Court Says Police In Ohio Can Just Guess How Fast You Were Going And Give You A Ticket
from the evidence,-please? dept
Forget faulty speed cameras. Don't worry about police just guessing when they can't quite make out your license plate on a red light photo. Fear not the police who misread driving through a green light as running the red. Over in Ohio, apparently a court has said that police don't need any real evidence at all to charge you with speeding. They just need to make a "visual estimate" in their own judgment as to whether or not you were speeding:In a 5-to-1 ruling, the court said an officer's "unaided visual estimation of a vehicle's speed" is strong enough to support a ticket and conviction. A radar speed detector, commonly used by patrolmen, is not needed, the court concluded.That won't be abused at all...
"Independent verification of the vehicle's speed is not necessary to support a conviction for speeding," assuming the officer has been trained and certified by the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy or similar organization, Justice Maureen O'Connor wrote for the court's majority.
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I normally dont advocate violence
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It's a good thing only the police have this power, otherwise it would be abused.
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Re:
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Re: You sir are a
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Not sure why this is noteworthy.
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Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
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Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
By a method that was not verifiable and easily abused, hence the desire for technical solutions in the first place?
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Re: Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
They would use a technique called "Pacing". They drive behind or in front of you at or above the speed limit. If you are behind them and you catch up to them, then they know you were going faster than the limit. If they are behind you and your distance from them increases then they know you were over the limit. It was an unreliable technique in that it was still difficult to ascertain the exact vehicle speed, and also allowed for the possibility of abuse by the officer, which is why better techniques (i.e. radar) were developed.
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Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
Once upon a time, the authorities could execute you on the spot for committing a crime. Perhaps we should go back to that, too?
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Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
In fact, to this day, that is how local police officers in PA ascertain your speed. If you look on the ticket, you will see "distance traveled" and "time elapsed". Only state cops get to use radar.
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Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
Speeding tickets weren't given out as much back in the day as much as Reckless driving tickets.
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Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
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Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
Just sayin ..
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Re: Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
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Re: Re: Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
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Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
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Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
You're a fucking idiot. Police did not just "guess your speed" before the advent of radar guns. Calibrated speedometers, lines on the ground and stopwatches, etc.
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Re: Re: Not sure why this is noteworthy.
You're the kind of person who'll cheer when they start arresting people for "Thinking bad thoughts" too, I'm sure.
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Soooo...
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Re: Soooo...
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Re: Re: Soooo...
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Re:
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There are mechanisms to correct for it.
And most radars only noticeably suffer from cosine error at extreme angles and near zero range. Under all realistic circumstances, the numerical reading error introduced from angle is less than 0.5%, when means if you're going 50mph it might read you as going 49mph. Oh yeah, and the cosine error ALWAYS reduces the reading, never increases it.
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as it stands, you can still misuse or misinterpret a reading from a radar gun (is it actually reading the speed of the correct vehicle or some different one, etc, etc, etc)
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Told by Cop teacher in traffic ticket school that this is highly inaccurate!
"you can challenge a ticket done by eyeball because cops have been tested and they are terrible at estimating speed"
....but never mind that science stuff. Study schmudy. Weather it is the scam that is global warming or traffic tickets "we need da revenue" trumps all!
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Re:
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Then you ask to see a brain scan, right?
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Do they really use the radar gun or do they just say they used it. Who would know?
For all I know, the RADAR gun was stuck on 35 all day and he used the same ploy on everyone.
Testimony is all. Because it's a time-thing, there is no "evidence".
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Ever see those "No Override EVER" signs?
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Speeding ticket has 2 parts?
Any LEO's who can confirm or deny?
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Re: Speeding ticket has 2 parts?
Well, I'm an Aquarius, but the last speeding ticket I got had a checkbox for speeding in different overage amounts. There was no checkbox for simply speeding, although I imagine they could get away with reckless driving if they really wanted to....
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Re: Speeding ticket has 2 parts?
