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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.
Now the guy can be charged for unauthorized access of a computer network, like that guy in Florida that /. mentioned last week.
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?"
I can't get to the article right now, but I also saw it yesterday. IIRC, the defendant's argument was that he was in the intersection to make a left turn, but had to wait for an oncoming car to clear the intersection before he could turn. The cop said that could not have happened because the street was one-way. Being able to demonstrate that the street was two-way was significant because it showed that his story was plausible - not to mention calling into question the arresting officer's ability to observe a crime-in-progress.
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.
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.
That's an interesting specialty. He must pull down tens of dollars a day doing stuff like that.
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."
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.
You can choose to contest it as a misdemeanor, and get all the requisite priveleges that go along with it
Rights. Not privileges, rights. It is my right as a citizen of a free country to be considered innocent until proven guilty, to be given a fair and speedy trial, and to not speak until I can talk to my attorney. I am indeed privileged to have these basic human rights (which, sadly, do not exist in some third world lands), but that does not change the fact that they are rights and not privileges. Some may think that I'm being too anal regarding the two words, but I disagree. I think that the moment we begin to think our basic rights "privileges," people's "privileges" will be taken away for this or that. That is not a road I wish to go down.
"Excuse me, did you say 'Trekker'? The word is 'Trekkie.' I should know; I created them." -- Gene Roddenberry
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.
I once (many years ago in my college days) had a parking ticket. I put the ticket somewhere and it really got misplaced. I totally forgot about it. A few weeks later while I was on break from college and working during the summer, I get a knock on my apartment door. Two constables were standing there to arrest me for not paying a freackin $10 ticket! I go with them (in cuffs!) and go into a room with the judge; note: it was _not_ a court room. The judge basically acts as if he will put me away for a long time, tells his sheriff to re-cuff me and "take this punk away". Well, I really didn't want to go to jail, so I was basically at the judges mercy. I agreed to pay the fines, had to apologize to the court about how I "didn't mean to not take his jurisdiction seriously", yada, yada, yada.
It really is a crook what local judges can get away with in the USA. Most of the cases they hear only need to show a "preponderance" of the evidence. Basically it means who ever the judge feels like believing. So if it is just your word and some cops, guess who the judge is going to believe?
In local courts in the USA, it really is "guilty until proven innocent". Oh, unless of course you pay a lawyer a few hundred bucks to go with you to the small claims/local court. Judges act _totally_ different if you have representation! Without a lawyer, you are pretty much toast; with a lawyer, you have a much better chance. I think that it is really sad if you are not able to represent yourself in a municipal court!
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
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).
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.