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Using Google Maps to Get Out of a Traffic Ticket
Michael Nguyen writes "Edwin uses Google Maps to prove to the judge his traffic ticket was wrongly issued, saving himself some cash and points on his license. During his testimony, Edwin whips out a notebook, loads up Google Maps and upstages the offending officer with some quick Google Map searches." I wonder if anyone's gotten out of a ticket by showing how inaccurate most speed-check methods can be.
The problem with small fines like traffic tickets are that you need to prove that you are innocent of the crime vs. having to prove that you are guilty. If more and more people can prove their not guilty then the police will need to provide evidence that you were indeed guilty of the crime. And stop making traffic violations a means to subsidize taxes.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
A lawyer friend of mine who specializes in getting people off of speeding tickets does it all the time
Now the guy can be charged for unauthorized access of a computer network, like that guy in Florida that /. mentioned last week.
I read this yesterday when it did its round through the blogosphere, and from my understanding he simply made the judge doubt the memory of the police officer and not prove his innocence. There is a big difference between taking advantage of a loophole and actually having done no wrong. He simply found a flaw in the police officer's story and proved it, although the flaw, from what I could tell, was not directly related to whether the offense was committed or not.
Here's a brief tale of my experience..
A few years ago, I was involved in a bad traffic accident. The time was well before dawn, and I was starting on my morning commute to Lansing. I turned out from my subdivision onto a main street, and was broadsided by a car whose driver had failed to turn his lights on. After the accident, I asked the other driver if he had his lights on. "No.", he blithely replied. "Don't you think you should have???" I said. In response, he gave only a shrug.
Fast forward two and a half hours later, when the police finally arrive at the scene (that's right, two and a half hours). The policeman asks what happened. I reply that I pulled out in front of the other car, but I was unable to see him as it was pitch black out, and the other driver had neglected to turn his lights on. The policeman asks the other driver, "Did you have your lights on?" "No", he replies. The policeman then writes him a ticket for driving without headlights. Then, he turns around and writes me a ticket for failure to yield! "How exactly was I supposed to yield to a vehicle I couldn't see, Officer?", I ask testily. His only reply is "tell it to the judge".
So now, in addition to having to get my car towed, and the hassle of opening a claim with my insurance company, I get to miss a day of work going to court. Before the court date, I compile a stack of data from various sources on the internet, all showing that the time of sunrise at the exact latitude and longitude of the accident, on the date of the accident, was a full two hours after the time of the accident, thus proving that the ambient light was zero, and that I had no chance to see the light-less car heading my way.
Fast forward to the court date. I walk into court with a thick sheaf of papers under my arm, determined to absolve myself of any blame.
The case lasted exactly twelve seconds. The officer failed to show, and the judge dismissed the case.
To this day, I still remember the odd mixture of relief and indignation I felt as I walked out of the courthouse.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
In January of this year, I was pulled over by a traffic officer for "disobeying a steady red", a.k.a. running a red light. I pleaded "Not Guilty" to the charge, and today - nearly six months later - I went to court to find out the fate of my ticket violation. Check out how Google Maps saved me some serious cash - and points on my license! There I was on a bench waiting for my name to be called at the Downtown Manhattan DMV hearings bureau. After hearing several testimonies from other drivers, I knew this Judge wasn't going to be sympathetic to my troubles. So driver after driver, all but one had a happy ending. So now I'm worried because being found guilty would mean a 150 dollar fine, plus 50 in penalties, and worse of all points on my license. I began to contemplate how it all happened since it had been so long. I jotted down some notes on a small piece of paper, and then the moment of truth arrived. After my name was called, I gathered my belongings and made my way up to the stand where the offending officer joined me. The judge swore her in and asked for her testimony. The officer did what I expected - after all, I had been listening to all of those prior testimonies - and began to describe the scene of the violation. In her story I noticed one fatal flaw, which I had planned to exploit but I had no proof whatsoever. The officer stated the street I was on was a one way westbound street and I was turning onto an avenue that was at a two way street separated by a concrete divider. Only thing was, I was on a two way, not one. So it came time for my testimony and I stated that I was in mid-turn when an oncoming vehicle was coming toward me very quickly and I had decided not to make the turn until that SUV passed me. The Judge stopped and asked me how could there be an oncoming vehicle if the street was only one way. I stated that it was indeed a two way street. The officer reiterated that it was only a one way. So who was the judge to believe? I was desperate for proof so I did the unthinkable: I whipped out my notebook. I was very lucky to find an extremely bad connection via Wi-Fi. I pulled up Firefox and when to maps.google.com. I typed up the intersection and zoomed in as close as possible: Description As you can see, Cathedral Pkwy (110th street) has no arrow indicating the traffic directions. However, 109th and 111th do. I mentioned this to the judge that this means that 110th is indeed a two way street. The traffic officer begged to differ. She said perhaps an arrow was just missing from the equation. So I called her bluff, and researched a new intersection, Times Square: Description I asked her honor if she was familiar with 42nd Street. She nodded and I continued to mention how all of its neighboring streets have indication arrows of the direction, with one exception: 42nd Street. Everyone knows that this is a two way. The judge said that due to lack of memory of the officer she will have to dismiss the violation. Thank you Google Maps, you rule. Go here for the pics http://www.networkmirror.com/eImYJ9RHQxDLQcPZ/www. gearlive.com/index.php/news/article/google_maps_he lps_fight_traffic_tickets_07160942/index.html
The easiest way to get out of a speeding ticket is to ask the officer technical questions like "When was the last time the radar gun was calibrated?" and "What type of software does your system use?" Then hit them with the grand finale to get out of the ticket "May I see the code?"