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Re: Speeding ticket has 2 parts?
also, in states that use the point system for license suspension or revocation (such as new york), the points are based on the overage of the speed limit.
http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/broch/c49.htm
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A police state is arbitrary; police are little kings.
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Welcome to the police state!!!
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Idiot
Police have ALWAYS been able to do that.
If you do not like then state that, but an "OMG new court decision" headline is utter fucking bullshit.
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Re: Idiot
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Re: Idiot reading is fundamental
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/06/police_officers_visual_estimat.html
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Re: Idiot
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Re: Idiot
When I was 16, I was driving my 1987 Chevy Celebrity from my town to the next town over in NH, over windy, hilly roads that don't stay in good shape long because of frost heaves. I was going about 48 in a 40 zone, but the cop nailed me for 60. My parents were pissed that I got the ticket, but my dad, a former police officer himself, was doubly pissed at the cop, because he knows better than to think the car I was driving could go 60 MPH on the road I was driving on without crashing. He made me take it to court so he could have words with the cop, but the cop never showed. I'm really glad I had that safety measure when I was so young, and I feel bad for kids in Ohio now that it's gone.
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Police =/= automatically brilliant.
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Actually...
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Re: Actually...
I know there are holes in this as vid can be faked and speedometers have a serious level of inconsistency, but it is similar in output validity to an observer (regardless of whether he/she is a professional observer - ref: LEO) being able to determine that real speed.
JMHO
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Re: Re: Actually...
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I mean, people can get kicked out o of the internet based on suspicion alone and cops can ticket you based on opinion, just like in the times of the inquisition you could be killed just by having someone that hates your guts telling the authorities you are a heretic, with no proof whatsoever.
Progress? We're going backwards!
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No one expects the Traffic Inquisition!!!
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Thank God...
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Re: Thank God...
Is that really a problem? What makes you think that supervised law students cannot handle minor traffic cases in Chicago?
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Re: Re: Thank God...
And if your revenue generating traffic court system is so inundated with cases that there aren't enough lawyers to go around, then perhaps it's time you scaled the number of violations back a bit....
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Re: Re: Re: Thank God...
> representing the government in court? Perhaps
> I'm mistaken, but I thought that was a legal no no..
Most states' bar laws have exceptions for law students who are registered at ABA approved law schools and working under the supervision of licensed attorneys. They usually have to have completed a certain number of hours toward their law degree before they are eligible to participate.
It's kind of like the learners permit/drivers license system.
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Re: Re: Re: Thank God...
Not if the students are supervised by a licensed attorney. I don't know the law of Illinois, but in New Jersey a law student may assist a practicing attorney in a case, including going so far as arguing the case in court, so long as the practicing attorney supervises and takes responsibility for the actions of the law student. This is one way many legal clinics are able to help and represent the indigent with regard to their legal problems. It's also a great way for law students to get practical experience before they graduate.
And if your revenue generating traffic court system is so inundated with cases that there aren't enough lawyers to go around, then perhaps it's time you scaled the number of violations back a bit....
I see. You'd rather the government allow people to violate the law with impugnity in order to save a couple dollars rather than utilize a free resource (unpaid interns in the form of law students itching to get experience) to help perform all of its legal duties. Good to know.
Something tells me that your criticism is more of a personal issue than it is a challenge to the merits of the practice. Perhaps you would not find it so objectionable if you didn't encounter it while violating the law.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Thank God...
Fair enough, I was wrong. The practice still rubs me the wrong way, but it's apparently not against the rules....
"I see. You'd rather the government allow people to violate the law with impugnity in order to save a couple dollars rather than utilize a free resource (unpaid interns in the form of law students itching to get experience) to help perform all of its legal duties. Good to know."
THAT'S the conclusion you drew from what I said? Really? First, I don't know what "impugnity" is (some kind of all powerful but incredibly ugly dog, perhaps?), but the theory behind a legal system is to both punish and deter. The punish shouldn't be done for profit and the deter should be keeping people OUT OF THE FUCKING LEGAL SYSTEM. If neither of those are the case in any legal system, it needs to be fixed. Period. I think the need to bring on law students to help with the case load is an indication that cases per capita are on the rise. That's a legal system fail.
