Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

GPS Used As Defence In Radar Speeding Case

Posted by kdawson on from the could-be-onto-something dept.

James Thigpen writes "There is an article over at Ars Technica about an accused speeder contesting his speeding ticket based on his car's built-in GPS system's records. According to the article his car says he was going slower than the radar gun clocked him at. Contesting a ticket based on GPS data has never before been tested in court."

3 of 464 comments (clear)

  1. Video Evidence by ZERO1ZERO · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I've often thought it would be a good idea to have a constant video recording your driving, like the police camera setups. This could help clear up who to beleive at the scene of accidents, because of the video.

    Plus it would be cool to have onboard footage of your driving for analysis and review.

    1. Re:Video Evidence by billcopc · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yep, police work is only performed where it matter$, aka speed traps and deliberately low limits. Saving lives is not a profitable business, which is why no matter what you do (or don't do), if a cop shows up, you get a fine.

      In my opinion, if they're not enforcing speed limits in the few areas where they are actually beneficial, then we should abolish that system entirely as it is working for no one. I pay taxes like (most) everyone else, if that money isn't enough to afford proper police without the need for profiteering practices, then raise my goddamned taxes and destroy those stupid radar guns. Maybe then people will start respecting these so-called peace keepers again.

      Something is very very wrong with the world when honest law-abiding citizens live in fear and/or contempt of the law.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
  2. I work for the radar company... by crazybilly · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I work for the radar company that made the radar gun the cop used. I don't have all the information about what happened, but I have a hard time believing the GPS is more accurate.

    Radar guns are certified regularly, which is most often a pretty simple accuracy test (but very well could have been a full diagnostic), so it's doubtful the radar gun was malfunctioning (iirc, those guns have an internal lockout in case of malfunction).

    Also, remember that we're talking basically the speed of light here, with some minor latency for the unit to process the Doppler shift. Radar's pretty much instaneous, within miliseconds, at least.

    Now, that's not to say that the officer didn't make an error. Radar's not an exact tool--b/c the beam is so wide, you can pick up a lot of things and an untrained officer can get some misleading speeds.

    At the same time, remember that most traffic officers do this all day, at least five days a week. They make mistakes just like anybody else, but they're rare. And for that matter, officers are trained to use the radar as a confirmation of their own judgement of how fast the vehicle's moving. And since they're doing it all day long every day, they can tell you within a mph or two how fast a car is going just by looking at it.

    Again, I'm not pretending to have all the information, but if it came down to trusting GPS or trusting the radar, I'd trust the radar. It's just a simpler tool, with less hoops to jump through (and fewer things to go wrong).

    Disclaimer: I'm in marketing for Decatur Electronics. But for what it's worth, I use Linux on my machine at home, hehehe.