Moses: That's cool. Thanks for clarifying my question. Thanks for doing what you do. Hope I never have to see you "at work". :)

I believe in honesty. If your son was speeding, he should own up to his violation. If he was not, then fight the ticket.

Here is the way traffic court works. A traffic cop (in some Departments there is a distinction) cites drivers during a 7 day stretch. All of those tickets get dated for one particular day, Tuesday in our jurisdiction. The cop goes to the same court every Tuesday in front of the same judge. He develops his reputation (good or bad). For the cop not to show up, 30-40 tickets could be dismissed.

The cop is given a subpoena which mandates that he appear in court, or the judge can issue a body attachment on him (which is similar to an arrest warrant). As a police supervisor, we mandate all of our cops to appear or I will have his a$$. There is no personal incentive to the cop for issuing more or less tickets. His pay is his pay. However, supervisors write annual performance evaluations on personnel. If a traffic cop is not issuing tickets, then what is he doing?

Good luck, David

Thanks David.
I believe in honesty as well. And that is why this is so alarming. My son, who has made his share of bone head moves, has always been honest. He called me immediately after the ticket with the "You're not going to believe this but.... this cop simply lied when he wrote me up. I was going slower than traffic, cruise set at 74, etc...."
In any event, he will either contest or concede. I will help him which ever way he chooses, but in the end, he will be doing the heavy lifting. If he concedes or loses, this Indiana scam will cost him a cool $2,000 over 5 years. Pretty frustrating to be guilty and have to prove your innocence.
C

David, Thats not exactly how we do it here in the Valley, I get subpoened to traffic court any day of the week.

There is no requirement to give a violator a printout of the speed. If requested, we do have to show them the radar or laser. Not doing so is the biggest defense that your son has and that is the angle I would go.

Couple more things. Laser is target specific, it's just like shooting a rifle with a laser scope on it. whatever I put the red box on, is what I get the speed on. The one I use is accurate to about 5000 ft, Of course I can't see a car that far. Radar is not a target specific device. The operator must be able to explain why he believes it was your car that was speeding and not the one in front or behind you.

Speed estimation is easy. watch a few cars go by at varying speeds and with practice anyone can do it within a range of 5 mph. In the state of Califonia every officer who is radar and laser trained has to be able to estimate speed or you don't get certified. In radar/laser school you spend about a day practicing just the act of speed estimation. It doesnt matter what the speed your expensive M6 says on the speedo, speed estimation is based on the movement of the vehicle.

I crack up hearing everyones war stories about what the cop did or didnt do. It's always my neighbors brother's sister and law is a cop or hada hada hada, seems like there is alot of false info out there and quite a few people seem to know how to do our job better then us.


Oh, the things I said are for California, I'm not sure how they would apply in your situation. Good luck in whatever you do. I'm a firm believer in fighting tickets if given erroneously.

a cops mystical ability to accurately estimate speed is total bs. A mechanical device called a speedometer can only do +/- 10mph @ 70 mph. one could turn your back to a road with a posted speedof 65 mph and state 70 mph for every car you hear go past and be correct most of the time. I have worked as an engineer designing radar, direction finding equipment, omega, loran, gps and several very special systems that producevelocity and position info for over 35 years. The scary thing is that cops actually beleive they have this ability, they do not. I can devise several demos that can conclusively prove this point.

I also have about 2 million highway miles under my belt. I have, in fact, set up a couple of bad drivers for a ticket. Did so by going fast, watching for cop to go heads up, hardapp of breaks (a good car dosen't dive), bad car who wasn't speeding appears to go whipping by me. It wasn't me that got pulled over. Trickey manover but I have used it several times. So much for estimating speed.

Speed isn't estimated by using another moving vehicle. The trickey manuever you do, would not make me believe that the other vehicle was speeding, because if you tracked the vehicle, for any lenght of time, you would see that it was not covering a certain distance in a certain amount of time. Guess I'm just another ignorant cop. funny, It's something I do everyday, verified with a lidar. but it's probably not accurate either. Glad the court system doesn't have those conclusive demos that you could devise.SmileWavy Theres nothing mystical about it, within 5 mph is pretty easy.

