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Guess My Speed and Give Me a Ticket, In Ohio
quall writes "The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that police may estimate your car's speed and issue a ticket if they believe you were speeding. The hearing threw out a radar gun as evidence because the officer was not qualified to use it, but apparently his guess was good enough. If you make your way into Ohio, I suggest driving 5mph under the speed limit because this leaves little room to dispute your ticket in court. The only chance you have is if the issuing officer decides to skip your hearing."
I wonder whether the court would also accept a driver's own GPS log as exculpatory evidence.
" issue a ticket if they believe "
I think there's a law against that.
that most of the judge's wages are paid from speeding fines?
Wherever You Go, There You Are
How do you think police issued tickets before radar guns were invented?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Look, just because there are no missing people, no unaccounted for deaths, or any evidence of any shape or form doesn't mean you didn't commit murder. I mean, you LOOK like a murderer. A trained police officer can't be wrong...
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So much for a fair trial.
So by now, who hasnt wiped their ass off with the bill of rights?
would likely be mitigating evidence if presented on its own. There should be ample documentation indicating the accuracy of your particular GPS data as not capable of adulteration.
If he can't be trained to use a radar gun properly, then he's not qualified to guess what speed a vehicle is travelling...IMO.
It's doubtful that you could show an appropriate chain of evidence with the GPS. It's easily argued that you tampered with any such evidence.
Ticketing for illegal speeds is pretty easy, most people confess to it.
"Do you know why I pulled you over?"
"I was speeding."
"I saw you doing 80mph"
"Yes sir, that's about right. I'm sorry."
Voila, instant ticket for 80mph, and a confession to back it up.
I did the opposite. You never *KNOW* why the officer stops you. You may have been speeding. He may be pulling you over for a burned out taillight, or your vehicle may match a description of one seen at a crime scene, or it may even match the description of a vehicle from a missing persons case. Don't guess.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Really not doing much to change the stereotype of hicks-ville America are you guys. ......oh wait thats Arizona
You will be stopping and searching people on suspicion of being illegal aliens next.
If some car ZOOMS by it's pretty easy for me to tell its speeding, radar gun or not (I'm not a police officer). If you have even a modicum of experience driving and you can't estimate whether or not a car is speeding you should probably have your driver's license taken away.
Thanks but in light of this, I'll make a huge detour.
Given that it is Ohio, that is a valid question. Never mind locality-set speed limits.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I'm from Ohio. I once got pulled over, and though I was speeding (and quite excessively), the officer didn't radar me. He wasn't legally allowed to write me a ticket for speeding so he just gave me a ticket for reckless operation. The speeding ticket would actually have been cheaper and put less points on my license. Bottom line: this doesn't change much.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Sometimes they are not set with their radar but a driver is going way too fast for the situation and the fact is obvious to any observer. Cops in motorbikes without radar come to mind, for example. They should have a way to ticket that driver. The problem, obviously, is the gray area. How fast is too fast? Is too fast if they estimate the driver is 50% faster than the limit?
Perhaps a common sense solution to that kind of situation would be just to stop the driver. The mere fact of stopping someone is usually deterrent enough; I know I don't want to be stopped by the cops even if they don't give me a ticket. I wonder if that would work for the general case?
Where I live, the cops can ticket a driver for driving negligently. That should be enough to cover the "too fast but no hard evidence" case.
The officer in question claimed that the other car was traveling more than 10mph above the speed limit.
I don't claim to be able to gauge speeds that accurately, but I can definitely tell if a car is going that much faster than the limit.
People got speeding tickets before radar guns, ya know.
The article indicates the driver was going about 15mph over the speed limit. I'd say that was relatively easy to identify by sight. So what the majority said, which is in fact "given the totality of the circumstances", such an officer's testimony may be held to be credible. If you can show at trial that the officer has borne you a grudge since high school, that may well be another story. And of course it's not in front of a jury - its $50, for crying out loud!
Officers in any state are trained in good judgement - this is no different than if an officer shows up to a domestic disturbance call... he is going to listen to both sides and then act on his judgement. We all take this for granted every day in our own profession, we are good at estimating, without calculating things we see all day long, to a very fine degree of accuracy. The idea that this cop needs a speed gun in order to properly write speeding tickets, aka do what he does hundreds of times a month, seems laughable. Maybe this is news to some, but cops give out speeding tickets without radar guns all the time, its not a big deal. In other news, they also don't call to get permission from their mom before drawing their weapon in the line of duty.
http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/ROD/docs/
Barberton v. Jenney, Slip Opinion No. 2010-Ohio-2420.
"Santimarino also testified that in addition to his training and experience in visually estimating vehicle speed, he was trained and certified to use the Python brand Doppler radar unit that he was using on July 3, 2008. Santimarino testified on direct examination that after he visually estimated the speed of Jenney's vehicle, he observed that the radar unit indicated that Jenney's vehicle was traveling at 82 miles per hour. Santimarino could not produce a copy of his radar-training certification when defense counsel requested he do so on the day of trial."
