 
bowl level.  But I digress.}

I reflected upon this incident with the cop while thawing out in front of the 
fireplace and decided that this had been an exceptional example of effective 
law enforcement technique.  It got me to do what I should have done without 
causing any problems.  No theatrics or bullying, just a "please do it soon" 
form a guy with common interests. If only we could figure out how to do this 
in other situations.

The true moral of the story is of course that Racing Your Miata Is Good and 
You Will Be Rewarded.

-Al