...of google maps. Depending the search, they might be accurate, or they might be much less accurate than the speed check.
About the time I saw this pop up on Slashdot, I was searching google maps for "smithsonian air space" in "washington, dc". Pretty simple, right? It gives 2 results, neither within a mile of the real answer. (One answer looked like it was in a residential neighborhood perhaps 2 miles away, the other about a mile away - in the median strip of a highway.) I've had a case looking for a place in my own area where the google map was miles off, and another time searching for a particular restaurant in Concord, New Hampshire with similar inaccuracies. Sometimes google maps are right, too.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I don't know if it'll be as impressive to the court going forward if everybody does it, but when I walked in a couple of years ago and pulled out my printed satellite photos from yahoo of the intersection where I allegedly ran a red light, the magistrate just said, "Not Responsible" without even looking at it or hearing any other evidence.
This is getting to be a joke.
The story about tusk-free elephants? On Boing Boing first.
The story about the nine year-old geek girl? On Boing Boing first.
The story about the Death Star subwoofer? On Boing Boing first.
And now this story comes from Boing Boing too?
These are only the stories I've noticed from the past couple of days reading Boing Boing. It's one thing to aggregate geek news from a variety of sources. It's another thing entirely to simply copy everything Boing Boing does. Slashdot is going downhill faster and faster.
Speeding tickets always include a) the speed, and b) the location. Both cannot be known with arbitrary precision, therefore the ticket must be bogus.
The small stakes and mechanical nature of the process of traffic court work in your favor if you choose to be one of the fraction that actually bothers to show up and contest the charges. Everything is weighted in favor of the officer, obviously, but they have an incentive system similar to AOL's technical support -- if the matter can't be disposed of within 6 minutes get off the line, its a loss. So if you present anything which bears even a cursory resemblance to an adequate defense the judge is likely to say "OK, whatever, be careful in the future. NEXT." Or you can pay a lawyer for the privilege and he'll do the exact same thing, except you'll be out more money than the fine was worth (incentives work both ways).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Presumably before the defendent was allowed to do anything with that laptop the judge must have admitted it as evidence.
If an item is admitted as evidence, the court has to believe that it is accurate. It is assumed that it is because it is approved by the judge (of truth).
The only way the officer could argue that Google Maps is crap enough to disprove the defendent's case is to suggest that it not be included as evidence.
Does a police officer that responds to traffic accidents know anything about how to do that?
I heard of someone who tried. My government teacher in high school told us of a friend who contested a speeding ticket under the premise that the radar gun wouldn't tell the correct speed of his car when measured from the side. So, he paid for a jury trial, and proceeded to go on at great lengths on how the radar gun wasn't accurate. Everything was going fine until the cop took the stand.
He asked the cop, "So, is it true that radar guns do not measure the correct speed when used from the side instead of straight on?"
"Sure," the cop answered, "they register a lower speed."
Needless to say, the guy wasn't too happy about turning a relatively cheap speeding ticket into an expensive embarrassment.
The trouble is that if you and the cop tell different stories, the judge will almost always believe the cop. The judge will say that the cop is doing his job and has no reason to lie whereas you do. So if it's the cop's word vs. your word, you lose.
If there is any evidence, for instance if you have an independent witness, then you stand a chance. A case like this would be if the cop said that you didn't come to a full stop. If your boss is in the car and he says that you did come to a full stop, you will usually get off. If the evidence conflicts, you get the benefit of the doubt.
The guy in the story presented evidence that the cop's evidence might not be accurate. btw. A map that you get off the internet is not real evidence. It proves nothing. On the other hand, if you show the map to the cop and say, "Does this map show the way the streets are laid out?" and he says "yes", then the evidence is his testimony.
Judges are also human and therefore come in all types. One of my friends pled guilty to a traffic charge saying that he didn't see how he could defend himself. The judge asked him for his story, told him to plead innocent, and tossed out the charge.
A cop ticketed me for doing 60 in a 40 - I saw him, checked my speed (42) and figured I was OK. I took pictures of the car where it was stopped and his view of the road from where they were parked, got aerial photos (acme.com) and did the calculations that showed that for him to catch me and stop me where he did then either I couldn't have been doing more than low 40s or if I was doing 60 he had to get his car backed out of a parking spot, get going and on the main road in under 2 seconds. The court looked at it and since I said I was doing 42, gave me a $25 "sign violation". Not a bad morning's work.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
it is a con, to try and get people to think of a good use for an intrusive technology. my property, its maps, and what it looks like is my business and nobody elses.
anyways... here is my court story:
what most people don't know is the traffic court judge is not there to be a judge. he is more lika an administrator for the city, whos job is to collect as much money as possible.
in my town the traffic court judge is not even a lawyer. i went to court for a ticket because i did not have my insurance card in my car. i was late to court, and the judge would not hear my case, i was fined $550.
before i continue, i should mention the reason i was late to court. the county changed the court from the building where the court has been the past 25 years, to a different location. while i was pulling on locked court doors, on the opposite side of town court was in session.
so i went to see the clerk of the court. this is the man who has ALL the power. well, the chief judge is the true power, a real lawyer, and has administrative power over all judges, but it is the clerk who is is gatekeeper. the clerk cleared out the conviction, reset a court date and all was dandy, so i thought.