Tellthat to the guys that got pulled over. The cop observed a speed aqbout 12 mph over the limit. he looks and sees two cars, one passing the other. Trust me, I have put on over 2 million miles, and I have seen, done,about everything. Radar can be very deceiving when there is more than one car on the road. I am also a microwave engineer with over35 years exp, and I know for a fact that these limitations are true..As to estimating speed, nothing more than lucky guesses. A speedo, built into the car can only do +/- 10 mph ,and you, just looking think you can do better? Your only fooling yourself, and if your a cop, screwing a possibly innocent driver. Speed is distance and time. Do you know the exact distance, within 10%, The exact elapsed time with your brain clock within 10%, NFW. Your speed estimate will be off by the total error. If you look at traffic that usually flows at 70, but for some reason is uniformly flowing at 60mph you won't know without radar and if some one is going 10mph faster, you will estimate 80 when he is really going 70. The guy will be in a hard spot by admitting his actual speed of 70 in a 65. I will admit that you can tell he is going 10 to 20 mph faster (not 10, or 20, just somewhere in that ballpark) But absolute speed, NFW

6mph over on an empty highway could mean thousands in insurance premiums points.
Left lane squatting, talking on the cell while tailgating and weaving through heavy traffic- common practice.

Snowman - you are basing your assumptions on difficulty to measure speed by speedomters in cars - devices that in most cases, are not meant to be accurate. Any change to OD of tire, will affect it. Also, alot of American cars, come from the factory set to read higher then reality.

The difficulty speedos have in measuring speed is much less than the human mind has in measuring speed.

It sucks to have your faith in law enforcement and the justice system dashed at such a young age. Better to have his eye's opened now than be sitting on death row someday because he thought "I'm innocent, I don't need a lawyer, I'll just explain things to the police and clear things up."

I've always been treat professionally by the police but I've seen an innocent friend get a ticket without doing anything wrong.

-Chris

You are right, speed is distance and time. Thats why the trick you mentioned earlier would not make me pull someone over for speeding it they were not. I also agree that radar is a totally different thing then laser which is target specific. The officers testimony is also different because of that.

I don't know any officer who claims they can estimate absolute speed and I certainly didn't state that I could, but I can tell the actual speed within 5 mph. Now I personally would not write a citation based on that, but I would use that estimation to decide if I was going to waste my time picking up and pointing my laser at them. I find it amusing that your going to tell me that I can't do something that I do about 15-20 times a day,everyday. I guess luckily for me, the courts seem to think my training and experiance in actually doing it means something.

BTW, Everyone is different, but unless it's a school zone or some other special circumstance, I don't even write tickets for less then 15 over. YMMV.

I think your son simply got a lesson in weighing risks and benefits.

Whenever you go over the speed limit, you risk a ticket and higher insurance premiums. If you're on a patrolled interstate, higher risk. if you're an out of state car, higher risk. If you're a young guy, higher risk. Add up those risks.

What are the benefits of going 74 instead of 70? You can do the next 400 miles in 18 fewer minutes. Whoopee.

Everyone has to make their own decision based on their own risk-benefit analysis, then flip the dice and live with the results.

For me, the ticket and increased insurance don't matter much, I make enough money. But I usually stay at or under the speed limit in a 70 mph zone anyway, its just not interesting to go fast on a dead stright stretch of highway.

For a college student for whom $2000 is a lot more important, I'd think the risk-benefit balance would suggest setting the cruise control at 70 mph.

(Oh, the "70 mph would have been dangerously slow" is not convincing. If you want to drive the speed limit, just hang out in the slow lane with the 18-wheelers.)

He wasn't given a ticket for going 74 mph in a 70 mph zone! His ticket was for 81 mph in a 70 mph zone.

What probably happened is the officer saw a group of cars come into view, his radar gun picked up a high speed over 80 mph; when the cars got closer he probably picked the youngest looking driver out of the bunch and said to himself, "There's my speeder!"

It just so happened that the youngest looking driver was Chris's son, so he got the ticket.

Chris's son would have probably gotten the ticket even if he was actually traveling at 65 mph in this 70 mph zone.

The issue here is not whether 4 mph over the posted limit is speeding, the issue is a ticket that was given wrongly.

I understand that, and agree that is probably what happened. I don't think he "deserved" the 81 mph ticket.

