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I've worked about 15 extra TAC funded shifts with TMU this year and not one single member has even had a second look at an import to simply pull over. They generally only pull someone over they have found doing something wrong to fine.

I can't believe how many stupid drivers there are out there, repeat drink drivers, suspended, disqualified I have almost impounded a car in each of those shifts for one of those or 45k+ over speed limit.

I'd love to be able to agree with you graham, but in my 7 years or so of driving an import I simply can not.

At the age of 33 I have spent 15 years behind the wheel, in that time I have spent approximately half in imports and half not.

During this 15 years I have never, as in NOT EVER been pulled over for a random check in a non import car.

driving around in my skyline, I have been pulled over multiple times whilst driving around, obeying the law.

in the evo, which is stock except for wheels and a non loud catback I was followed the other night by a copper that sat up my ass for 3km on the Neppean Hwy, even changing lanes (not indicating once) to follow and make SURE she was annoying me. She then left the Hwy with me and followed me all the way to the dan murphy's carpark where she finally decided to drive off, slowly, making sure I didn't drive off again. (I cant wait for the EPA i'll probably get in the mail) BUT what makes this worse is that just 2 lanes over there was a near new 3 series beamer with a loud as all hell exhaust absolutely flogging it from every set of lights, he even broke traction on one occasion, but did she pull him over or even look at him? NO

I have had cops drive past me and nearly cause accidents just to pull me over.

I have had an undercover sit at the lights revving his engine to try to get me to race.

I have had cops pull me and 10 other cars over on slow outback cruises just for defecting purposes. (more than once)

I have even had a cop told by a senior officer that he wasn't going to defect us as a show of good faith because we were not driving badly, so he actually waited until the snr officer had left, called lillydale TMU and organised a couple of TMU cars to wait for us so his name wouldn't be on the defects. He then rode his bike next to us on the wrong side of the road speeding, slowing down and changing lanes without indicating regularly just to prove a point.

It has come to the point now.... and this is what upsets me, that the only time I drive in a dangerous manner is when I am unfairly targeted by cops for doing NOTHING other than driving an import, and they havent seen my rego. Take what you will from that.

couple of highway cops in my industrial estate in hallam this morning. drove past in 6th at 50kmh in the hsv, copper went to pull his aarm and wave me in to his traffic coned dry bumming palace, but i pretended not to see and carried on. no f**ks given.

as for the import thingo, in 1 year of driving the 33 i was pulled twice, one of those being chased into a petrol station.

ive owned the hsv 2 months and been pulled the same amount. would have been 3 if i had of stopped today.

yeah, anything that may be modified is really a better term than import, but Imports as a whole do cop it worse than holdens IMHO

oh yea definitely! you see plenty of commodores and falcons driving round with one head light etc.

but an import/modified car's exhaust is too loud and thats more dangerous...........

Here is a good read via caradvice,com.au that I read on FB yesterday:

http://www.caradvice.com.au/30280/german-vs-australian-car-culture/

I’m moving to Germany. There is no questioning it now. I can’t work out how I am going to survive in Australia when I come back, so the best option is to stay here. Let me tell you why.

brabham-racing-day-2-135-480x317.jpg

I just came back from the Nurburgring, the home of modern motorsports. The track is a sight that has to be seen. M3, M3, M5, M3, Porsche GT3, GT2, GT3 RS, M3, M3 CSL, Nissan GT-R, M3, M3, McLaren SLR, F430 Scuderia, EVO IX, EVO X, STI, Lotus Exige, and all on a normal Sunday morning.

You pay about A$50 and you can do as many laps as your car can take. Depending on how good you are, each lap can take around 10 minutes, anything under that is a reasonable time.

brabham-racing-day-2-002-320x480.jpg

We also met Sabine Schmidt (the Nurburgring girl – you may remember her from TopGear with the van) who was taking tourists around in the Ring-Taxis (M5). She would get it sideways around a few corners and then scream past.

The ‘ring alone is reason enough to move to Germany, but that’s just the icing on the cake. The main reason to move here is the car culture.

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“Oh you’re in an M5, I’m in a Volvo. Sorry sir, let me move over and let you pass” – “Oh, you indicated left because I am going slow in the fast lane, sorry, let me move over instantly and not give you the finger as you go past”.

We even met a few car lovers, one of them invited us back to his house, where he had a collection of old but very quick BMWs.

brabham-racing-day-2-357-480x309.jpg

Unlike Australia, the faster your car is in Germany, the more respect you get on the road.

brabham-racing-day-2-178-480x305.jpg

Everyone from little children to grandmothers love cars. In fact while we were at ABT, we saw an old Audi S2 tuned to over 450bhp, owned by a 74-year-old grandmother, no joke. If someone can find me a 74-year-old Australian grandmother with a 450bhp+ car, I might reconsider my decision.

We drove 503km from ABT, at Kempten, to Brabham Racing, 20km away from the Nurburgring, in about three hours, and didn’t run out of fuel this time.

panamera1-480x325.jpg

Anthony was competing with a Porsche Panamera whilst George and I were listening to Sunshine 106.1 (Armin Van Buuren was playing – music would be another reason to move here) and maintaining an average speed of 180km/h, in our Focus stationwagon.