In order to be certified by OPOTA, Santimarino was required to show that he could visually estimate a vehicle's speed to within three to four miles per hour of the vehicle's actual speed, which he did
While I don't like ruling there is a certification process and they follow it. When I was in the military and got pulled over by the locals are AG told us in no uncertain terms, do not question the accuracy or honesty of a police officer in from the of the magistrate. You will show up in your Sunday best, use ma'am and sir where appropriate, and be a perfect gentleman. You may plead for leniency or such but never suggest any lacking on the arresting officer.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Santimarino said he observed Jenney speeding in a black SUV on Ohio 21 and later estimated he was driving at 73 mph... the radar read 82 or 83 mph... Santimarino said he decided to write Jenney a ticket for 79 mph.
So, he didn't know how to use the radar, and he knew that his misuse of it was causing it to read 10mph high, but he issued a ticket based on it anyway. This cop should be sent to prison for a while.
I have a good bit of family in law enforcement up in Illinois. This is SOP for officers up there. When they go through their training, speed estimation is one of the things they are taught, for things such as radar malfunctions and times where they are not in their car, (ie foot / bike / segway patrol). If they see somebody who "looks" like they are doing double the speed limit, based on the cars they are blowing by, then they can cite / arrest them on their powers of guesstimation alone. This has been around for awhile, but apparently only newsworthy until now.
Not saying I agree with the practice, but lets not blow this out of proportion as there is nothing new under the sun. Precedent shows that the officers word is statistically more "trusted" than yours by the judges, and thems the ropes, folks. Sigh...
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
would accept this type of citation.
It hardly meets the burden of "beyond a reasonable doubt".
I'm surprised it made it as far as it did. I hope the Ohio Supreme Court isn't an elected body — or their jobs will all be on the chopping block next election day!
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
This is the kind of thing where I would really want a jury trial for a speeding ticket. But I've heard that some legal gymnastics have been used to justify making traffic courts immune from the right to trial by jury.
Does anyone know if this is true, and if so, what the justification is?
I suggest driving 5mph under the speed limit because this leaves little room to dispute your ticket in court.
Uh no, this whole thing says you could be ticked for speeding even if driving 5 MPH under the limit. What that means to me is everyone should just drive whatever speed they want because it doesn't matter what the speed limits are, they apparently are only recommendations to be enforced by arbitrary decisions.
I remember seeing this on a ticket years ago. There were two boxes, one indicating that a radar gun was used, the other saying that the person was visibly speeding. I'm surprised it's taken this long to come up honestly. Though I was under the impression it was to get people who were obviously driving much faster than the speed limit, not for minor speeding.
My other sig is an import.
How do you think police issued tickets before radar guns were invented?
Well if I didn't know any better, and thought there was no way to measure velocity prior to the invention of radar, I might do as you have invited me to do and imagine that they just guessed and that this was good enough.
But since I do know better, I don't have to imagine. What they actually did was to time how long it took you to go between two points of known separation. Amazing, eh?
Even as late as the 90s some officers preferred this method, and sometimes near speed traps in the city you could see the markings on the curb that they drew. When it was explained to me by an officer, I believe he said the preference stemmed from when radar guns were new and tickets based on radar guns were being challenged successfully, while the stopwatch measurement of a trained officer was more likely to be believed by the judge.
In any event, "guess" was never the proper method.
The enemies of Democracy are
What is next useing the EZ-pass times for Tickets?
Ohio now allows police to guess whether or not pregnant mothers are carrying human offspring, or an animal hybrid. http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/06/03/1422213/OH-Senate-Passes-Bill-Banning-Human-Animal-Hybrids In cases where animal hybrids are suspected, the Ohio police are to issue a ticket immediately.
This is similar to a Texas (and perhaps other states) law that puts evidence of Public Intoxication solely at the arresting officer's opinion. You can be arrested (and convicted) without any physical evidence.
I'm interested to see this put to some scientific testing to see how acurate this method actually is. I think its crazy still and i'm just glad my government here in the UK is a tad more sane. I saw another article today about it now being an offence to take photos of police uniformed or plane clothed. Crazyness.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
It's not analogous to condemning a person for "looking wrong". It's eyewitness testimony as evidence of a person's actions: "It looked like you were speeding" is analogous to "It looked like you stabbed that guy". Yes, eyewitness judgment can be wrong, but eyewitness judgment is not the same as "you look evil therefore you are guilty".
"You look like a murderer" is more analogous to "you look like a speeder". It is quite different from "it looked like you were speeding", and has nothing to do with the case being discussed here.
I was written a ticket by a detective one morning. It was for 4mph over the limit. There was no traffic on the 5 lane road and I was in a business suit. After he left, I realized he had written the ticket to me, but was for a Ford Mustang. I drive a Dodge Charger.
So the court date rolled around and I showed up in court. The DA comes over and asks if I want to plead it down to an equipment violation. I tell him that wouldn't be legal as I didn't have any equipment violations and the detective wrote the ticket to the wrong type of vehicle.
The DA walks over to the detective and proceeds to have him write me a new ticket, making the change to the type of vehicle to reflect what I was driving. This was after the DA looked up my DMV records to find the correct type of vehicle.
We go in front of the judge and I have to question the detective. I ask him if he used a radar gun to clock me, which he didn't. I asked him if he was qualified to write tickets based on "pacing". He wasn't. I asked him if he knew how far down the road in either direction the speed limits changed. He didn't. This was relevant because I had just entered a 45 mph area from a 55 mph area.
The judge got tired of me reaming the detective and says "I really don't care what evidence you have, you're paying for the ticket. Dismissed." That was the end of that. Traffic court is a joke.