However, if he had been doing 70 in the slow lane, there would have been less chance of him being in that group of cars, or more chance of the cop noticing his much slower speed compared with the other cars, and thus less chance of him getting the admittedly unjustified ticket.

I'm saying, basically, that life is probabilistic and not always fair - you don't always get what you "deserve" - and there's ways to minimize the chance of getting slapped with the unfair stuff.

Later in life there'll be many situations in which staying out of certain situations will be the better idea, versus getting into those situations and then having to argue that he didn't do anything really wrong.

the last cop that gave me a ticket for speeding when I was not was in Asthambula, ohio. just b 4 they shot the students there. day b4 xmas, doing about 65 in a 70 zone. pulled over, cop asked what I did, ans, student. guilty of doing 85 in a 70 zone. give the cop $50 OR WAIT 2 DAYS IN JAIL FOR JUDGE. I paid the $50 and swore that I would fight any ticket, guilty or not after that.

Sir u are deceiving yourself if u think you can estimate speed. Go to the track, have someone record actual speed with a laser or radar. you write down your estimates, 10 in a row, try another 10 in another part of the track, no cheeting, like looking or knowing any speeds for that part of the track. get back with your results.

i bet that u will be over 20 off.

I drive a race car and I can't tell you within 20 how fast
i am driving

Also, does the cruise control brake for downhills? I know in all the odler vehichels I've driven with cruise control, it simply applies more power if the speed falls below - and does nothing to slow the car on a downhill. On some sections around here, you could have cruise control at 60MPH, but at the bottom of a valley, be going well well over that.

Story from a car club buddy:

I crested a hill in New Mexico and saw a cop writing a ticket. As I drove by, he got in his car and pulled me over. When he was writing me a ticket for 75 in a 65, I casually asked how he could know how fast I was going since he was standing next to the other car when he saw me. The officer replied, "when you've been doing this as long as I have, you can tell exactly how fast a car's going." I thanked him and took the ticket. I couldn't have been going less than 125 when he saw me!

This is my last post on the subject.

First, I drive a race car also. not to bad either. I would think you could estimate your speed based on gear and RPM alot closer then 20mph.

Second. your task to me about going to the track estimating speed, is exactly what we have to do to get certified in the first place and we have to do it more then ten times in a row. I'm certified using those methods, so consider yourself gotten back to. Like I said, I do this every day.

I know, it's supposed to be a secret, but I've heard that they teach you guys to squeak at cars and listen for the echo. So now the cat's out of the bag. :D

I've heard that you guys get tested. I'm not in Snowman's camp, just curious, what sort of requirements are there for the cert. How many times, what sort of accuracy, etc...

Like I said, not being a jackazz. My dad was a cop when I was born and eventually went back into the Navy, so i have tons of respect for those in public service. It's a crappy job that I'm not sure I could do.

First, if you really drive a race car, thats wheel to wheel racing, not Porsche club timed events, I doubt you know your speed. No one I know of that races will estimate their speed. They will tell you that they were in a certain rpm range, as you can hear it and sometimes you can actually spot check it. But speed, no. You could go back and try to calculate the speed based on rpm, but you will be off by quite a bit, ie tire pressures, wear, actual rpm vs estimated rpm. In any case you will only be able to guess at a couple of points in the track where you actually know the rpm, most of the time you cannot even think of looking at a tac. But you are doing one better, you don't even know the rpm of a car you are looking at, you have no idea of how fast or how many rpm the car is turning, and furthermore you are not calculating anything, you are simply guessing.

I know you are wrong because I have tested these kind of things with real instrumentation. Stuff that costs 100,s of thousands of bucks, actually 100s of millions if you count everything, in a very controlled environment. Stuff that is a thousand times more accurate and expensive than anything any police force could even dream of having. I have worked on GPS, Loran, Omega, and other systems since the mid 70's. Its very very expensive and difficult to get speed as close as you say you are estimating. NFW you can do what you say and if they are teaching this stuff they should be taken to court and lead to jail for fraud. And I have measured the speed and wiggle of ICBMS to a fraction of a cm or meter per second as they re entered the atmosphere. I have spent over 35 years as an engineer, an expert in the subject of speed, position, location. I will bet all the money I made over the entire period that you are not able to actually do what you say you can. You think you can simply look at a car and estimate speed, you are simply WRONG. I won't go back into the technical reasons again because they went over you head the first time I mentioned them.

