Has anyone tried to drive across TX on a 15-day one-trip permit?

YerDugliness · #1 (**permalink**) 11-09-2016, 01:12 PM

Well, after having stored my replica in the garage of my home near Houston, TX for over a year I am going to fly down and attempt to drive it back to KS over the Thanksgiving school break (yes, the new tires have already been ordered and shipped!!).

It's been some time since the TX registration expired, so rather than try to get it inspected/registered in TX again I chose to drive it home to SW KS and title/register it here.

That means I needed a temporary permit. I purchased and downloaded a 15-day One-Trip Permit that requires some rather specific routing information...fairly inexpensive (only $5) and it should be enough to get me to the north border of TX. I'm on my own after that for the 40 mile drive through the OK panhandle and the 90 mile drive back to my SW KS home.

I can see that this could make me an attractive target for almost every cop that gets a view of my license plate on the rear of the car. Has anyone else ever tried to make a trip of that nature on one of these paper tags? I'm just curious if it was an ordeal or if my fears are realistic.

Thanks in advance for whatever information you can provide!

Dugly

fordracing65 · #2 (**permalink**) 11-09-2016, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by YerDugliness

Well, after having stored my replica in the garage of my home near Houston, TX for over a year I am going to fly down and attempt to drive it back to KS over the Thanksgiving school break (yes, the new tires have already been ordered and shipped!!).

It's been some time since the TX registration expired, so rather than try to get it inspected/registered in TX again I chose to drive it home to SW KS and title/register it here.

That means I needed a temporary permit. I purchased and downloaded a 15-day One-Trip Permit that requires some rather specific routing information...fairly inexpensive (only $5) and it should be enough to get me to the north border of TX. I'm on my own after that for the 40 mile drive through the OK panhandle and the 90 mile drive back to my SW KS home.

I can see that this could make me an attractive target for almost every cop that gets a view of my license plate on the rear of the car. Has anyone else ever tried to make a trip of that nature on one of these paper tags? I'm just curious if it was an ordeal or if my fears are realistic.

Thanks in advance for whatever information you can provide!

Dugly

I drive across country all the time with paper tags. Not in a cobra but a car is a car. It's legal so do it.

BDR0572 · #3 (**permalink**) 11-10-2016, 04:29 PM

I drove mine for almost 30 days on a temp tag had title issues never got stop

YerDugliness · #4 (**permalink**) 11-10-2016, 04:38 PM

Great news, guys! These cars attract a fair bit of attention already, so I'm not hoping to give them any further reason to bother me on what I anticipate will be a cold two-day ballbuster of a drive.

Cheers!!

Dugly

Brastic · #5 (**permalink**) 11-11-2016, 09:21 AM

I have been pulled over driving my kit cars in California a couple of times now. If you have your paperwork in order and not doing anything stupid like reckless driving, I have not had any issues. I still do not know why I was pulled over. My guess is that these cars stand out and the officer was curious more than anything. I had some fun conversations on the side of the road.

Good luck and enjoy your drive.

Late Apex · #6 (**permalink**) 11-11-2016, 11:09 AM

The only ones to watch out for while in Texas are the pin heads aka bumper chasers (as some local police actually call them), state troopers. If you get out of Texas without one of them stopping you, consider yourself very lucky.

YerDugliness · #7 (**permalink**) 11-11-2016, 01:16 PM

That's exactly what I'm worried about...TX troopers use license plate recognition equipment. I was stopped once for not having insurance, but I had renewed it the day prior and the state data base was not updated yet. I'm certain that if they run my license plate they'll stop me...but the regs require that I display the paper tag in the rear window. RIGHT!!! With no rear window, I think I'll just cover my expired license plate with the paper one.

Cheers!

Dugly

Late Apex · #8 (**permalink**) 11-11-2016, 02:13 PM

The bumper chasers in Tx will stop drivers for no reason at all especially if no one has been stopped for awhile which is VERY unusual for that dept. They are also the worst for no front plate stoppage too. Stay in with traffic if possible until over the border and you should be ok. Most local Tx. police and SO actually seem to like the cobras and I have even got thumbs up from them, but I cringe when I see that other dept. unless Im in my daily driver.

rbickle · #9 (**permalink**) 11-16-2016, 01:42 PM

You all have stickers?

Mine literally blew off a couple of months ago coming back from the meeting...

SSSammy · #10 (**permalink**) 11-29-2016, 01:35 PM

So did you ever find someone to bond you out of the Quitaque pokey? We've been on the edge of our seats here ...

Sam

YerDugliness · #11 (**permalink**) 11-29-2016, 01:51 PM

No...it turned out much worse than I expected. By the time I had 15 miles on the new tires somebody turned into me on my driver's side, spun my cobra out into a ditch, where it became airborne when it got to the next sidestreet and ended up landing backwards in another ditch, but not until after it had considerable damage. There is some frame damage at the rear where the car landed in a mud-bank (back first, of course) and the lower panel (under the trunk lid) is heavily damaged, as well as the drivers' side where the party hit my car.

