harrymaneuvers
02-27-2012, 06:52 PM
Hey everyone!!! So I wasnt sure if I posted this a few months ago but my Fiance got a speeding ticket a while back and the officer filled the ticket out half assed...
Notice that rather than stating her exact speed and how he arrived at it, he states "speed 65+"... which is conveniently exactly 20 MPH (not eligible for traffic school and much more expensive) over the limit. No radar unit, no approx speed, nothing.
https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2012/02/Ticket-1.jpg
So we decided we were going to fight this ticket as it seems as though the cop just estimated her speed in excess of 65 MPH. If this was the case and he didnt use a radar/lidar detector, then we were going to find out EXACTLY how he came to the conclusion that her car was traveling that fast.
I already knew that an officer is certified at estimating speeds based on visual observations. I also knew that they would have to time her vehicle passing two points at a known distance apart in order to justify that method.
So we went to Kinkos and had that section of roadway blown up on a 48" x 36" black and white print (cost $10).
From there we would ask the officer to place a pre-made motorcycle on the map at the exact location where he was sitting when he observed her vehicle.
He would then stick the motorcycle on his location.
My Fiance would then ask him to place a sticky backed WRX wagon at the exact spot on the road where he started his visual estimate.
Then place another sticky backed WRX where he finished his visual estimation.
At that point he would need to remember exactly what amount of time elapsed between the two observation points.
The goal here being to iron the officer down to an exact distance in feet and an exact amount of time in second.
Chance are the cop would realize that he was painting himself into a corner and answer with something like "around 12 seconds" to which my Fiance would reply "so could it be as much as 15 seconds or as little as 9 seconds?" until an exact answer if found.
If he will not pin himself down to an answer then the she instantly goes into "well I apologize officer but I have disagreed with the validity of this ticket and these details are very important to proving that I committed this violation."
Unless the cop can accurately estimate the feet between the two points on our blown up Google map (fiance folded the bottom edge of the map that indicated the scale so it wasn't visible), then reverse work the calculation to get down to feet per second and then multiple by 60 twice (how many feet traveled in an hour) then divide by 5280... he is either going to guess the elapsed time as really slow or really fast... it would be
When we did it to four co-workers and asked them to place the car at two locations on the road and estimate how long it took the car to go that distance... 3 of the co-workers (trying to be as accurate as possible) guessed distances and times that came out to well over 120mph...
The other co-worker was way under and the math came out to about 21 mph...
ANYWAYS!!!!
After all of this work and preparation, we show up at court today along with another 15 people who had officers show up for trial.
As soon as we walk in and sit in the back row, the motorcycle cop is instantly locked on both of us and the materials that we had brought with us. Over the next 10 mintues... every time i look over at the cop... he is looking at us.
People are still randomly showing up and we are all (15 cops and 20-25 people) sitting quietly waiting for the judge to enter, the motorcycle cop walks up to us and says he wants to talk out in the hallway.
We both get up and take all of our materials with us out into the hall.
The officer says: " Ya know, they have added 2 more speed limit signs in the area since your ticket so I was just going to dismiss the ticket due to lack of evidence."
We are holding in our excitement as he reaches over and takes a sheet of notes out of the stack of papers that my fiance is HOLDING. He quickly scans over it as if he was trying to find out what strategy we were going to use for a defense. Even though I didnt say anything, I was just shocked. He didnt ask my fiance if he could see, he just reached over and casually pulled out one of the sheets and reviewed it.
Then he asked what questions we had about the citation. I was thinking to myself "oh well i guess it doesnt matter now" but my Fiance was quick to point out that she wanted to know how he estimated her speed.
The officer replied that he got her on LIDAR going 67 and that it was really weird but it showed the radar unit number and exact speed (67 MPH) on HIS copy of the ticket... the top copy but not my Fiance's pink copy.
Again, I didnt say anything but I am thinking to myself "what judge would buy that?"