Its a disgrace that the court system has allowed such fraud to be propagated to this day. There is no way that with real experts that you could ever testify that you have estimated someone’s speed, just by looking at them.. You could even count, 1001, 1002, 1003 over a known distance and not be within 20 mph.

If you ever use your estimated speed "ability" to convict somoeone of speeding, you are likely to have convicted an innocent person. Even when you are careful and look to see which car is going faster, you might be seeing me setting up another loser for a ticket.

Jack

I know what racing and a race car is. I have two of them. Wheel to Wheel for over five years now Thank you. Your right, you win.

In the future If I have any other questions about what I know or don't know or how better to do my job, I'll look you up. hopefully you can explain it so it doesn't go over my head.

I didn't take the time to read all the reply's in this thread, so in case someone might have already stated this. However what has worked for me for the last decade or so..is to simply call the city/county the ticket was given in, call the prosecutors office (if the town is so small that they do not have a prosecutor...ask to talk to the chief of police) and say that you would like to plead guilty to a non moving violation.

you may be out a few bucks, however his liscense and insurance do not take the hit.

I have no intention of "winning", I just hate to have people receiving tickets based on what is humanly impossible. Knowing your true limitations can help temper decisions based on them. Sometimes what you think you see isn't what is real, especially with radar and multiple cars on the road.

Like I've said several times, I don't use radar, I use laser. Multiple cars isn't a factor. What I see I verify with the unit and use whatever speed the unit tells me. Also like I said previously, I don't write tickets based on just my speed estimation.

I can't speak for every other police officer and what they do, but I've never written a ticket that I wasn't sure of. Never. Why ? because there will always be someone else right behind them where there is no doubt. I'm very aware of the potential consequences of getting a speeding ticket both from a financial standpoint as well as a persons driving record.

Personally I think everybody should at least show up in court just in the off chance that the officer doesn't show up. You have nothing to lose(ok maybe some work time) and everything to gain. even if you win, I'm sure everytime you drive thru the area you got popped before, you'll probably slow down. I don't think it's an issue of taking personal responsibility, it's called utilizing the system we have. Now if your going to get up there and try to discredit the officer or flat lie, thats a different story altogether.

sounds like revenue enhancement at work to me. perhaps more effort should go to apprehending drunk drivers than sitting behind a billboard waiting for the speeder. 'cause most of us may be a bit speedy,but not a danger to all. however we do have money, and i suppose it is easier to catch a speeder than a drunk, at least there are more of us to work on.

I happen to think that anyone truly speeding (doesn’t include someone doing 70 in the arbitrary 55 zone on an 85 mph 4 lane highway) should get a ticket. Usually easy to pick out, weaving in and out, tailgating, unsafe lane changing.

But years of cops picking off arbitrary people going the flow of traffic, in ridiculous 55MPH zones in the wilds of Idaho, Montana, Nevada have made me a zealot. Thank god most of these stupid laws have gone bye-bye. But there are still revenue enhancers, like near Oceanside, toward Escondido, that mar the reputation of all good cops. Then there was a chp that jumped out of the bushes, pointed a radar gun/laser, in such a way that everyone jammed on their brakes, almost causing a series of accidents on I5 just north of Oceanside. Any reasonable person thought the guy was going to take a shot at them! I called the sup on this one.

In any case its these bozos that give the honest cops a bad name and the reason I suggest fighting all tickets, just because.

if you want to read about a really bad place, look up new rome, ohio. incredible. thankfully, finally shut down.

Every cop should be like MMARSH. Honest, and giving enough break for speedo error and the like. Better yet just get the guys that weave in and out, tailgate, and are general idiots. There are enough of them to leave the rest alone.

The day after I got my 993 we were on a fun run and I was second in line. Doug E was first. In a 45mph zone, Doug was way ahead of me and I gunned it to catch up. A cop coming the other direction lit up and did a fast u-turn, passed the rest of us and pulled in ahead of me to stop Doug. We all took off and waited in a parking lot. Cop told Doug he clocked him at 90mph. Since Doug had his son in a child seat in the passenger seat, his excuse that he would never drive like that with his son in his car was pretty believable and it was the truth. It was ME the cop clocked and Doug wasn't going anywhere near that fast, since there were cars ahead of him. I was just closing the gap. So yes, it does happen. Cop let him go and we resumed our drive without further incident.