"Something tells me that your criticism is more of a personal issue than it is a challenge to the merits of the practice. Perhaps you would not find it so objectionable if you didn't encounter it while violating the law."
Not really. Had a car when I was in high school, but haven't needed one for the last ten years living in the city. I'm a proud non-auto owner. So this whole deal wouldn't be a problem with me personally, other than it's indicative of a larger problem: a corrupted legal system.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Thank God...
Sorry, should be "impunity." I thought it was spelled differently. My bad.
but the theory behind a legal system is to both punish and deter. The punish shouldn't be done for profit and the deter should be keeping people OUT OF THE FUCKING LEGAL SYSTEM. If neither of those are the case in any legal system, it needs to be fixed. Period.
So how do you think traffic violations should be addressed? The traffic laws were written for a reason, and despite your cynicical suggestion of a profit motive, I'm pretty sure they were written to help traffic move either more safely or more efficiently. So when such laws are broken, what should happen? Should the culprits just be given a stern talking-to? Or should the legal system provide an actual disincentive to breaking the law?
If you think monetary fines are improper, what would you have the system do? Put people in jail for parking violations? Publicly shame them? What's your solution?
I think the need to bring on law students to help with the case load is an indication that cases per capita are on the rise. That's a legal system fail.
Believe me, even if the case load were small, law students would still be asked to work on such cases. Law students provide free labor, and when free labor is offered, people seeking laborers typically take it.
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"your cynicical suggestion of a profit motive" hahahahaha
In other words, speeding tickets are not for safety, otherwise the cops would drive in traffic to dampen people's speed.
It's all about revenue.
In Arlington County, Virginia, US, the driving safety class instructors tell us to avoid Arlington during our probation because the police give tickets on a whim regardless of our behavior on the roadway ... because they are incentivised by the one with the most tickets choosing their vacation days first. If a cop wants Christmas off, they must beat all other cop's ticket numbers.
Speeding tickets have nothing to do with safety.
Speeding tickets have everything to do with revenue.
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Re: "your cynicical suggestion of a profit motive" hahahahaha
> safety class instructors tell us to avoid
> Arlington during our probation because the
> police give tickets on a whim
My experience driving in the DC area is that the entire population seems to drive ridiculously slow. Whatever the posted speed limit, the vast majority of traffic is moving between 15 and 20 mph below it. There have been times when I've been on 395 and I find myself weaving in and out of traffic like I'm at Daytona, passing people like they're standing still, and when I look at my speed, I'm barely at 60. It's like driving on a highway full of scared 80-year-olds.
Cops trolling for speeders on the DC highways pretty much *have* to get creative to meet their quotas.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Thank God...
Actually, the profit motive argument gains legitimacy when you realize that before a certain point in our history (before the 55 mph nationwide) the vast majority of the country did not have speed limits. Law enforcement wrote a ticket if you crashed, usually for excessive speed, reckless driving, or what ever fit the situation. Once a national limit was put in place, and cities, counties, and states realized there was revenue to be brought in by ticketing speeders. Why do you think in good times, law enforcement backs off on ticketing speeders (5+ mph buffer), and in tougher times, the buffer can be as low as 1 mph?
Just because cynicism irritates you, does not mean that it is misplaced.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Thank God...
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No, you idiot. Stop swinging at strawmen. My point was that he probably would not have encountered this aspect of legal practice if he had not violated the law. And without encountering it, he would not have found it objectionable.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Thank God...
That's called robbing people of due process, and assuming they're guilty; BOTH of these are aspects of "guilty until proven innocent" which by your own statements is something you tacitly support.
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Re: Re: Thank God...
Because I can apply to law school, get accepted, and be a law student. Until you've passed the BAR you aren't a lawyer and have no business practicing law.
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Re: Re: Re: Thank God...