Probably the same way I was given my speeding ticket, long after radar guns were invented. Have you ever seen two lines painted across the road, separated by some distance of maybe a few hundred feet? The officer is parked off to the side of the road, and uses a stopwatch to measure how long it takes you to pass between the two lines. If you look at the ticket, it will list the distance and speed.
:(){
Isn't that like an officer being able to tell the BAC of driver visually? There are many factors that can come into play in a visual determination that it is unlikely to be accurate. I'd like to see the certification and a demonstration of these techniques. Otherwise I'd have to call BS.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I wonder whether the court would also accept a driver's own GPS log as exculpatory evidence.
Apparently not.
I used to have some faith in the system. I believed that state troopers generally handed out valid tickets, and that if something was really wrong you could fight it in court and have half a chance. I have since been educated by a personal experience where three state troopers broke normally practiced procedures, accused me of doing something suicidal in a car that can't physically be done on ice, wrote and submitted a police report 11 weeks after the incident, and then lied in court by reading the bogus report verbatim. My guilty conviction on the ticket looked a little weird considering that my last ticket was in the late 1980s.
And then you read things like this, or the previous story about not being able to take audio or video because it might be interpreted as 'contempt of cop'. This is only traffic court, but basically having no standards for what evidence is required is what it comes down to. That is not reasonable.
And so I have no faith in the system, like many other people. I just hope when a squad car is nearby that the guy with the badge isn't in a bad mood because after what I experienced and what I've been reading I've got no chance in hell of fighting any ticket that might arise.
We have lost our way ..
What is next useing the EZ-pass times for Tickets?
Too late, they have been doing that for years.
By my experience you don't get to see any information on the radar until you show up to contest your ticket. At which point so much time has passed that you can't really be sure that the allegation hasn't been tampered with anyways.
...
Nonetheless fighting speeding tickets isn't that hard. In all my years of driving I have been issued tickets twice. Both times I went to court at the appointed time to contest the charge (two different counties of the same state, a few years apart). Both times because my record was clean I was offered a plea bargain - with "probationary" terms where they agreed not to report the violation as long as I was not pulled over in their county again for X number of months (or years I don't remember now). Either way I paid the plea bargain fine (one case lower another case higher than the citation) and was not pulled over again in the issuing county. For that matter, one of those counties I have never returned to since
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
W????!!!!! Have you seen the current bunch? W obviously had a low regard for the constitution, but compared to the crap currently being pulled what he did was child's play. It's time to make politicians a non-existent class and get back to regular citizens running the country. Vote 'em all out, regardless of party (yeah, your guy does it too) and start all over.
I recently fought a speeding ticket in BC. I went to court, was prepared with radar gun manuals and specs, what I thought was the regulations regarding calibration and many other defences.
They were all struck down. Things that i learned:
- going down a hill, moving with the flow of traffic, not enough posted signs, and many other "commonly accepted" defences were explicitly stated by the judge as not holding any water.
- The police officer does NOT have to prove that the gun was calibrated in any way. His word that it was calibrated was "good enough" in the judges view.
- Police are trained to make a visual inspection of the speed. They MUST make a guess at your speed in their head before firing off the laser or radar gun. Their experience in estimating speed is treated the same as laser evidence.
- there is no "paper trail" on the gun, and they do not have to prove that the gun registered a certain number.
- the judge makes or breaks your case. its pretty much the whim of the judge whether you will get off on a technicality or not.
- bring some sort of previous case law that backs you up. I tried hard to find some relevant stuff, but obviously did not try hard enough.
So I lost, but it was fun actually, going through the motions.
Another thing i should say is that i was simply unlucky in the end. There were approximately 20 people there in the court fighting tickets, and 10 of them got to go scott free as their respective cops didnt even show up. No show = automatic win if you show up. So it is worth fighting every ticket and pleading not guilty, at least initally. Just dont expect to win if the cop shows up.
Just my 0.2 cents as I just did this a few weeks ago in BC canada. ymmv.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
My uncle got a ticket for a speed higher than he was traveling, and the officer testified in court that speed was determined by time over distance between two very close markers. The officer thought the closer his markers, the more accurate the measurement. My uncle, a professor, tried to explain that human timing error meant that the closer the markers were, the LESS accurate the speed measurement was. The judge didn't understand, was frustrated, and finally said he thought my uncle was a speeder, and let the fine stand.
Bad analogy with the case at hand: eyewitness testimony is a recognized form of evidence in court.
Also, murder is a criminal offense, and thus has a different standard of proof than minor moving violations, which are not criminal offenses.
Cant create hybrid clones, cant speed... WTF is that state coming too?
Is it me or does this all seem to be a game of revenue generation?
Radar guns are not the most difficult pieces of equipment to use. Even if you've never been 'certified' in the use of one, you can still wield it to some degree of accuracy. Sure, it could be an inaccurate reading, but in this case, it'd have to be what? Over twenty miles an hour high in order to prove this guy was innocent. Besides, this guy became a cop way back in the 90s. Odds are his 'failure to produce a certificate' could just be... he misplaced the bloody piece of paper. If you've been a state trooper for that long and you don't know how to laser someone's speed, then... something is dramatically wrong.