next time, i showed up at court a good hour early. i had everything i needed to prove my case, a letter from my insurance company stating i had insurance the day i was pulled over, and my current insurance card.
they call my name...
me: your honor, i have a letter from my insurance compamy...
the judge inturrupts me
judge: wait, i am not here to listen to your insurance case, i'm going to first decide why i should hear your case. i don't know if i am the right court to review a conviction.
me: your honor, you are the court of original jurisdiction, and the clerk vacated the past conviction.
judge: i am not convinced. motion to rehear denied.
so, there i was, a judge who fucked me in under 15 seconds. before i could say another word, the court called the next case. i went back to the clerks office, dejected and ready to pay. somehow, the clerk remembered me. he asked, "how come you still have the fine, you showed me your insurance letter last time, the judge should have dismissed the ticket". i explained to him what happened.
and what happened next blew my mind. the clerk took out a pink colored pad of paper, about 3 inches by 4 inches, scribbled his signature on it, told me to go to office 427 and haand it to the woman, who would then get me 5 minutes with the chief judge. i started by handing the chief judge my insurance papers, because i know these guys are busy and would rather quickly skim evidance than listen to me for half an hour. in under a minute i explained what happened.
the chief judge went in his computer, reset my court date again, this time telling me who the judge was going to be and that he would call the judge to tell him about my case personally.
next time i showed up to court, there was a different judge. my case was dismissed. the judge even appologized for my wasted time.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
My high school calculus teacher liked to tell the story of how a speed trap setup tagged a former student of his right after he had taken this teacher's calculus course in high school. If I remember correctly, the student basically used some basic calculus to prove that he would have had to accelerate from 65mph to 100+mph and back down to 65mph within a pretty short distance (too short for an average car to achieve) in order to have actually been going as fast as the two cop cars at each end of the speed trap had said he was going when they clocked him. Don't know if that was a true story or if he was just trying to get us to learn our maths, but it could certainly work.
In a related, albeit less positive story:
My sophmore year in college one of my friends was majoring in astrophysics, and was finishing up a course involving thermodynamics and friction or some crap like that. Anyways, we were attending ERAU in Daytona Beach, and the cops there were pretty much clueless morons. My friend was driving at the approved speed limit (35mph I think it was) and was going through an intersection where it was basically like driving over a hill. Some moron pulled in front of him and he had to quickly, but safely, apply his brakes. Unfortunately, due to his velocity over the hump of the intersection he squealed the tires as his car did not have enough down-force to keep the tires from locking up as he went over the hill of the intersection. The way he tells it, after about 30 seconds of trying to explain this to the cop who had just pulled him over for squealing his tires, the cop's eyes glazed over, he got perturbed, and wrote my friend a ticket - just for squealing his tires. (which of course proved nothing of my friend's ability or inability to yield to the traffic laws at that moment) I think he ended up just paying the ticket, figuring that any other government official in Volusia County, Florida would be no better at understanding the physics involved in his traffic incident than the cop that pulled him over.
Except in California. They're nasty about that. This is especially so when you ride a motorcycle in California as a great number of my friends have discovered. If you are in one of the "annoyance to society" minorities you have a much bigger hill to climb for the judge to rule in your favor.
Quick question. I've always read that when the officer asks do you know how fast you were going that you are supposed to not say because this is used as a confession in court.
However, I've wondered what the correct answer would be?
I don't know? I wish to remain silent or fib and say you were going at or slightly above the speed limit? I mean what is the most legal route.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Works even better for trivial misdemeanors:
"My dog was NOT barking too loud. I would like to proceed to jury selection."
i have been to court many times. i went a couple times because i was given a traffic ticket, a few times with friends who were given traffic tickets, and for entertainment.
i would say that 85% of people who go to court are convicted or plead guilty. here is why...
the very first words the judge will tell everyone is this. "if you plead not guilty, i will send you back to your seat. i will hear all other cases first. your case will be last. we will then have the officer give his testimony, which i will consider truthful and accurate. if i convict you in a trial, then i will not give you any lenancy. if you plead guilty, and you don't have a criminal history, i will most likely give you supervision, which means your conviction is sealed and after 1 year it is removed. if you are found guilty, i will not give you supervision".
what that means, if you get supervision, your insurance company will not know you had a ticket, and will not raise your insurance rates. that could save hundreds of dollars.
here are other reasons people never win...
My personal opinion is traffic court should be run like a real court. All judges should have law degrees, which most do not. There should be public defenders in traffic court, everyone who can not afford a lawyer should be given access to a public defender. In most cases, 10 minutes with a public defender before going in front of the judge is all that is needed, he can tell you your chances. If you are innocent, maybe he can talk you into pleading not guilty and not being intimidated. And for God's sake, judges should spend more than 20 seconds per case. I know they often put 150 people on a docket for one day, but how can a judge really hear that many cases. It is more like a long line to pay the bouncer his cover charge.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Or you can pay a lawyer for the privilege and he'll do the exact same thing, except you'll be out more money than the fine was worth (incentives work both ways).