I see. So it's not a question of whether the law student can sufficiently do the work so much as whether the law student has a license. Hmm, I seem to remember the folks at Techdirt having disdain for government licenses to practice a particular profession. Something about unnecessary barriers to entry....
By the way, technically the students are NOT practicing law. They are merely learning the practice of law by assisting another lawyer who actually IS practicing law. The lawyer is the one responsible for whatever the law student does on his or her behalf. It is for this reason that the lawyer is rather choosy over which law students he or she decides to employ.
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in other news
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Nothing New Here
Note: a judge received a ticket for speeding in California back when automobiles were a new thing and speed laws were first in place. The cop was using a speed trap where he would clock your speed between two distance markers and measure that to get your speed. This went all the way to the California Supreme Court. The outcome was that it was not legal for cops to do that. Now CHP gets the same certification for speed observation. They also can give you a ticket for speeding with out setting the speed over the limit that you were driving.
We all know this is for revenue generation, not safety.
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Making my black box
http://www.123securityproducts.com/bdc200.html?CS_003=691061&CS_010=bdc200
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Step 2: minimum speeds
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Re: Step 2: minimum speeds
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BTW, "weather" is the stuff that happens in the atmosphere,
whether or not you choose to believe it.
Learn the Language. Use Punctuation. It really works!
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Re:
Capitalization and sentence fragment fail....
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Re: Re:
Imperative sentences, there's an implied subject of You for the first two. (You) learn the language. (You) use punctuation. It (subject) really (adverb) works (verb). SVO, SVO, and SV sentence structures. They're grammatically correct sentences. Which I admit is unusual, given that when correcting someone else's spelling/grammar, you yourself usually slip up.
As for capitalization fail, I read it as emphasizing without going for all caps 'shouting'.
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@DH:
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Read the Case-- 82 mph in a 60 mph zone.
The police officer, Christopher Santimarino, pulled the guy over before he killed someone, and then used his discretion to mark it down to 79 mph, just enough to put the speed below "intentional reckless driving," or whatever. It sounds like like Officer Santimarino is a good guy, who doesn't push harder than he needs to do in order to make his point. When it became apparent that the paperwork on his radar gun was not in order, he marked the speed down to 70 mph, again giving the guy the benefit of the doubt. I would guess, from Jenney's subsequent behavior, that he was probably on the verge of losing his license for other offenses, and that is probably why he fought the case.
Obviously, Officer Santimarino was judging relative speed, not absolute speed, judging the speed of Mr. Jenney, relative to the other cars. It is reasonable to suppose that he could tell the difference between 2-3 mph relative speed and 20 mph relative speed.
(*) I've been in a car which was doing that kind of thing-- once. Some years ago, I hired a taxicab to drive me from Philadelphia to Morgantown, WV, a distance of three hundred miles, for a negotiated fixed fee. I was moving, and it was simpler than trying to synchronize with the airlines. Running along I-81, which was a bit congested, the driver suddenly became impatient with the "peasants" in his way, and started doing slalom. Fortunately, he calmed down after a few miles, and we turned west onto I-68, where there wasn't much traffic, and he could simply go the speed limit.
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Re: Read the Case-- 82 mph in a 60 mph zone.
Still, the specific case sheds alot of light. If the officer was 'eyeballing it' by noticing that a bunch of cars on the highway were presumably going the speed limit and this guy was passing loads of them, it's a very safe assumption to say the guy's speeding.
I'd say the details in this case are what make the difference, that the cop was using relative speeds to determine, not just saying 'Ah, he looks like he's speeding based on my gut instinct', which would not be a good thing at all.
The reason I think Mike reported on this, is that this case is now on the books as case law and may be referenced back to. If the specific circumstances were mentioned in the ruling, it would be a Lot better.
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Re: Re: Read the Case-- 82 mph in a 60 mph zone.
> name and offense. It's called Weaving.
So what does the law require you to do? After changing from one lane to another, do you have remain in that for a specific time or distance before you can make anothe lane change?