Besides, this is a veteran cop, who has been trained in accurately taking a visual. If we're questioning a police officer's judgement on something like this (and trust me, who hasn't seen someone driving down the road and just known they're speeding), then what are police qualified to judge?
The sad fact is that an officer's guess would likely be more accurate than a radar gun.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Ever notice how slow 45 is when you exit the interstate after traveling at 70 for an hour? Its is pretty well established that people adjust their perception of their speed to the rate they have been traveling. This should also apply to people judging someone else's speed. How do they account for that? Does the office need to have been still for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, an hour, before making the call? Were they working a school zone an hour ago?
Before radar guns, the police generally had to match your speed over 1/4 mile to issue a speeding ticket.
Needless to say, a lot fewer speeding tickets were written. The radar gun's debut in the 70s led to the exact same discussion we're having now with red light cams. They actually made the roads less safe, but they were a revenue godsend, so they became the norm.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
I recall reading a book about how to beat speeding tickets. Assuming you'd disposed of the radar evidence (officer improperly trained, device not calibrated recently - works about half the time, if you know what to ask) you get the officer to demonstrate his prowess in estimating speed. Almost NO ONE is good at this. The example used was dropping a pencil from shoulder height. The usual estimates were between 40 and 60 MPH; in actuality, it's less than 20. Before radar, they typically had to pace you, time you on a marked bit of road, or use VASCAR (yes, I'm that old) Guessing wasn't considered evidence.
I used to be a cop and I did a LOT of traffic stops. In training and certification to use a radar gun they train you to look at the vehicle whose speed you're going to measure and make an estimate of their speed before using the radar, then compare the results. This was a practice in Washington state but I would not be surprised if it is common everywhere. After a while you get very good at estimating speeds and find yourself generally guessing the correct speed +/- 1 MPH. When you write your subsequent traffic stop summary you include a sentence stating that your observed a vehicle that appeared to be speeding and your visual estimation followed by the radar measured speed. This gets the officer trained to look at what's being measured rather than just sitting there with the radar pointed back over his shoulder waiting for something fast to come through which then builds credible speed estimation and descrimination into his testimony and also gets past the problem of accidentally radaring the Cesna 150 that flew overhead at 80 mph while erroneously attaching that speed to grandma who was doing the speed limit. In short, anybody who does a lot of anything reasonably well gets good at it - cops do a lot of speed estimation and get good at it.
I once got a speeding ticket for 10mph above 45 limit. The officer had "estimated" my speed. When I challenged him in court, he presented a training certificate, certifying that he could estimate speed with some ridiculous accuracy (forgot the actual number, maybe within 3mph).
I was going to suggest that the state invest in a human-hawk hybridization program to legitimize this, but Ohio got rid of that possibility as well: http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/06/03/1422213/OH-Senate-Passes-Bill-Banning-Human-Animal-Hybrids
A similar situation happened to me in Missouri. I was going at a good clip on a short road, and I got onto the highway before they could get the radar gun out. Eventually they pulled me over (I was going exactly the speed limit at that moment), and issued me a ticket for *exceeded* the speed limit. I asked what my supposed speed was when I broke the limit, and they said that only applied if you are *exceeding* the speed limit. So they didnt list my speed, just that I had broken the posted limit.
I'm not sure what the difference was, but I had my lawyer fix it anyway.
IIRC, the timestamps on New York Throughway tickets have been used to give people tickets before. I.e., you entered here, you left there, it took you so much time, bingo, average speed. Probably the same in other states. That's why I always planned my trips to include lunch or dinner stops on the throughway. I could do 80 and still average out to 55.
There really is nothing new in this story. Police are trained to estimate speeds. If they write a ticket based on that, you are likely to get the benefit of the doubt as to just how fast you were going, but not a cancellation of the ticket.
i wonder if they can arrest you for drug use if they think you've used illegal drugs at some point in the past. or maybe for theft because they think you stole something. this ruling is nuts. it flies in the face of reason and our system of law based on precedents. i think i'll be avoiding ohio from now on ... not that i ever had a reason to there in the first place!
In America?
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
In state of Washington, each police departments, like Seattle PD or WA state trooper in King County, will need to keep a record of each radar guns being calibrated per manufacturers’ recommendation. This record is either available up on request and/or court keeps a copy near by.
I have gotten out of 2 speeding tickets past 3 years because the court couldn’t find a record of calibration for one and other one showed it was past its scheduled calibration at the time of my ticket.
... if police officers are gonna play judge....
This is a great intro to why you should never talk to police. You have to show ID but you do not have to answer any questions /. story awhile back and bookmarked it because it is valid and useful.
Got this link off another
Never talk to Police
In a nut shell, the police will take what ever you say and use it against you.
I've gotten two tickets in my life. First was speeding near my house. I was helping a friend move, and had my car loaded down. I'd had a hard time even getting up to 70 on the interstate. The sheriff said I was going 80 in a 55. I know I was going 50, because I hadn't been able to even come close to that. I wanted to go to court, but couldn't make the court date. Found out later that the sheriff that got me was an idiot who probably couldn't operate the radar properly anyway.
Second ticket was for not stopping at a stop sign. I actually saw the cop a half mile down the road in front of me trying to turn around when I got to the intersection, and also knew I was in a speed trap town, so I purposefully made sure I did a legal stop (made sure the car was completely stopped and counted to three). Even if I hadn't done the counting, I still know I was there long enough while stopped because I let cars go from other directions. It was two miles down the road that the cop even got there.