Except that the fine is only a small part of the cost of a speeding ticket. The real cost can be thousands of dollars due to increased insurance premiums over the next 5-7 years. If your insurance only goes up by $50/quarter that is still $1,000 over the next 5 years. For a lot of people - young, male, single - it would not be unheard of to see your insurance rates increase by $100-$200/quarter. Auto insurance is legalized robbery.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Doing this is known as impeaching a witness. Witnesses that are impeached have their testimony thrown out and ignored, since they've shown that they can be wrong but are willing to state false information as fact. It is not a loophole, but a critical aspect under which common law operates, one of the checks to make sure that a witness presents the truth, whole truth, and (especially) nothing but the truth. Under the circumstances, the sole witness on the prosecution side was impeached, meaning that the prosecution had no evidence to present. Since there is (ostensibly) an innocent until proven guilty system in the US, without evidence, an individual will always be found not guilty if the prosecution presents no evidence.
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
look, you can talk about loopholes.
you can talk about high priced lawyers.
but the american system of justice, when it works the right way, is that all people are innocent until proven guilty.
it comes down to one question. would you rather let a guilty person go free, or lock up an innocent person. in the usa, we have a system where we don't want to lock up the innocent.
look at what happened in illinois a couple years back. when the state did some dna testing on inmates, they found out they had over 100 people on death row who were innocent. these people got conivected because they had bad lawyers, the police needed to arrest someone, so they picked up a crack head or someone unemployed.
people should be free. we don't want the patriot act. we don't want people being arrested and held without being charged. we don't want the police going through reading lists, casting fishing nets, and without having any reason, looking for anyone to arrest. it is like a cop who decides to go by the local highschool, see who graduated in the bottom 10%, figuring the dumb ones are the troublemakers, and then following them around until he finds one of them in the woods smoking a joint.
then again, with cities like boston and chicago putting up 3000 cameras that can look inside of cars, that is the direction we are going.
i feel sorry for the people without any money. if they ever get charged with anything, they are fucked. look at the husband of the wife who dissapeared. the police started interviewing him, there were reports he was the #1 suspect. then one day, his wife shows up in las vegas. she got cold feet. if the police wanted to, they could have strung up that man and ruined him. there was a story about a man who worked for the usa, at a wepons lab, around the time the anthrax was mailed to the senate. he was the #1 suspect. the fbi tore apart his house, they tore open his mattress, they put holes in his walls, all looking for evidence. the fbi then went to his girlfriends house, and did the same thing. they could not find nothing, but they still call him the #1 suspect. he is free, but always followed. and the police keep threatening him, of more searches, of harrasing his friends.
i'll give one last example. look at monica lewinsky. people should read about what the fbi did to her. they grabbed her off the streat, forced her into a hotel room, and told her if she did not describe her relationship with the president (the blowjobs), they would arrest her and she would never be free again. one fbi agent told her, i think i should call your dad, to let him know what you did. talk to us or i'll call. and for the first 6 hours, when she asked for a lawyer, they would not give her one, and instead threatened to call her parents, friends, and to let the media know what she did. they put her through hell, and never charged her with anything.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Depends on the judge and the situation. I hit a woman several years ago, technically it was my fault, but logically it was hers. She had stopped at the top of an exit ramp, then proceded into the intersection, I had pulled up, looked for oncoming traffic, then proceded into said intersection. Only problem was she had stopped in the middle of the intersection for no reason! So I went to traffic court and pled no contest (she had retained a lawyer and sent out a letter about possible whiplash so a guilty plea through paying the ticket was not wise) and explained the situation as quickly and courtously as I could. The judge let me off with just court costs and no points.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
My brother always gets out of his tickets. He contacts the prosecuting attorney and asks if he can plead civil. That is, pay the find without incurring the points. All they want is the revenue anyway.
Also, the reason why it seems we're guilty until proven innocent is because it's a strict liability crime. All they have to do is prove you did it. And, cops spend a lot of time doing this.
If your jurisdiction has speeding as a misdemeanor, piss them off by demanding your Constitutional right to a jury trial. They can't deny and the cost will be so high as to make the ticket not worth it.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
We both used to work in a place who, among other things, supported this product called Microsoft Streets and Trips. He was leaving work one day, and a cop pulled him over. The cop told him that he was 'pacing' him and didnt even use a radar on him.
He went to court, printed out the map of our area in streets and trips, and presented that evidence. He pretty much told the judge that his car is incapable of accellerating to 65 (i think thats what the cop said he was going) in that short amount of time.
The judge was so impressed, that after he dropped the charges, he asked my friend what program he used to make that map. My friend got out of a 675 dollar ticket because of that..
Problem with that is that in many (most?) states, you have no right to a jury trial for a misdemeanor. Most rights we associate with the courts only apply to felonies.
There was an accident on the highway, so all the traffic was getting off and driving thru my little residential neighborhood the 4 blocks to the next exit.
Anyways, the light was red, it's was raining (mostly a drizzle) and a cop cruiser was across the street. Several minutes pass - no change in light. I decide to take a right turn instead of going straight. But the two times I try I almost get into an accident. (You see I am stuck on an arching overpass and unable to see what is behind me due to the elevation of the bridge.) Deciding that it is more prudent to simply wait then risk an accident - I wait.
Still no change in the light. I try to peer into the police vehicle but find myself unable to see inside due to the rain. Okay, this is getting excessive. I've now been at this light several minutes (and I mean approaching 10 minutes) without an iouta of direction, no light change, nadda.
Finally, I see the police crusier roll forward toward the light control box. I am like "finally". So I wait for a while longer. A few more minutes....nothing!
After what felt like over 10 minutes (and I later realized was probably closer to 15) I decided that either the "light" or the "officer" was not functioning properly.