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Re: Read the Case-- 82 mph in a 60 mph zone.
Of course if the officer was going with the flow of trafic as well and could see that trafic was close to the speed limit, that would shut that argument down. But if he was parked along the side of the highway then he's just assuming how fast the trafic was moving.
He should have just cited him for reckless driving and been done with it. Much harder to argue against.
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Re: Read the Case-- 82 mph in a 60 mph zone.
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Let's see - this is Ohio, home of Cleveland, Cincinnati, and other hellholes
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Re: Let's see - this is Ohio, home of Cleveland, Cincinnati, and other hellholes
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"I slept through speed class so I'm certified to assess legal speeds now."
They keep moving the bar (so to speak) on how much a speeding ticket is worth. It's REVENUE for the Police, so that's their incentive. It's risk of loosing your license and paying exorbitant insurance rates for drivers, so that's their incentive.
The real challenge is finding a good lawyer who can set precedent to toss this judge back into reality.
Justice is not in the balance, apparently, it's in a pendulum.
Justice is available, it just takes a little work ... okay, a lot of work ... to dethrone the Police and the Judge.
I for one am all for tanking RADAR and LASER.
However, I was stopped by a cop using a stopwatch to clock cars passing line markers on the highway!
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They gotta be kidding - haven't they?
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Once past him, he pulled out, turned on the lights, and gave me a ticket for 57-58mph. He wasn't going to answer any questions from me.
I was out-of-state, but on a regular weekend trip and decided to contest the ticket and request a Friday or Monday court date(which was granted).
I waited for the morning in court and was called close to what I assumed would be lunch break. I was sitting in the 2nd row and overheard the prosecutor start to ask the cop about the details.
Did you get him on radar? No.
How did you estimate his speed? He passed me and I was going 55.
When was the last time you had your speedo calibrated? Uh? I don't know?
Get out of here!
My case was dismissed about 30 seconds later.
But I wasted a full day of work to get rid of a bogus ticket.
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Re:
The example is simple, if a police officer "estimates" a speed on a regular basis, and is proven wrong or has the ticket removed on a large number of those tickets, eventually someone will take notice and that particular officer will have his credibility called into question. This is very similar to the "full disclosure" examples Mike is fond of, where if a blogger continually claims "this product is excellent" simply because they got it for free from the manufacturer, their credibility will being to go down the toilet.
I'll admit, fighting tickets is a pain, and I personally don't do it, but if enough people are outraged, and enough people do fight them, and enough people get vindicated, then eventually an officers entire reputation may be put on the line, and it may have an impact on every case they were ever involved in.
Cold comfort I'm sure.
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Re: Re: Challenge
> people do fight them...
The system doesn't like it when you fight tickets.
When I lived in Houston, the city went on a speeding crusade and started issuing thousands of tickets a month, of which a lot were quite questionable. A grass-roots campaign sprung up which encouraged everyone who got got a ticket to not only challenge it, but exercise their right to a jury trial (as speeding in Texas was still a criminal offense at the time). Well, the courts buckled under the strain of having to hear thousands of cases and the costs of empaneling and paying tens of thousands of jurors, to the point where the city council changed the law and imposed extra penalties on you for challenging the ticket and/or requesting a jury trial, even though that's theoretically the right of all criminal defendants under the Constitution.
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Re: Re: Re: Challenge
Talk about making a sweeping generalization based on a small sample size. It is incorrect to extrapolate your experience in Houston to what happens in every city in the U.S.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Challenge
> in Houston to what happens in every city in the U.S.
You might have a point if that's what I had done.
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In response to "btr1701," Peter Blaise Monahon, etc., etc.
Jean-Luc Godard, _Weekend_:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062480/
Louis N. Proyect's review of same:
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/weekend.htm
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/
Google Images for "+godard +weekend"
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Police Revenue Game
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why? can't we see for ourselves?
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why? can't we see for ourselves?
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opinions
:)
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