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Traffic enforcement in the vicinity Rally

M

MTNBMW

New member
Here is a list of some of the traffic enforcement "gotchas" to watch out for.

I26 from mile marker 17 to 27 in Johnson City, speed enforcement is very heavy.
West bound after exit 27 Okolona Road, the speed limit drops to 55 and the city starts making money. East bound the limit drops to 55 after exit 17. Just around the corner from m.m. 17.6 on the right side behind the bridge abutment is a very popular hunting location for the J.C. police.

Beware of the unmarked cars on this stretch. The list includes:

Grey Dodge Charger
Silver Mustang
White Mustang (I haven't seen this one for awhile)
Silver Impala
Silver Ford Explorer (several years old)

I drove this road earlier today, and saw all of the above with the exception of the white mustang and several marked cars all running KA band radar

Jonesborough: The main road running through Jonesborough, Hwy 11/321 from Johnson City to Greeneville Has Red Light and Speed Cameras at 3 out of 4 red lights. The new light at Lowes doesn't have one yet at least it didn't this morning!

Kingsport: Red light cameras too numerous to count

Mt Carmel: A suburb of Kingsport on hwy 11W has speed cameras on their 2 mile stretch of road

I26 TN/NC border. North Carolina is justifiably proud of this beautiful stretch of road. They also seem determined to make the payments on it with speeding tickets.

IMHO the most dangerous road for bikes in this area is Hwy 11 through Greeneville. The drivers on this road seem to go out of their way to turn left in front of you. Ride with extra care on this section of road.

These are the areas that I am familiar with. Maybe some of the other local riders add to this list
 
mtnbmw said:
Here is a list of some of the traffic enforcement "gotchas" to watch out for.

I26 from mile marker 17 to 27 in Johnson City, speed enforcement is very heavy.
West bound after exit 27 Okolona Road, the speed limit drops to 55 and the city starts making money. East bound the limit drops to 55 after exit 17. Just around the corner from m.m. 17.6 on the right side behind the bridge abutment is a very popular hunting location for the J.C. police.

Beware of the unmarked cars on this stretch. The list includes:

Grey Dodge Charger
Silver Mustang
White Mustang (I haven't seen this one for awhile)
Silver Impala
Silver Ford Explorer (several years old)

I drove this road earlier today, and saw all of the above with the exception of the white mustang and several marked cars all running KA band radar

Jonesborough: The main road running through Jonesborough, Hwy 11/321 from Johnson City to Greeneville Has Red Light and Speed Cameras at 3 out of 4 red lights. The new light at Lowes doesn't have one yet at least it didn't this morning!

Kingsport: Red light cameras too numerous to count

Mt Carmel: A suburb of Kingsport on hwy 11W has speed cameras on their 2 mile stretch of road

I26 TN/NC border. North Carolina is justifiably proud of this beautiful stretch of road. They also seem determined to make the payments on it with speeding tickets.

IMHO the most dangerous road for bikes in this area is Hwy 11 through Greeneville. The drivers on this road seem to go out of their way to turn left in front of you. Ride with extra care on this section of road.

These are the areas that I am familiar with. Maybe some of the other local riders add to this list
Click to expand...


Thanks! Great information, However I do have a question;'do speeds of 5+ get you a ticket or is there a 5+ grace or 09+ grace on interstates like there is from the Mississippi going west?
 
60 in a 55 is ok most places in the southeast. the lower the posted speed, the lower the tolerence. example... 78 in a 70 is acceptable, but don't do 79 or 80. if the posted speed is 60 don't push past 67. if the sign says 30 or 35 do that speed. don't fear the LEO's , just stay alert. :thumb
 
If anyone is looking for GPS POI files for radar and camera locations, here you go: http://www.trapster.com/

Personally, I find the radar location warnings very annoying because they're so numerous. Speed and redlight cameras are seldom found in New England (so far), so I pay a lot more attention to those.
 
Most areas around here are pretty liberal with the "fudge" factor They seem to give at least 9mph or more. I26 thru Johnson City seems to depend on whether it is a regular day, or a saturate and make a show of force kinda day. The speed/red light cameras at the lights in Jonesborough ticket at either 52 or 54 in a 45 zone. I can't remember which, I will try and find out. I don't know what the cameras in Mt Carmel are set for, it is a 55 mph zone.
My experiences has been pretty positive when dealing with the local law enforcement after being caught for an "indescretion". Right after I got my r1200rt, I had the bad luck and timing to be observed by 3 car loads of county deputies and was stopped for 64 in a 40. This was on a rural road leading to one of my favorite quickie rides near my house. It was the first nice day in a long time in the middle of winter, and there were lots of bikes out. After I got off the bike and removed my full face helmet, gloves and unzipped my leather jacket. I was also wearing armoured pants and boots. I gave them my license and registration. While one deputy called the info in, the others talked to me about the bike and how much they liked it and some of the added safety features (moto lights and hyper lights etc.). Having a good record probably didn't hurt. After a little discussion, they said that of all of the bikes that they had pulled over that day, I was the safest and awarded me the "free pass" for the day. A.T.G. trumps a turtle shell helmet and tennis shoes!
I really haven't met or heard of very many police in this area with bad attitudes towards riders. I think most are very fair.
 
Thanks for the tips! I will be going up and over from Asheville several times that week. I've never been there before, but I don't want to make any unnecessary donations to the county tills.
 
The Jonesborough speed cameras trigger at 54 mph. I think it costs $75.00 for the city to calibrate your speedometer with one of their cameras!!
 
Thanks for the heads up...I cannot believe 12 or so replies so far and not one.."You shouldn't EVER be exceeding the speed limit,EVER" post...:laugh

I might have jinxed it though...:lurk
 
ima4nr said:
As BMW speedometers are known for being notoriously "fast" you should be perfectly fine if you observe the limit as per your speedo indication.
Click to expand...

I've seen worse on- are you ready for this?- a Honda. I was on an R100R and a friend was on a Honda VTR SuperHawk. We swapped bikes for a bit, and I noticed at one point that the Honda's speedo was reading 129 MPH. 129??? I knew that this was wildly inaccurate because:

1) It only felt like about 75 or so.
2) My R100R was right there behind me in the mirrors, and I know that it wasn't capable of 129 MPH.
3) That R100R's low gearing meant that to even get over 90 required a fair amount of distance to push it into the upper RPM's, and we were on a fairly curvy road.
 
ima4nr said:
As BMW speedometers are known for being notoriously "fast" you should be perfectly fine if you observe the limit as per your speedo indication.
Click to expand...

The dozen Japanese bikes I had before my first BMW were not more accurate than the BMWs. Of my last 16 bikes, only my Airhead is close to accurate (it's a little slow).
 
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