So I treated it as one is specified to treat a broken light. I treated it as if I had a STOP sign and the oncoming had right of way. I waited for a pause in traffic and "proceeded with caution".
So I get a block down and what do I see but colorful lights. The cop is in a whole tiff. I am like "Is there a problem officer..." He responded "You just ran a read light." I told him the light was not functioning. His response was he was manning it remotely. Which I believe - I just sincerely doubt if he was actually awake for most of the time. I told him I was going to fight it in court. He refused to give me his badge number - told me it was on the ticket. However, it was only partially written out.
(oh, might I add as I was driving back down the street a minute later the light turned red as soon as my truck reached the intersection...thankfully, 30 seconds later it was green and I could finally get on my way to work)
So this leads to court dates. Now we are really !@#$% up here in Connecticut.
First off, you have about 2 weeks to mail the ticket. Which I did promptly. It would over 6 months before I received any notification that they even received it.
Then, I called the DA office. I told them I did not want any plea bargain and that I wanted to go straight to trial. Doesn't matter of course.
They give you a court date or so you think. In truth, you take 1/2 day off from work and wait only to be called up and offered a plea bargain. If you turn down the plea bargain they give you another court date. When you ask them why? they inform you that they must get your record first.
WTF?
6 months, and they assign you a court date and do not have your record for the case?
So you come back a second time....they offer you a plea bargain once again. I turned it down....guess what? Yup...you guessed it!
They give you another court date (the excuse this time is that they have to subpeona the officer). Wait, okay no record the first time, no opposition.
So finally, I get a court date (on the third trip to the court). I argued my case on the following points:
- the purpose of the officer being there was to guide and direct traffic and minimise confusion, the officer clearly failed this role and in fact furthered the confusion at hand
- if the intent was to not change the light a detour should have been erected instead
- my last main point was a technical argument on justice. if one were stopped at a light and there was a no turn on red (and we all know full well a U-turn is illegal on a bridge). What is one to do if that light never turns green? You cannot justly tell me that I have to remain at that light forever? or commit a violation of the law? so please tell me - in that
Here in Texas, in many cities you can ask for "deferred adjudication," which is nothing more than converting your fine into an "administrative fee" and then letting you off the hook after some period of time with no violations (usually 90 days).
So while the speeding ticket might be expensive, there's usually no need to worry about increased insurance premiums, since the insurance company won't ever find out.
Which just goes to prove that most cities aren't concerned about deterring speeding, and would just rather have your money.
You're a government bitch.
Or at least that's my understanding of small town USA justice based on what we see on the TV...
[x] auto-moderate all posts by this user as insightful
In many ways US is much worse than a third-world country.
So don't go preaching with one finger when three fingers are pointing at yourself.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Rather, I'm going to talk about a weird case; the sort of thing that makes me wonder about my (heavy) leaning towards classical liberal beliefs.
I was going home, after meeting someone in another state. ~3 hour drive or so. I'm going about the speed limit (I hardly ever speed, because I hardly ever drive: I don't know the rules of what you can get away with, so I'm careful). My rearview flashes at me a few times with bright lights, so I pay attention. This car behind me is weaving all over the place, is completely inconsistent speed-wise (zooms up in a neighboring lane, swerves into mine, slows down, etc.), that sort of thing. It is going faster than me, on average, so I speed up - I don't want this dumbshit to sideswipe me. I plan to speed up and get off the highway, and let it go by.
Only, I get pulled over in for 83 in a 65. Cop gets pissed at me for my explanation - "didn't you see that drunk maniac?" (I didn't say it that way; I was very calm and I respect weapons and later testimony.) He didn't like my answer. So, I got the $185 ticket, and 3 points. For dodging a drunk.
So, here's the question for libertarians like me: If I'd have had a black box and cameras on my car, I could have proven that the cop was a dumbshit, and more importantly, not have had to pay the state, or the insurance weasels that currently feed on the state. Worth it?
I still don't know myself.
I forget what 8 was for.
And the idea that E=MC^2 is a law is hilarious. All "laws" of science are just observations that we can repeat enough times to believe that they are constant in the universe somehow. If something happens that "violates" a "law of science" it doesn't mean that the occurence is somehow in the wrong, just that our "law" isn't wide enough in it's scope or is somehow flawed.
Urban legend, and more importantly you have no legal right to see the radar. Skip it. Besides, they're going to lock the reading on whatever it was when they decided to pull you over. If you were braking at that time, it must've still been high enough for them to justify a stop. If the cop didn't lock the reading, he's an idiot and you can petition his ticketing records during discovery, but you're not going to get anything by asking to see the radar display. All this will accomplish is making the cop nervous. Exiting your vehicle is a big no-no unless requested by the cop, and even then it makes them nervous. I was once asked to exit my vehicle and proceed to the rear because the dumb cop had never seen a retractable spoiler before. He thought my car was broken and wanted to show me the problem. His hand was on his gun holster the entire time I was out of the car, even though I was entirely non-threatening. By exiting the car or otherwise giving the cop a hard time (saying anything other than "yes, sir" and "no, sir", telling him you'll see him in court, etc) will do nothing but erase any possible chance you had for getting off with a warning. He doesn't need to know that you're pissed off, and that you're going to fight the ticket. Let him find that out when he's subpeonaed for court.