I am trying to imagine the look on an Australian police officer’s face if they pulled me over for doing 180km/h in a Focus. I’d be on front page of the newspaper the next day “Idiot Hoon does 80km/h more than the speed limit”.

mewithr8-480x319.jpg

What about in the ABT R8? 320km/h? Can you imagine the headline? I’d be a national celebrity overnight. “Madman goes 320km/h, sentenced to five years in jail”.

Anthony came up with a good analogy, it feels like we’ve been let out of jail for a month.

Whilst I was driving the ABT tuned AS5R at a cruisy 200km/h I saw a cop in the right lane (slow lane). My instant reaction was “Oh god, ticket!”. I hit the brakes, pulled in behind him and followed at about 130km/h.

abt-0362-480x320.jpg

Thirty seconds later an M3 went past us at about 190km/h. The cop didn’t even look. 20 more seconds went by and and an M6 came screaming past at around 250km/h. Cop stayed still. Then I realised, oh, yes, I forgot, this is legal.

Can you believe going 250km/h past a police car on a public road can be legal? Can you imagine what an Australian police highway patrol car would do to you if you did this on an Australian highway?

brabham-racing-day-2-223-480x320.jpg

It almost makes you depressed thinking about the difference in car culture. The last time I got pulled over for speeding (18km/h over) in Brisbane, the kind Cop gave me a grilling as if I was responsible for every death on the road.

Can we please bring every single person that has anything to do with setting up speed limits and transport guidelines to Germany? Just for one week?

wiesmannmf5rear-480x320.jpg

At this point some of you are thinking, sure it may work in Germany but the autobahns are far better highways than what we have in Australia. Not entirely true.

The M1 Pacific Highway, from Brisbane to Gold Coast, for example, is actually larger than any autobahn I’ve encountered to date. Our lanes are wider and our main roads are just as smooth. So why can’t we go past 110km/h?

Is it the cars? Perhaps, but there are just as many old cars here as there are in Australia, guess what? They stay in the slow lanes, they go 110km/h, the fast cars go 250km/h+ past them, no one complains. The slow go slow, the fast go fast, everyone is happy. Why is this so hard to comprehend?

audir8tony-480x321.jpg

We were filming the Brabham BT92 today at the Nurburgring and just witnessing the difference in attitude to speed and cars was amazing.

At one moment whilst we were filming the ‘ring, a few German’s started playing AC/DC (Thunderstruck) and it reminded us of Bathurst, but a Ferrari F430 followed by a Porsche GT3 RS and an EVO X went past quickly, oh yes, not Bathurst.

abt-023-480x320.jpg

As if the cars aren’t enough, I witnessed with my own eyes, gorgeous beautiful women standing around admiring the cars. I don’t need to die to go to heaven, I found it at the Nurburgring.

No one is doing the ‘pinky’ in Germany. The people here love cars because they love cars, no one does random burnouts in the street, when the autobahn does have a speed limit (road works for example), EVERYONE obeys.

abt-day-2-0951-480x318.jpg

What’s so different in our two cultures that all of this seems so strange? Why is going 320km/h a jail worthy crime in Australia and perfectly legal in Germany?

brabham-racing-day-2-288-480x318.jpg

Why do people get so frightened when we go 20km/h over the speed limit in Australia?

“Slow down stupid”?. No, I don’t think so. “Learn to drive, Stupid”.

It makes me even more pissed when I see the police car doing twice the speed limit to catch the poor motorist doing 10k's over (probably without realising it.)

Oh, but the cops are trained better than us plebs...

My import cars are long gone.

Reason? Pulled up 16 times in r33 and s15. Not once was i doing anything wrong, not once did i lose a point.

One officer said to me "look at the car you drive" which tella you all you need to know.

Im a Mature age driver with clean driving record (12 points).

So that crap do the right thing and you will be okay is rubbish.

Lol yes... That has happened to me too...

I was pulled over on the side of the road with my engine off, outside my missus' house in Springvale, just sitting there chilling and waiting. A cop drove past my car, looked at me, kept driving. But turned out he drove around a 3km radius block just to come up behind me again to "pull me over"? When I'm not even moving lol

Again, I was polite and all, and he said it was a "random" license check.

Then I asked "did you pull me over because I'm in a Skyline?". He said "well yeah.. What do you think? A yellow Skyline parked in Springvale".....

At least he didn't lie about it lols...

I have even had a cop told by a senior officer that he wasn't going to defect us as a show of good faith because we were not driving badly, so he actually waited until the snr officer had left, called lillydale TMU and organised a couple of TMU cars to wait for us so his name wouldn't be on the defects. He then rode his bike next to us on the wrong side of the road speeding, slowing down and changing lanes without indicating regularly just to prove a point.

I remember that hahaha, I was shitting myself xD

Lol yes... That has happened to me too...

I was pulled over on the side of the road with my engine off, outside my missus' house in Springvale, just sitting there chilling and waiting. A cop drove past my car, looked at me, kept driving. But turned out he drove around a 3km radius block just to come up behind me again to "pull me over"? When I'm not even moving lol

Again, I was polite and all, and he said it was a "random" license check.

Then I asked "did you pull me over because I'm in a Skyline?". He said "well yeah.. What do you think? A yellow Skyline parked in Springvale".....

At least he didn't lie about it lols...

I remember that hahaha, I was shitting myself xD

Cops, came to my house, disrespected my family

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