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Chicago Court Throwing Out LIDAR Speeding Tickets
bridgeco writes "Chicago Traffic Court Judges have been throwing out speeding cases in which the driver's speed was measured with a LIDAR. Judges are asking for a special 'Frye Hearing' to determine the accuracy of these devices. Many motorists nabbed for speeding by a laser gun, instead of radar, are seeing their tickets thrown out at Chicago's traffic court because of a legal issue that the city's law department has been unable to overcome. Within the past year judges in Cook County Traffic Court in Chicago determined that speeds captured by lidar were not admissible because the devices had not been proven scientifically reliable in an Illinois court, said Jennifer Hoyle, spokeswoman for the law department, which prosecutes most speeding tickets in the city." (Here's some background on LIDAR from Wikipedia.)
... or you could just stop speeding ...
But I thought the goal was to avoid a speeding ticket. How will 'stop speeding' keep you from getting a speeding ticket?
OOOH I see what you did there. You actually still think speeding is what triggers getting a speeding ticket! How cute.
and not only laugh at everyone who's being pulled over to pay the "speed tax", but also save on fuel.
Well, laughing is good and all, yes.
However, some cars will get better gas millage at lower speeds, yet others at higher speeds. Any car driving 'between gears' will get horrible gas millage depending on the optimal speed of each gear.
In order for my car to get optimal gas millage in 4th gear for example, it needs to be going about 55mph.
This is great for a 55mph zone! But in a 50 mph zone this lowers gas millage (Without speeding 5mph over of course.)
For a 60mph zone this isn't bad as one can drive 55 and still be safe.
However some of the slower speeds like 35mph for example, are half way between 2nd and 3rd gear for me.
Going faster is of course speeding, but going slower can be illegal too (there is a speed minimum as well as a speed maximum) as well as dangerous as hell depending on the situation.
Also other cars will yield very different results.
In my case, in order not to pay the 'fuel tax' of a speeding ticket, I have to willingly increase the wear on my car as well as pay for more gas to get the same distance.
I'm not meaning to make an excuse for speeding here, just pointing out your blanket 'and save on gas!' statement is silly as it is quite literally different for each make/model of car.
Don't speed, you won't get a speeding ticket. What's so hard to understand about that?
I don't know, ask the cops.
I've been issued a speeding ticket for going 75 in a 65 zone, in a car that was not able to go above 60 (and barely that.)
So lets see...
Don't speed. check.
Won't get a speeding ticket. Not so check.
Nor was having to go to court for a day very check.
I still believe to this day that the ONLY reason my ticket was dismissed was because the stupid cop admitted in front of a courtroom full of people that they just pulled over all 10 nearest cars to the speed trap, they never checked anyones speed (It was a party of 10 cops doing this, literally all lined up off the side of the road in plain view, where everyone was slowing WAY below the limit they were already driving, specifically to avoid getting a ticket. Clearly others were willing to cause an accident to avoid appearing even going NEAR the posted limit.)
With no radar gun reports or any evidence of any kind outside of the very officer that illegally issued the ticket in the first place 'said so', others in that court room had tickets that were not dismissed, yet the few I saw after me were ALL dismissed.
This was my first speeding ticket, in my first $200 car (Thus the not able to go much over 55mph), within my first month of driving. So yes I remember it vividly.
So again, I ask you what you think speeding has to do with getting a speeding ticket? Because clearly you have no understanding of police officers or the law.
Oh God how I wish you would have gotten a ticket. People who think the rules don't apply to them are the only people who should ever get tickets.