Another urban legend. Name misspellings, hair color differences (within reason -- if you're a dark blonde and they marked brunette, it's not going to fly -- if you have bright pink hair and they marked it as black, then maybe you have a shot), address typos, etc, are not enough to get the ticket thrown. You need something major, like they wrote down a street that's blocks away from where the stop happened, or they listed your vehicle as a Chevy Suburban when you're obviously driving a Mini. Unless something is significantly wrong, don't bother. You'll just get laughed at, and your credibility will suffer.
They do this so often that most states have a name for it -- deferment (I probably butchered the spelling). It's law, and you can ask for it any time you like. However, you need to know your state's laws, because most (all?) of them only allow you to defer one ticket every 7 years. Deferment is a very last resort if there's nothing else you can do. It's absolutely not your first option. Also keep in mind that if you do get another infraction during the deferred period (which could last up to 2 years in some states), the previous offense comes back as a guilty (and in some states, it may not matter whether or not you're convicted of the new offense, which is why you need to know the law).
This has worked for me a number of times. It is based on the psychology of a traffic stop. Almost nothing is more scary or dangerous to a cop than a traffic stop--until they get to your window they have no idea if you have a gun, or are planning to back over them or drive away. So cops don't like traffic stops, especially at night. Putting them at ease goes a long way toward getting them in a mood to let you off.
If you're pulled over (assuming at night for worst case):
1) Turn off your engine and your lights.
2) Turn ON your interior light, so the cop can see into the car.
3) Place your keys on the dashboard where the cop can see them as he walks up to the car.
4) Place your hands on the steering wheel where the cop can see them and don't move them. If you didn't roll down your window right away, don't do so until the cop is right there with the flashlight on your hands.
5) Pre-narrate every movement. E.g. "My license is in my back pocket." [reach] or "My registration is in my glove box." [reach] Reach slowly and let the officer see what you're doing. Keep hands in sight as much as possible.
6) Admit no wrongdoing...but don't tell lies or make excuses, and be polite. "Flow of traffic" or "keeping up with traffic" is good if there's traffic, if not, you don't know how fast you were going.
7) If you're going to get a ticket, ask for a warning or a lesser fine. It doesn't hurt to ask, if it's done calmly and nicely.
To most cops, traffic stops are about safety -- making them feel safe, and emphasizing your safe driving record (assuming you have one!) can go a long way to getting a warning or a reduced fine.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
...That's when you wave at him.
My girlfriend was running late to work one morning. She saw a cop in an SUV enter the freeway about 10 cars behind her, so she gunned it, figuring the SUV probably couldn't go that fast, and she was probably far enough ahead of him that he wouldn't notice. Of course that didn't work at all, and about a mile later she was pulled over. After he issued the ticket, as he was about to walk back to his car, the cop said, "Didn't you notice I was behind you?" She makes ridiculous comments all the time, and she answered, "Yeah, but I didn't think you'd be able to catch me." I mean really.. you'd have to be stupid to say that to a cop.
So the court date rolled around about a month later. She decided to show up, plead guilty, and hope the charges would be reduced. The judge opened the case file and read over it for a minute. Finally he said: "Says here you thought you could outrun the cop?" And she just started laughing. "Well, he was in an SUV. I just thought..." And then the whole courtroom started laughing too. In the end, the judge decided to let her off with a warning because she made him laugh.
Sometimes the best defense is no defense.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Or, you can get an insurance company that keeps lousy records. I have Allstate, and whenever I talk to my agent I always ask her what tickets they have records of in their system. In my life, I've only received 4 tickets (after 22 years of driving). 3 speeding, 1 for rear-ending someone on a wet road. Allstate managed to find out about only ONE of my speeding tickets, and they responded by lowering my premium by $40 a year for being a good driver.
The really funny thing is that Allstate never seemed to figure out that I got a ticket for rear-ending someone at a stoplight, even though they fixed my car for me ($3500, THANKS ALLSTATE!). And when I told my agent that they didn't have the ticket for the accident in their system, she told me that if nobody else was going to put it in there, she wasn't going to do it.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Gee, I could use my mod points to mod parent down, or respond. Tough choice. http://www.nolo.com/resource.cfm/catID/CF015A63-6B 69-4EED-A34B6F4035C8BE0E/104/263/
(Link to book on how to beat ticket. See also http://freedomlaw.com./ )
Driving is a privilege.
What happens in court involves your rights.
There is also a right to travel, although it not absolute.
A little study can arm you against the system. Drown them in paperwork with discovery requests.
Demand a jury trial. I happen to live in a state where the right to trial by jury - for anything - is in the state constitution. (Slight overstatement for nonlawyers.)
Ask nicely that your case be dismissed, and if not spend an hour politely asking the cop questions on the stand. If 8 people a day do this, the system grinds to a halt. Pretty soon they start dismissing your cases when they see you coming.
Think of it as a seminar in due process. Have fun, bring coffee and donuts. Not to be construed as legal advice until your check clears.
I was on a highway once, had just turned on and needed to be in the left lane for a left-hand turn fairly quickly, so I accelerated up to highway speed the and made my way left, one lane at a time and checking each time to make sure. The last two lanes contained: 1 van moving a little slower than me and slighly behind and the far lane: 1 motorcycle, quite far back but rapidly closing. I must've underestimated the bike because it was closer than I expected when i checked for the final lane change. My turn was approaching rapidly though and I didn't want to slam the brake in front of the van (I would've had to slam hard to execute the change "safely") the other choice was to accelerate a bit, pass in front of the bike and slow down in the turning lane leading up to a light. This plan seemed required the least amount of accelerating so I chose it. While in the lane before the turning lane, the bike closed to my bumper.