I'm not saying I've never sped, or never rolled through a stop sign, but there's nothing as aggravating as a situation like mine.
I've seen what it can do. A traffic cop with several years experience can estimate your speed to within two miles per hour. And they're probably not going to write you up for doing 47 in a 45mph zone.
I wonder whether the court would also accept a driver's own GPS log as exculpatory evidence.
Nope, sorry, we don't trust any of that scieentifik evidence round here.
Or: So, I assume you can produce a certificate showing you were trained in the use of this GPS device?
Or... The evidence is excluded on the grounds the defendant can't prove they did not somehow manipulate the GPS device to log you as not speeding.
Or.... The GPS evidence is interesting, but does not invalidate the officer's estimate. The officer was trained to make that estimate, therefore it is infallible, sorry, pay the fine.
I don't know about other countries, but here in Canada RADAR is only a tool to confirm an estimate.
Judge: And how did you determine Joe Smith was exceeding the speed limit.
Cop: I estimated the speed of the vehicle to be doing 70 in a 50 zone, and then confirmed my estimate with RADAR.
Judge: The defendant is hereby guilty as charged.
The only time I've seen tickets thrown out is if the tuning forks (used to verify the accuracy of the RADAR) were not certified within the last 365 days.
Well, I don't actually have any EVIDENCE...but he looks like a killer to me.
Carry a GPS, record the track. (This only works if you're really legal.) http://xpda.com/ticket/
Being from Michigan, I would rather swim across one of the Great Lakes than drive through Ohio. They pull us over just for being on their roads at all. If by chance we do have to drive through Ohio, we seriously go 5-10 under the speed limit.
The Minneapolis suburb of Edina is fairly notorious for speed enforcement.
Now I recognize that law enforcement is not a for-profit business (on paper at least...) but given the limited resources available for law enforcement and the unlimited amount of crime there's still a cost-benefit argument to make.
What often amazes me, though, is seeing them occasionally use up to *five* squad cars at a time. It gets me wondering how much money its costing them relative to how much they make back in fines.
Because they are a wealthy suburb, they have pretty state of the art squad cars. Assuming a fully equipped squad car runs about $75,000 including everything stuffed inside (from emergency gear & weapons in the trunk to lights, sirens, and other upgrades or add-ons), five cars on the side of the road is a $375,000 capital asset not to mention 5 police officers @ $100/hour each or whatever it costs the city in salary, benefits and overhead to employ them.
You could be looking at $1000/hour to run that speed trap in men and equipment without coming nearly that close to writing enough tickets to pay for it.
No kidding. The average Austrian highway cop is considered to have a "calibrated" eye that can guestimate your speed perfectly. I didn't believe it either 'til I was shown it in their law books.
Personally, I'd say it turns highway cops into highwaymen, but that's me...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Got news for anyone that thinks this is new, it's not. Courts have allowed experienced officers to estimate the speed of moving vehicles for decades. The truth is if you are moving faster than the majority of traffic around you, and the officer knows traffic on that specific road generally travels 5 mph over the posted limit, it's within reason that he could estimate your speed and write the ticket based on that. In every state. Not just Ohio.
Airplanes and helicopters. Haven't you ever noticed highways with broad white stripes here and there? Those are markings so police in aircraft can mark your car at set intervals to calculate your speed.
Stopwatches. Car moves from point A to point B over a certain period of time. The cop does the math.
Pace cars. An unmarked car moves at a set speed and radios ahead to marked cars which cars are flying by.
And I'm just getting started. Police officers have long been inventive on how to determine the speed of a car. Technology has made them lazy, though.
They used to give speeding tickets before the marketing of the radar gun. Law enforcement officers were called trained observers.
My father and brother are in the Montreal police and here the cop never shows up in court, someone else does for them, but before, they study the ticket and proof. Turns out the radars here have electronic visual car detection and facial and plate magnification (depending on front or back of the car), so they simply take a picture of your car, and they get a nice big piece of irrefutable proof, add an automated search of your plate done by the laptop in the car and they have your entire file, from then they can judge whether to let you go or not, if they decide to give you the ticket which simply comes out of a printer in the car (so the ticket is never filled out wrong), you're fried, BUT nothing else will be accepted.
The beautiful thing is that at the very least, human error is completely discarded.
They recently added stationary radars at strategic locations that take pictures from both the front and rear of your car, proving you were in front of the wheels, and send you the ticket by mail.
Must be Justice Terrence O'Donnell is the only justice in the court not from Michigan ;)
Roughly stated, speed traps and red light cameras cause people to slam on their brakes, which more than one study has shown causes the very accidents they're hoping to avoid.
The other big point of discussion used to be that when you need to find a cop, they shouldn't be hidden from view. Speed traps raise tons of revenue, but they make society as a whole less safe by leeching police presence and resources away from attending to actual crime and accidents.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
(Speed traps || Red Light cameras) are about raising revenue, not enforcing the law. They actually make driving less safe by causing drivers to slam on their brakes at unexpected times. They engender contempt for the law by making law enforcement about revenue generation and bill collection, not serving the public.