At a cost of $250 I was able to get the Cobra towed back to the house where it had been sitting in a garage and it now resides there again, at least until Christmas break when I can get back down there to look it over. I didn't get to do much other than sit in the waiting room at the ER after it got towed...

I am walking around with 9 staples in my head today, took a few hours in the ER to get "stitched" up. Guess the back of my head hit the roll bar pretty hard when we landed in that mud-bank traveling backwards. According to most accounts, I was only unconscious for about 5 minutes, but it was long enough for EMS and the County Sherrif's department to get there before I regained consciousness. I think that was probably longer than 5 minutes.

All-in-all, it turned out to be a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day.

It will be a lengthy project, to be sure, and hopefully I can find someone who can do fiberglass work and we can get my car's body back into shape.

This SUX!!!!!

Nothing to cheer about today...

Dugly

SSSammy · #12 (**permalink**) 11-29-2016, 02:23 PM

OMG, Dugly! This is beyond awful ... Hope you recover quickly and with no long term issues. I suppose the other party is liable, not that one could expect much from the other guys insurance.

Let us know how it goes and if there is any thing any of us Texas CC folks can do!

Sam

YerDugliness · #13 (**permalink**) 11-29-2016, 04:47 PM

Thanks, Sam, much appreciated! It will be a long row to hoe...

...but you know how it is, you pick up the pieces and put them back together again

I think a large part of the chassis will be OK. The chassis was the main reason I bought the car.

The body...well, we'll see. If the body turns out to not be fixable, I have always preferred the 289FIA body style, so shoportunities abound!

I'll post photos if I can figure out how to get them off this iPhone.

Cheers!

Dugly

Gregg(What's his name)? · #14 (**permalink**) 12-01-2016, 07:24 AM

That sucks! The most important part is that you are ok. The car can be fixed and repaired. Like Sammy said, let us know if you need anything.

YerDugliness · #15 (**permalink**) 12-01-2016, 08:32 AM

Thanks, Greg...yes, I am quite thankful I survived with the limited injuries I have. The passenger, who did not have a roll bar on his side, has a much greater soft-tissue injury issue because his head was thrust backwards, like a whiplash injury, when the car impacted that mud bank going backwards.

The only photos of the accident site I have are on my iPhone and I have not figured out how to get Photobucket to upload from my iPhone yet...will keep trying, though!

I'll probably need suggestions regarding where to take the car for repairs in the Houston area, that sort of thing. There is a body shop in my neighborhood that has a frame "machine"...pipes set into the concrete to provide secure points against which to apply forces to straighten out the frame. Right now the worst damage I can see is to the fiberglass, but when I get back down to Houston in December I'll have a chance to look underneath. That's when I think the majority of the undercarriage damage will become clearer. I do know the driver's side rear portion of the frame was pushed far enough forward that the tire is quite obviously not centered in the wheel opening...wish I could get the photos to upload, that one is quite easy to see the problem.

As I said...it'll be a long row to hoe! I'll probably get it to the point where the frame is straightened and then proceed with the fiberglass repairs...but at that point I may need to bring it to Kansas, where I reside now. I CAN do fiberglass work and may attempt my own repairs, but if there are issues with which I cannot deal I'm stuck 300 miles from Denver, 225 miles from Wichita and 220 miles from Amarillo, so there are NO sources for fiberglass repair ANYWHERE close. I think the answer would be to deal with the issues during the vacation breaks for the school system for which I work and leave the car in the Houston vicinity for the time being.

The sidepipes took a real beating.....both sides are dented and bent out of shape. That means I need to figure out if I want to make the Clevor CHI transformation before I start dealing with the headers/sidepipes, because everything from the flanges on downstream will need to be "different" for the new exhaust. I might even consider shorty headers with undercar exhaust, I've always liked that clean sort of look.

Cheers!

Dugly

Gregg(What's his name)? · #16 (**permalink**) 12-02-2016, 05:45 AM

I would contact James Yale down there in Houston. He will know the right people and is a great source of information.

YerDugliness · #17 (**permalink**) 12-02-2016, 07:08 AM

Thanks, Gregg! Is James one of our forum members? I'd like to PM him if he is. I looked in our member list and didn't find him under "James" or under "Yale"...but most of us use other monikers for our screen name.

Cheers!

Dugly

Gregg(What's his name)? · #18 (**permalink**) 12-02-2016, 03:24 PM

I will send you a PM with James info.

am9648 · #19 (**permalink**) 12-03-2016, 09:03 AM

James is also the moderator on the Houston Cobra Club forum.
Post on HCC he will see it and respond.

YerDugliness · #20 (**permalink**) 12-06-2016, 04:12 PM

Thanks, guys!

I have emailed the photos to myself and am now trying to get the photos posted in this thread:

Can't get them attached...do I have to use a photo hosting website like Photobucket? That will ensure I can't post the photos...haven't been able to access my Photobucket account for the past 2 years, ever since Photobucket was taken over by Google.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

TIA for whatever you can do to help.

Cheers!

Dugly