Anyways, judge calls my fiance's name, officer stands up and says he is dismissing the ticket due to lack of evidence and we all go home happy!!!!!
WAHOO!
Notice that rather than stating her exact speed and how he arrived at it, he states "speed 65+"... which is conveniently exactly 20 MPH (not eligible for traffic school and much more expensive) over the limit. No radar unit, no approx speed, nothing.
https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2012/02/Ticket-1.jpg
So we decided we were going to fight this ticket as it seems as though the cop just estimated her speed in excess of 65 MPH. If this was the case and he didnt use a radar/lidar detector, then we were going to find out EXACTLY how he came to the conclusion that her car was traveling that fast.
I already knew that an officer is certified at estimating speeds based on visual observations. I also knew that they would have to time her vehicle passing two points at a known distance apart in order to justify that method.
So we went to Kinkos and had that section of roadway blown up on a 48" x 36" black and white print (cost $10).
From there we would ask the officer to place a pre-made motorcycle on the map at the exact location where he was sitting when he observed her vehicle.
He would then stick the motorcycle on his location.
My Fiance would then ask him to place a sticky backed WRX wagon at the exact spot on the road where he started his visual estimate.
Then place another sticky backed WRX where he finished his visual estimation.
At that point he would need to remember exactly what amount of time elapsed between the two observation points.
The goal here being to iron the officer down to an exact distance in feet and an exact amount of time in second.
Chance are the cop would realize that he was painting himself into a corner and answer with something like "around 12 seconds" to which my Fiance would reply "so could it be as much as 15 seconds or as little as 9 seconds?" until an exact answer if found.
If he will not pin himself down to an answer then the she instantly goes into "well I apologize officer but I have disagreed with the validity of this ticket and these details are very important to proving that I committed this violation."
Unless the cop can accurately estimate the feet between the two points on our blown up Google map (fiance folded the bottom edge of the map that indicated the scale so it wasn't visible), then reverse work the calculation to get down to feet per second and then multiple by 60 twice (how many feet traveled in an hour) then divide by 5280... he is either going to guess the elapsed time as really slow or really fast... it would be
When we did it to four co-workers and asked them to place the car at two locations on the road and estimate how long it took the car to go that distance... 3 of the co-workers (trying to be as accurate as possible) guessed distances and times that came out to well over 120mph...
The other co-worker was way under and the math came out to about 21 mph...
ANYWAYS!!!!
After all of this work and preparation, we show up at court today along with another 15 people who had officers show up for trial.
As soon as we walk in and sit in the back row, the motorcycle cop is instantly locked on both of us and the materials that we had brought with us. Over the next 10 mintues... every time i look over at the cop... he is looking at us.
People are still randomly showing up and we are all (15 cops and 20-25 people) sitting quietly waiting for the judge to enter, the motorcycle cop walks up to us and says he wants to talk out in the hallway.
We both get up and take all of our materials with us out into the hall.
The officer says: " Ya know, they have added 2 more speed limit signs in the area since your ticket so I was just going to dismiss the ticket due to lack of evidence."
We are holding in our excitement as he reaches over and takes a sheet of notes out of the stack of papers that my fiance is HOLDING. He quickly scans over it as if he was trying to find out what strategy we were going to use for a defense. Even though I didnt say anything, I was just shocked. He didnt ask my fiance if he could see, he just reached over and casually pulled out one of the sheets and reviewed it.
Then he asked what questions we had about the citation. I was thinking to myself "oh well i guess it doesnt matter now" but my Fiance was quick to point out that she wanted to know how he estimated her speed.
The officer replied that he got her on LIDAR going 67 and that it was really weird but it showed the radar unit number and exact speed (67 MPH) on HIS copy of the ticket... the top copy but not my Fiance's pink copy.
Again, I didnt say anything but I am thinking to myself "what judge would buy that?"
Anyways, judge calls my fiance's name, officer stands up and says he is dismissing the ticket due to lack of evidence and we all go home happy!!!!!
WAHOO!