But yes, I'm in total agreement that red light cameras are a far more egregious case, though I would argue that radar speed traps paved the way for them, in the same way that red light cameras will pave the way for in-car black-box gps monitoring, where all apparent violations will be billed automatically to your credit card.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
How lame can the moderation be? Links to the relevant facts and its a troll post?
Slashdot mods with their sanctimonious heads up their own asses.
I wonder whether the court would also accept a driver's own GPS log as exculpatory evidence.
Don't get it do you? We have leapfrogged guilty until proven innocent. Now you're guilty when charged. G traipsing in there with your GPS log and I wouldn't be surprised if they held you in contempt.
Our government is now totally corrupt.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
I lived in Ohio for many years and still drive through regularly. You do NOT want to speed on the highways in Ohio. Seriously. The Ohio State Highway Patrol is one of the more ticket-happy police organizations in the country. I've driven from Ohio to Florida and seen more cops in Ohio than in all the other states on the trip combined. I think the state gets a ridiculous amount of revenue from speeding tickets on the highway. The officers in the highway patrol are not especially friendly either. Professional enough but not courteous or forgiving. You will not talk your way out of a ticket if they pull you over.
Basic suggestions when driving on the highways in Ohio. Do not drive more than 5mph over the speed limit and under no circumstances should you go significantly faster than the traffic around you. Radar detectors are legal but the state highway patrol uses laser detectors heavily. If you absolutely must drive faster than I suggested you should invest in a detector. Believe me, you'll need it. If you see one cop in Ohio you can bet others are out too. They like to hide behind obstructions and in the medians. Sometimes they'll have the guy with the laser/radar identifying speeders and the officers pulling people over are further up the road.
Better idea: Boycott Ohio until they get a clue.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Face it, Ohio is an openly crooked place where you are required live in fear of cops.
Dirty cops are dirty cops, Ohio is a police state.
I wondered why the Ohio plates always hung out in the left lane dragging ass when they are here.
You can spray Lysol on shit all day, and at the end of the day it is still shit, even if a crooked judge says it isn't.
Unless you know them or someone more powerful than them, you lose.
To quote "Patrolman Henry Hill, Colorado Springs PD"...
(truly the biggest rolling pile of crooked lowlife fat slob shit disguised as a cop I have encountered in my life)
"I don't need to hear your side of the story. It is your fault and you are getting a ticket."
This loser later committed blatant perjury against me in El Paso county court to protect his drinking buddy who had rear ended me.
Some cops are good, some cops are fair, some cops are bad, some cops are just garbage with a badge.
I'll just skip Ohio since the true distance between 'estimating speed' and 'just making shit up' is just a fat crooked fucker with a quota eating a donut and hiding in the ditch with the rest of the roadside trash.
Fuck Ohio, it's dirty cop/judge show, and all the slow cowering idiots from there who block the left lane on I-95.
That's OK. I'll be estimating my fine...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
prosecuting attorney: let the record show that the car was red
ohio judge: mother of god... guilty
to the officer's defense, he did stick his finger out the window in order to assess wind speed
...if they cannot fix your speed by radar they cite you for "Careless Driving", the definition of which, "driving with out care", is sufficiently arbitrary to suit any occasion, which is a double hit on your record. You are better off with the speeding tic.
If I have to drive though Ohio on a regular basis, I'll get one of those GPS logging devices. They log your location, speed, and the time. That way you can have PROOF of your exact speed vs the officers "Estimation".
You are correct on showing Driver's License.
However, if a cop walks up to you and demands an ID, you don't have to produce one, but, you have to tell your "name, address, or date of birth, when requested".
http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2921.29
A dream is good. A plan is better.
Yeah, things are tough all over. Cities and states are starting to find out they need to generate some extra revenue now, so they try just about legal tactic they can. I'd have to say that this seems almost borderline legal though. A though of standing up in court and telling the judge that the officer was going to rape you just because he looks the type kind of amounts to the same thing.
The old trick to getting you ticketed is to make you admit you went over the speed limit. Police officers specifically ask "Do you know how fast you were going?" for a reason.
I would place a lot more credence in EZ-pass times than visual estimates.
In North Carolina, the officer's estimation of speed is the only testimony that is admissible to prove speed. Radar is only admissible to support the officer's estimate of speed. It is why Basic Law Enforcement Training (BLET) in North Carolina requires quite a bit of training on estimating speed. Officers who routinely handle traffic matters (Patrol, Traffic Enforcement, and Highway Patrol) go for refresher training once a year.
A lecturer at the College of Law(*) here in Sydney likes to tell students a story where he was acting for the defendants on a speeding fine where the radar evidence had to be thrown out due to failure to meet the calibration and testing requirements. The magistrate asked the cops to estimate the speek on the basis that the cops have a lot of experience viewing vehicles in the context of speeding laws. Coincidentally the cops' estimate was identical to the radar value (20km over the speed limit). When it came to the defence GPS logs were tendered showing the vehicle went over for only a few seconds by 1km. Result: not guilty. (*) the College of Law teaches post graduate courses to law graduates, including the mandatory legal practice diploma course.
His educated guess is after all based on the display of the radar gun.
Sorry but my ingrained sense of justice hates it when smarmy lawyers try to get their client of on technicalities. Odd that lawyers are so dispised in general because they rape the law yet everyone uses them to rape the law.