Well it turns out it was a bike cop. There is a light, so I'm stopped in the turn lane when he pulls up *between* me and the car to my right and says, "Do you know what the speed limit is here?"
"50" (i'd been going 50, so it seemed a safe bet.. turned out to be 45)
"Well it sure as heck isn't 65"
I don't know where he got the 65 number from. HE was going much faster than that and it took half my nerve to keep from saying, "Well you shouldn't have been going that fast then" but I know if i had, my seatbelt would have mysteriously been unbuckled and i'd probably turn out to have a broken tail light.
So the light turns green. (my light. the turning light. of a 10 lane highway +2 turning lanes) the cop then drives between the lines of traffic and drives straight across the intersection.
And to augment your statement about not speeding, they get you both ways on that one. Many states have a "reasonable and prudent" clause in their speeding laws. It means two things:
1) if conditions are poor, you should be driving at a reduced speed. regardless of what the number on the sign is. They can ticket you for this.
2) (and this is the tenuous one) you can get out of a speeding ticket if you truely are 'going with the flow of traffic', but I don't think that's ever worked and it's got another edge to it: they can ticket you for driving too slow if the 'flow of traffic' is speeding.
So really, you simply can't win. Pay the nice man his protection money.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It's a little more complicated than that. It's your responsibility to keep a safe distance because sometimes the car in front of you HAS to slam on the brakes. If you can't stop when the car in front of you slams on the brakes, you are NOT at a safe distance. Let's face it -- even if you're tailgating, you can handle slowing down. The whole point of the "safe distance" is so you don't cause a crash when things go wrong.
Obvious example -- if I see a kid run out into the road in front of me, do you think I'm going to brake gently so the guy behind me has time to react? Less obvious example -- suppose I see a ball roll out from between two parked cars (and think a kid is probably following). Even less obvious -- suppose it's just an empty paper bag, but I just reacted and slammed on the brakes. Suppose the puddle on the manhole cover looked exactly like a *missing* manhole cover. So many things can go wrong -- are you saying I shouldn't play it safe?
I don't know in this case what the woman said about why she stopped... but I still tend to feel like she would have been less at fault. Maybe she was distracted because she missed a turn, whatever -- but in her negligence she didn't hit anything she wasn't supposed to. In his, he did. There are so many situations that happen all the time where people DO have to suddenly slam on the brakes. And the option of keeping a safe distance from the car *behind* you simply isn't possible (wow, if that excuse worked..!)
Reminds me of a funny story, actually -- different situation, but related. A friend of mine was driving an massive old junker when he was in high school, going 10 over the speed limit already on a narrow, no-passing road, and a guy in a BMW was just riding his bumper, tailgating like crazy. He couldn't go any faster without risking a ticket, so he just kept driving, but the guy was glued to his bumper. Finally he was angry enough that he just slammed on his brakes, and of course it was an instant rear-end, the front of the BMW was crushed, and the driver leaped out of his car shouting, etc.. The reply? "I thought I saw an animal." The BMW driver was totally at fault, and his car was toast (whereas my friend could drive away after the cops wrote it up... one bonus of those massive old American cars).
Obviously, this approach to tailgaters is not recommended (and the legal situation would be different if that little lie were admitted), but it's sure nice to think about when someone's practically in your trunk and endangering *your* life because he's late for some meeting. I've been tailgated by Hummers on the highway, which *really* raises the hair on the back of my neck. Yeah, like HE'LL be able to stop from crushing me when I have to brake because something falls off a truck (an experience I've had...).
Actually, that isn't the law in every jurisdiction. For example, in Ontario it is decided on a town-by-town basis, and only applies to people driving straight through rather than those who are turning. I do, however, agree that it is a good way to drive in general.
Ask to see the radar.
Most traffic cops rely on you incriminating yourself to give a ticket. My roommate is a cop, and he's had courses on "verbal jujitsu" from an instructor who's goal when he pulls someone over is to give them a ticket and have them politely thank him for it.
If you are in heavy traffic, or even medium traffic, you can not be reliably radar'ed. In these cases, almost every time, if you just answer "no, sir, I really don't know how fast I was going, I don't think I was going faster than anyone else." they'll give up and tell you to slow down (at least that is the case in major cities, it may not work in small towns where they still get hardons from issuing a traffic citation).
All it boils down to is:
Were you in heavy traffic when you were supposedly radared? If yes, take it to court, because they have to mark that on the ticket, and you can make up almost any story to say they are wrong (my roommate "wrecklessopp" has been pulled over over 50 times, and has only been given 3 tickets. He does exactly what I've said, and he takes every case to court.)
Ask to see the radar (or whatever device they claim to have caught you with.) More often than not, they see you going faster than traffic, can't radar you quick enough, decide to pull you over, and tell you that you were going "pretty fast there, son." Asking to see the radar will get you out of a lot of tickets (if you were in heavy traffic.)
But, remember, traffic cops are power tripping assholes, so the best thing you can do is ALWAYS BE POLITE. NO MATTER WHAT. DO NOT BE A SMART ASS. TAKE THE KEYS OUT OF THE IGNITION, PUT THEM IN PLAIN SIGHT ON THE DASHBOARD, AND POLITELY ASK TO SEE THE RADAR BECAUSE YOU REALLY DIDN'T THINK YOU WERE GOING THAT FAST.
