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GPS Tracking Device Beats Radar Gun in Court
MojoKid writes "According to a release issued by Rocky Mountain Tracking, an 18-year old man, Shaun Malone, was able to
successfully contest a speeding ticket in court using the data from a GPS device installed in his car. This wasn't just any old make-a-left-turn-100-feet-ahead-onto-Maple-Street GPS; this was a vehicle-tracking GPS device — the kind used by trucking fleets — or in this case, overprotective parents. The device was installed in Malone's car by his parents, and the press release makes no mention if the teenager knew that the device was installed in his vehicle at the time."
If only.
GPS device gets time from GPS satellite, not user.
5th amendment doesn't protect you there. It only prevents you from incriminating yourself - it doesn't prevent evidence from your GPS being used. Especially if you introduce evidence from your GPS unit as a defense.
paintball
For those who don't understand the joke in the parent post, see Little Britain
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Come to think of it, that's a great idea for OS or FSF - create code for popular GPS devices, and then produce the code for audit when you go to court contesting a ticket, while asking that the cops produce the code off of their device!!
A variation of this has been done in a number of DUI/DWI cases. A number of defendants have demanded that the source for the breathalyzer be made available for review by the defense.
In the cases I'm aware of, the manufacturer has refused to release the source as their agreement/license with the relevant law enforcement agency does not provide for this.
I believe the outcomes have ranged, but in general this has been a successful defense.
Only if the drivers allow themselves to be tracked at all times and allow the data to be uploaded to a location where the insurance company can monitor the data at their own whim and fancy. You are right though - I know Progressive gives discounts for kids who have GPS trackers in their vehicles.
I'm no fan of the cops, but measuring at an angle to the direction of travel decreases the speed as perceived by the radar gun.
Is new guns and their "pop" mode. Basically it is an ultrafast start and shutdown mode for the gun. The reason is, of course, RADAR detectors. They've gotten quite good. They don't necessarily need the gun to be on and transmitting to pick it up. When the gun is in standby (with it's electronics operating but not transmitting a beam) they can still be picked up. Same sort of way RADAR counterdetectors work. Even though the detector itself isn't trying to emit anything, it does anyhow (as does any superheterodyne device).
Ok, great, however you might pause to wonder about the ability to electronics operating in the 30GHz range to quickly come on and stabilise and, well, you'd be right. Guns in "pop" mode aren't accurate. In part due to the fast start, in part due to less data points, they can produce unreliable readings. The gun manufacturers say that pop mode isn't to be used as a final speed measurement, but that doesn't stop police forces from doing so anyhow.
Or it could be even more simple: The gun wasn't calibrated. Like any precision device, they need periodic recalibration. Had this been allowed to happen, it is entirely possible the gun was producing inaccurate readings.
It is a good idea for all drivers to take a little time to educate themselves about various speed measurement technologies and such. While I'd say the majority of police departments use their equipment right and the tickets are legit, they aren't always. If you get nailed with a bogus ticket, you don't necessarily need GPS to fight it. Tell the department you want the calibration records for the gun in question, find out if it was in pop mode, etc, etc. If they screwed up, let the judge know and they'll most likely drop the ticket.
To this date, no hard factual science has proven that speed cameras have saved lives or reduces accidents.
Yeah, I've noticed that the Brits found no use at all for their systems - it's not like tracking down the speeders in central London has saved lives. I guess that the Lancet was just not hard or factual enough a source...http://www.thelancet.com/newlancet
If your GPS time was off by even one second, your position would be off by about 300km -- give or take depending on satellite geometry -- there's no way to separate the two.
Sure there is. The GPS clock system is independent of our common business-day clock. GPS does not incorporate time zones, does not incorporate daylight savings time adjustments, does not incorporate leap years or leap days or leap seconds or anything else. It is not tied to any earth time system. The GPS network simply counts its own seconds, independent of our earthly wall-clock time conventions.
The GPS unit likely has an independent clock circuit so that you can have a clock even when you are not receiving any GPS signals. And if it is running off of satellite time, it would have to have some stored translation factor to convert the satellite time to an earth-clock time, to account for time zones and daylight savings time and other adjustments, and to account for the fact that the satellite time *does* drift out of sync with official earth time systems. In fact due to leap seconds and whatnot, GPS time has drifted 14 seconds out of sync with GMT / UTC Coordinated Universal Time.
The fact that it was even physically possible for him to manually set the clock proves that the satellite time was not being directly displayed on the clock, that there is either an independent internal clock and/or some stored translation factor to convert the GPS network's internal clock system into whatever "common local time" you want displayed on the user-clock. None of this would would be used in the GPS position calculations.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Ahhhh.... That little known exception to the Fifth Amendment-- It doesn't apply to civil cases, which traffic cases are. You can be asked point blank* "Did you speed", and under penalty of perjury, you have to answer truthfully or be held in contempt of court. *: You have to be called to the witness stand, and in most jurisdictions, only you can call yourself. If you call yourself, you can be cross examined. **: I am not a lawyer, just interested in the law.
..and surely wouldn't take advice from this crowd at slashdot for raising children..
You seem to be suggesting that because i read slashdot (ie, part of the slashdot crowd) that i dont have good parenting advice.
As an uber geek and father of three children, I find that statement both arrogant and ignorant.
YMMV
-- $_='ab-bc ratvarre';tr"'a-z'"'n-za-m'";print
A series of lights.
As in, more than one light, and based on which ones were lit, the driver's speed is indicated.
For example:
1 light = 10 mph.
2 lights = 30 mph
8 lights = 100mph
If that still doesn't make sense, then you're just too retarded to understand.
Considering that The Lancet recently got caught with their hand in the cookie jar making up bogus statistics about the number of war dead in Iraq at the behest of George Soros, I too have a hard time accepting anything said in The Lancet (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7b2_1199991668) as factual. They really have pooped in their own nest when it comes to integrity.
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
It is most certainly not mandatory. None of my cars have gps tracking, including our 2008 model CRV.
>In Quebec vehicle tracking GPS systems have been mandatory for years.
Hmmm, no.
Maybe for some classes of commercial vehicles, but we don't have one, my friends don't have one, nobody I know has one. Maybe check with someone who lives in Quebec before you spout inaccuracies.
We had the same thing in Minnesota when I lived there. We called it "private towing companies". They were known on multiple occasions to take cars without reason, and then demand their owners pay to get them back. On top of that, the Minneapolis police were completely unwilling to do anything about it.
Ergo, Minneapolis essentially legalized car theft. You just had to be licensed as a private towing company to do it.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Completely Wrong. ALL GPS devices calculate your position in three dimensions. The military uses them to fly missiles. They could not do this if they were as poorly designed as you think. While it is true that the LCD DISPLAY only show your horizontal position, the machine knows your exact location in all three dimensions (plus time) and uses those numbers calculate your speed etc. You need to realize the difference between what the machine knows and what it tells you. It almost always knows a LOT more than it shows.
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