Just don't fucking speed, how fucking hard is that?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think the bigger problem is cops using "innocent" traffic stops as a way of searching your car. Very few people actually know the correct way to decline an unreasonable search, and even when one does, the cops will often still search the car. I have seen them put a dog, illegally I might add, into a car, get the dog excited, and then walk away. They have no intention of finding anything, but they know a full-grown German Sheppard will more than likely shred a leather interior. In fact, when done illegally, anything found cannot be used as evidence, but they still get off wasting your time, making you sweat (even innocent citizens should be worried anytime they are searched in this country), and destroying your car. Granted, there are the "1 in 10" good cops out there, but they are not the majority. I encourage all of my friends to know their rights and how to not give them up, but sadly, that is not enough. I like the defense of getting out a camera, but according to another /. post, that may be taken away soon.
I'm pretty sure this country used to have something to do with "rights" and "freedom" but I don't really see that anymore. I tried looking it up in a Texas school book, but it did not have anything about it either ;-) (I hope someone gets that!)
Member of American Sarcasm Society - Motto: "Like we need your help!"
The constitution says you're entitled to it if the amount of the fine in question is more than twenty dollars. If the jury doesn't agree that a copy eyeballing your speed is good enough, they'll acquit you.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Especially if you ride a motorcycle. The cop might decide to put a bullet into your back for fun. And he will probably get off scott free. At least we got rid of one of the most notorious speed traps in Ohio this year.
Seriously, this is actually holding up in court...I would take it to the supreme court...no way should someone's guess when it comes to a moving vehicle, because it could be a little bit over or under, but the only to make sure is with radar or laser...humans make major mistakes, machines don't...i hope not only does it go to supreme court and the defendant wins, but also sets a precedent that stupid state judges should just follow the book, and not try to rewrite the law in their court room.
My Dad has told me stories that they did this down in southern Florida as far back as the early 1960s. He and his friends would speed down Alligator Alley until they were nearly to their destination, then pull off at one of the diners on the highway (not passing the timer/toll booth), sit and have a sandwich/coffee/etc. until enough time had passed, then exit the road so that their average speed was legal.
Here in Ohio, traffic tickets are just a cost of doing business. I got in a wreck a few years back on black ice. I was one of four cars that wrecked in the same spot. The cop apologized to me for giving me the "failure to control" ticket, but explained that if he didn't, his boss would make him drive out to my house and issue it later. Everyone knows it is NOT about public safety, it's about money.
At least here in Florida a police officer can pace your vehicle to determine if you're speeding and write you a citation based on that. A friend of mine got one several years ago. A cop claimed he heard him peeling out so he wrote him a wreckless driving ticket. He took it to court to dispute it and when he got there the cop lied and said he "pace clocked" him doing 45 in a 35 for 2 miles.
"(average speed over an interval instead of instantaneous speed)"... but GPS does NOT calculate speed by measuring the distance and time between two points and calculating it. The receiver solves for the x,y,z coordinates and the x,y,z velocity (and usually acceleration and possibly jerk too) at a point, and it's a continuous solution. It has to, because the way GPS works is by tracking range/doppler to the (known)satellite positions, and it has to know the receiver's velocity in order to solve for the position (and clock offset and offset rate... 4 satellite fix).
It *is* the velocity at an instant.
A bigger issue is that you don't have a real good evidentiary trail. You could have faked the GPS log. Of course, neither does the officer who writes the speed on the radar gun or his calibrated eyeball estimation. OTOH, I can conceive of ways to get the log out in a traceable manner, and to show that it's internally self consistent that should pass muster. Is it worth it? Probably not for a speeding ticket.
In California, measuring the time over a pre-measured distance would violate the law against speed-traps. The officer can estimate your speed relative to other traffic, relative to their calibrated eyeball (they DO practice, and you can get pretty good with a few hours practice), or relative to their car (pacing). They don't have to match speeds.. if they go 55, and you're pulling away, you're cooked.
BTW, arguing that a doppler measurement is really measuring the time to traverse a wavelength of the signal, which has been premeasured by the radar's calibration will not fly. Nor will claiming that the IR speed measurement (which is a time of flight to measure distance twice)... that's because the "distance" measurement is made *at the time of the observation*, and the anti-speed-trap law requires the distance to have been measured in advance.
I learned a long time ago that Traffic tickets and Parking tickets long ago stopped being about safety, deterrent, or legal punishment. They are simply a tax. They are a way for the government and more specifically Police Departments and Cities and Municipalities to raise funds to pay their wages, and continue their existence. As such now, I ignore laws pretty much, and when caught, just pay the tax, and call it the cost of operating a Car in Canada.
Example 1:
Driving down a street that is considered "residential" and thus a 50km/h limit, but which really has hardly any actually houses on it and actually serves as the main connection between the City and the University. There is a park where the police set up a tripod speed trap, and work in 3 person teams. One operates the hidden tripod, one stands in the middle of the road past the trap and waves EVERYONE over (as NOBODY drives 50km/h there), and the last gives out the tickets and this speech: "We clocked you going 6x km/h, I am writing you a ticket for 125$ and two points off your licence. You can pay the fine or fight it in court. Alternatively you can attend a drivers safety course being put on by the local Police for 75$ and you won't have to pay the fine, or lose any points."
