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Being at a loose end minus wife & kids, I thought I'd take the olde hamx5ter for a spin on a friday night.

Did a nice little run with the top down through Galston Gorge and Old Pac and decided to take the freeway back home. Drove right past HWP parked on the strip between merging lane and F3 at about the speed limit (I was in the slow lane). They took their time about it (probably because it gave them a chance to have a decent fang up the freeway) but eventually saw the lights coming up and was pulled over.

Breath-tested and all good, but was queried about the seat. Asked if it was engineered, said no, was advised I should sort it out as it was 3 demerit points and $400/- fine. Is that right? I vaguely remembered it to be legal if stock seat rails were still being used, and that the Sparco is ADR approved, but offered the simple solution of possibly swapping back my stock seat. He let it go at that. Some general enquiry about it looking low, but he didn't seem to interested in poking around anyway, so I was sent on my way.

Guess I should remember to avoid driving the car on Friday / Saturday nights, etc. I generally do, but being single, olde and friendless will make you do desperate things... I've dríven right past police in the last so many years in the daytime and they've shown NO interest in me. I've even had a conversation or two with policemen at the lights... At night, they can't see the grey hair, so my protective bubble is weak

Assuming I leave the seat as is, does my little interaction and their advice about the seat get recorded somewhere? I mean, if I were to get pulled over again, will they say, we told to swap the seat back and you haven't? or it is only put down somewhere if it is a formal caution / notice?

Sounds like it was a quiet night for them...

Ignore it, they were bored.

Enjoy!

^ Yeh, it sounds like it was just a passing comment by him. I wouldn't be too concerned.

I've been pulled over on old pac in my other car which ended up with a 'warning', then pulled over another time for speeding and 'warned' again, I didn't get the feeling there were any notes taken and I haven't been targeted or anything since then (the last one was 2+ years ago now).

It's scary that you can lose points for defects, my car is worth 9 points for defects if I catch a cop on a bad day for exhaust noise, defective seat, seat belt anchorages.

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Yeah, the demerits were a worry; I didn't know about that. Is it additional points for each defect??

It never looked like he was really interested in looking over the car. Like Craig said, I think they just needed something to do, but still a worry when you could lose your licence because mods.

Just checked out the RTA website and google returned a couple of defect-demerit threads from the honda & commodore guys..

Wow Dan... just saw your 1.09 lap... perfect driving

I had no idea defects carried demerits! Must check if that's the same in SA as well, and count myself lucky on my own similar recent experience, as i also only received a verbal warning!

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I guess by the time I pulled over, they queried the plates and would've found nothing... the rest of it was just routine. Perhaps being on the slow lane (driving past them at 110 ) got their attention.

I've been stopped at RBTs a couple of times, and stopped once in Vic by the world's tallest policeman for speeding. He actually walked around and had a good look at the car when the car was stupidly low, but didn't say a thing about it.

Still very schlocked about the defect+demerit rules being cumulative. If it is actually inspected on a casual drive, that would be licence lost. I just thought if I ever got pulled over and properly defected, I could just a) put the basic stuff back, or b) de-register it and go racecar.. This is a lot more complicated.