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.)

Comments

link is Judge Borked

[HawkinsD]

The link doesn't work. On the other hand, there's a very nice 404 page. It's funny, friendly, and attempts to be informative.

Good error handling is something many of us don't always do well.

Re:Yeah, but it is reliable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it is not. LIDAR measures distance, not speed as RADAR does. If you point a LIDAR at a multifactaed object (like say a staionary car) and the operator moves enough to bounce the lazer from the grill to the windshield. A LIDAR will have seen the car 'move' because the distance the lazer went changed. This will not happen with a RADAR because there will be no change in red shift. LIDAR's should not be used in law enforcement.

Re:Yeah, but it is reliable.

[TheCarp]

I had always been shocked by the tails of being pulled over for speeding that I hear elsewhere. Compared to what the law says, not only am I a habitual speeder, the general flow of traffic is habitually above the speed limit here. Often by 5-10 in the city and 15 on the highway.

Despite that, and that I often drive faster than "average", I have been pulled over all of 3 times for speeding in nearly 11 years of driving, and never for less than 20 mph over the limit. Still, never gotten an actual speeding ticket.

It always boggled me until I heard that my state (MA) does exactly this. The mandate of the police is to keep the traffic moving and safe. NOT to arbitrarily enforce the law for any reason at all times. Since they don't get the ticket money, there is no reason to exceede that mandate.

Of course, I wonder if its changed. I have noticed that ever since the economy started to nose dive, there have been more and more police, and more and more they are pulling people over, rather than napping by the side of the road. Also, I am not the only one to notice, several other drivers have made the same comment.

My guess is that they feel the need to suddenly justify their usefulness to fend off budget cuts. Which probably means, that they SHOULD be some of the first ones on the chopping block. If they need to suddenly start enforcing pointless laws to justify their budgets well... can we really call that an improvement? I am in favor of laying off useless state employees if the alternative is to just make them do more pointless work.

-Steve

Re:Oh noes news at 11

[bill_mcgonigle]

While true, I think the point is an even larger subset of people literally won't survive if those whom can't drive properly are allowed to do so anyway...

Most license suspensions are for not obeying administrative rules, not due to dangerous conduct. Even at that, though, how do we expect Bob, who lives 10 miles from town, to eat if he has to walk, in the middle of Winter to get his food? Would he have been previously banned from riding a horse? Interesting conundrums.