Fines go the the Province whereas if you opt for the alternative all the money goes to the local cops. Can you say conflict of interest?
Example 2:
I was visiting a friend of mine in Ottawa, Canada. Never having visited before I wasn't exactly sure where he lived, though I had directions. Anyway I arrive at what I think is the house. Not being sure if this is the case I stop and park in front, and walk up to the front door and knock. I friend comes to the door, and we say Hey and ask him where we should park. While we are talking, my friend who is facing the street, is like "dude, I think that guy is trying to give you a ticket", which is crazy as the car had only been stopped for like 2min, I mean traffic lights are longer. I turn around and confront the parking guy, and say I just stopped to see if this is the correct house, and that I am parking out back. The Parking guy say, "Oh OK, just make sure you move it, I'll cancel the ticket." I got in my car and moved it immediately. 3 or 4 months go by and I get a letter from the City of Ottawa, and I get a nasty later saying that not only did I owe money for a parking ticket, it was now overdue, and that I owed extra for that, and that if I didn't pay in X amount of days I would be convicted and all sorts of nasty things would happen to me. Naturally I was fucking pissed. I called up the parking services people in Ottawa and explained my situation, and this went back and forth 4 or 5 times until finally the parking attended lied and said that he did issue the ticket on purpose and it was a violation. My ONLY options were to fight the ticket or to pay. However I was told they only way I could fight it was in court in Ottawa. So my option was to take off work, drive 300KM, spending about 4-500$ dollars to fight the 60 or 75$ dollar parking ticket. The amount of anger, and rage in me was ultimate. However bottom line when it came down to it, it makes no sense to spend 500$ to fight 75$, so in the end I swallowed my rage and paid the City of Ottawa. It was extortion plain and simple. Most people put into that situation will do the same. So the City of Ottawa and others will play the game and generate revenue using the legal system. It disgusts me. How is it we are innocent until proven guilty, with the exception of traffic and parking? Expedience, and court costs, and various groups (police, cities) take advantage of this fact to their financial gain.
aren't people's perceptions of speed of a moving vehicle affected by the color of the vehicle?
This is nothing new, almost every state has a law called "To fast for conditions" where no actual speed is required, only the inclination by the police officer to believe that the rate of speed that you were traveling was not conducive to save travel. The only reason for a radar/ladar etc.. is to provide supporting proof to a judge that you were speeding, the officer's word is actually good enough. The only time a radar (etc...) comes in handy is if the officer is trying to prove the difference of "To fast for conditions" and "Reckless".
Many departments:
- Certify their police cars' speedometer to "pace" your speed, again only as additional proof.
- As part of an officer's radar/ladar certification require the officer to estimate a vehicles speed within a few MPH of its actual speed. - Utilizes "Time over Distance"; two pre-measured marks and the officer times you as you cross them.
As for someone asking will the judge accept GPS information, that is also an individual judge by judge decision, but you need to be careful of trying to use a GPS to disprove a ticket.
You: "Your Honor, Officer Dudley claimed I was traveling at 25MPH over the speed limit, but according to my GPS I was only traveling 50MPH".
Judge: "I'll accept your GPS as evidence, but the speed limit in that area is 30MPH, you are here-by fined for Reckless, and your driving privileges are suspended for 6 months. Thank you for your bit of evidence." ...and yes, I've been in court where the defendant has had this happen to them.
While I do not necessarily agree with the last part (self-incrimination), the moral of the story if make sure you have all your ducks in a row.
cops are faggots.
-.haNk
The big problem that I see here is that in Ohio moving violations aren't always based on fact in the first place. I got a ticket there once in a vehicle that was governed below what the officer wrote the ticket for. I was going 57 in a semi truck, the speed limit for semi's was 55, he pulled me over and said that I was going 67. The truck was governed at 63. I explained this to the officer but he didn't really care what I had to say. After that I always set my cruise at about 54 when traveling through Ohio because I felt the best way to get even with them was to not give any opportunity to acquire revenue at my expense. If this truly is a revenue game for Ohio like I believe that it is, they can now issue tickets with even more ease.
Now Ohio will be able to catch all those speeders and murderers with little cost to their law enforcement agencies. This ruling should also allow Ohio citizens and those just passing through to be found guilty of just about anything, promptly and efficiently. No time Ohio's deficit will be solved. The bad news is that Ohio politicians will rush to get themselves appointed as deputy sheriffs so they can immediately arrest anyone they suspect may not have given sufficiently to their reelection campaigns. First Arizona and now Ohio, soon I won't be able to travel hardly anywhere in the US and still feel safe.
This isn't really anything new. The basis of most traffic law is that the officer estimates the vehicle speed and verifies it with the equipment. Radar, laser, aerial, or distance/time calculations, all have their caveats in the court room, but the officer's estimation of speed is all that is needed to pull a vehicle over and fine for the violation in most places.
That would be correct if the speed limits were based on actual "safe" speeds, which is not the case.
I invite you to read report No. FHWA-RD-92-084 by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Some interesting conclusions below:
# Accidents at the 58 experimental sites where speed limits were lowered increased by 5.4 percent.
# Accidents at the 41 experimental sites where speed limits were raised decreased by 6.7 percent.
# Lowering speed limits more than 5 mi/h (8 km/h) below the 85th percentile speed of traffic did not reduce accidents.
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