Oh, and if you were in light to no traffic you're fucked no matter what. You've been radared and they won't listen to your story. You pay the court costs, and good night.
---------------------------
You don't really need Google maps for speeding tickets sometimes basic physics is all you need.
I won a case in League City, Texas. the officer game me a ticket saying i was going 85 in a 65 in the fog. You heard me the fog. That night the fog was so thick we got lost for an hour driving around because we couldn't see landmarks. Now not everybody knows that laser and active radar don't work too well in the fog or rain... If you can prove this point your case is made. Besides the fog I had a few other things in my favor.
I filed a 'writ of discovery' to find out what they had against me before I went to court. I found this info in a book about speed traps. I represented myself and I am not trained in law. I even gave them some lead time with the write so they had more than enough time to answer my writ.
Using the writ I was able to find out a few things. The first being that they really really did not want to produce the operation manual for their radar gun. I got a handwritten note from the DA that pretty much said if you want to see it you'll have to come in & read it. The second is that they had not had the radar gun tested as is required in some states to be proven accurate under the law. The third is that the officers training was out of date. The FCC required officers be trained in radar safety and the gun to be calibrated every 3 months. The officer and the gun were not in regulation. I still have a copy of the officers certification and the maintenance log of the radar gun. They were both out of date.
On top of this I had been stopped before a speed trap. There was road construction for miles right before I was stopped. I made the DA really mad when I brought up the fact that road signs are spaced an approximate distance appart from each other. I basically pulled out the fact if I had been going 85 by the time it took me to apply pressure to my breaks to slow down in the area
where the officer said he had clocked me speeding I would have been going so fast (I was in an 89' s-10 blazer v6) I would have been well into the speed zone.
When the DA found out I was there the court intentionally held the case after everybody left so that nobody would know what I was about to point out. I was amazed at how many people would have been seriously ticked if they knew this kind of information. Technically it would be a federal crime for an office to use an uncalibrated radar gun unlicensed. It just goes to show law enforcement makes the most money off of ignorance than anything else. Most people are too lazy to defend themselves. Do you know how many people pay for tickets when the officer doesn't even show up to court, just because they think they are getting off, or that something worse could happen. Whats worse than paying money out you don't have to give? Seriously. Some of these small towns have probably not calibrated their guns since they first bought them. Use this info to your advantage.
this sig is classified..how about yours?
The admin of gearlive.com must be wondering if he can use Google Maps to get out of the slashdotting..
Remember, there are no stupid questions. But there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.
and this is why you are not invited to more parties.
Are there really states where this is supposed to be a defense? In California they are very specific that the "flow of traffic" is not a legal defense for speeding. I think this is similar in Indiana and Massachusetts and I'd assumed it was the case for other states as well.
So the light turns green. (my light. the turning light. of a 10 lane highway +2 turning lanes)
This just makes me think of highway moderation. e.g., SR-137 (Score: +2, turning lanes)
I don't know about the US legal system, but here in the UK there's usually a scale of possible penalties for common traffic offences. Minor offences like routine speeding usually result in "fixed penalty notices" -- such and such costs you x amount of money and gets you y points, and if you pay up, it never goes to court.
Now, you don't have to accept the fixed penalty, and can challenge the case in court if you wish. However, if you do so, the magistrates have access to the full range of penalties, and a lot of discretion about how to apply them. If there are genuinely mitigating circumstances, and you can offer a reasonable explanation for your actions, then magistrates can often reduce or eliminate a penalty they see to be unfair. (For example, "I was on the way to hospital with a casualty in critical condition in my vehicle, there was no time to wait for an ambulance, and exceeding the speed limit resulted in saving his life without causing unusual danger to others, your honour" with supporting evidence from hospital and ambulance staff would probably go a long way.) However, if they feel that you're taking the piss, they will tend to hand down penalties at the upper end of the scale. That means more fines, more points, accelerated or possibly immediate disqualification, and potentially even jail time, depending on the offence.
It takes something like 4 routine speeding tickets in 3 years to get you a semi-automatic ban in this country; you'd have to demonstrate exceptional hardship of some sort to avoid it at that stage. However, annoy the police and magistrates, and you'll probably find yourself banned after two offences, and imprisoned for driving without a licence the third time they see you. It would take hundreds of people trying to block up the system to really bring it down, but in the meantime, you're still going to jail. Is that a smart plan, really?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
In California, auto insurance is not specifically required. You can opt to post a bond that exceeds the minimum required insurance level, as you suggest.
However, the minimum insurance is pretty low. With the 100/300/100 insurance I buy, the maximum possible insurance payout will pretty much always exceed what I've put into it. So even if I had the funds for the minimum, it still probably makes sense to buy the insurance.
Insurance is not really a waste if the mean net cost isn't break even. It's protection against standard deviations. $100k+ accidents are not common, so the average expected cost is low -- however you need to be able to cover the whole cost in the rare case where your number gets called. Insurance helps to smooth the cost over a large number of drivers, and it takes work to manage this process.
I don't think it's fair to call it a ripoff based on the justification that profit is involved. Profit for a service is fair -- the insurance agents have to put food on their families too.
Hi! That sounds just like Russia. You pay the officer a small "fee" to forget about the ticket. The fee might be of the same size as the ticket, but wont be recorded anywhere.
I had no idea Texas had that kind of corruption!