GPS Tracking Device Beats Radar Gun in Court

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 17, 2008 @04:51PM from the double-edged-sword-at-least dept.

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."

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Horizonal Position by CDOS_CDOS+run · 2008-07-18 02:13 · Score: 0, Redundant

While many GPS's can show your vertical position, I don't know of one that calculates speed using vertical position. In other words your speed is calculated assuming you are on a horizontal plane and it calculates your displacement on that plane vs time. Also, these car GPSs aren't accurate, they are to calculate an approx position and speed. Even having a 1M error, that would cause issues with the calculation of speed.