If cops really cared about preventing speeding, they'd paint their cars hunter orange and run their lights when they run radar. But since they'd rather catch speeders than prevent speeding, they use unmarked Impalas around here and even their marked cars have very low profile lights on top so they are harder to spot. I have zero guilt about speeding and running a radar detector (illegal in VA). Speed enforcement here has absolutely nothing to do with safety and eveything to do with revenue. Trying going the speed limit on the Cap. Beltway. That's the most dangerous thing you could ever do.

But if you, and everyone else did...

I'm of the opinion - just set the speed limit at what Traffic flows at. But it is freakishly scaryfor me doing 55MPH on I-77 through Charlotte, Realy REALY haveing to wach my mirrors, which distracts my attention from whats in front. I do enough racing to handle it, and to know when to suddenly speed up/move lanes. I never ever try to block a trucker, they have a tough job, so I'll go a little faster so they don't have to slow down until I can get out of their way, otherwise, I'm fairly cose to 55MPH. It takes a lot of feul for a trucker to reaccelerate, its piddly for my little Euro sports car.

And if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. The cops can no more slow down the flow of traffic with speed limits than they can make traffic jams flow faster. The flow of traffic is what it is and 55mph on the Cap. Beltway is a JOKE. It has nothing to do with safety and was implemented in the 70's because of the OPEC oil embargo.

So go and make it a major campaign issue to increase the speed limits. So many peole are bothered by it, yet so few do anything about it other then complain. Get enough people actively doing something about it in your state(and that takes work, not just complaining on a forum), and perhaps something can change. Its not easy.

i try not to whine about a problem enless I am trying to do something about it. I work on improving other people's driving that I come in contact with, rather then complain of all the poor drivers.

I haven't read this whole thread either, but it seems to me from what I have read that some of you may be focusing your attentions in the wrong area. The cops are not the problem. The contrived system of "non-criminal violation" is. The rules of evidence and mechanism for determining guilt are far different than in criminal cases, even misdemeanor cases.

The cornerstone of our justice system that sets us apart from much of the world is the jury trial; your peers, after reviewing evidence presented, determine your guilt or innocence. We are told that is impractical in traffic cases and, besides, we forfeit that right when we take advantage of our state granted "priveledge" of driving. It is a very tangled mess of trampled rights and expediants adopted by the state, all of which should be illegal. The cop with the radar gun is simply the most visible part to most of us.

The basis of the State's position is that it grants us the "priveledge" of driving. Hogwash. Our States are not in the business of granting priveledges; how they were ever able to fool the populace into buying that speaks volumes about the apathy and dissinterest of the people. The business of granting priveledges opens the door for a plethora of stipulations and restrictions on citizens' rights if they elect to take advantage of those state-granted "priveledges".

In the particular area of traffic enforcement, this is embodied in the horribly unjust system of the traffic court. No jury. No evidence. No witnesses. Just the cops' word. Like everyone, they can make mistakes; honest or not. Pride or arrogance can cloud their ability to perceive their own mistakes. In Washington, the traffic cop is an "agent of the court", and his or her sworn testimony is considered virtually indisputable. If they are simply mistaken, or worse yet lying, too bad; the citizen simply has no recourse whatsoever. The only possible arguments are concerning their training, condition of the equipment, and other technicalities. Their judgement and or their word is not questioned; it is given far more weight than the defendants' word. You are guilty because the cop says you are; guilty until proven innocent. The burden is upon the citizen to provide the overwhelming preponderance of evidence of their innocence. It is simply a mockery of justice; a true "kangaroo court".

Police officers remain the absolute worst possible group to determine guilt or innocence ("who will police the police?"). It is their job to apprehend and gather evidence. Traffic court has made them the defacto judge and jury as well. It's not their fault, however, it's ours. For allowing such a corrupt and lazy system take hold and grow. It's just too damn cumbersome and inconvenient for the State to observe our rights in traffic cases, so they have adopted the expedient of labeling driving a "priveledge"; one that we must agree to forfeit our rights to enjoy. And we let them do it. It may very well be too late to re-establish the proper citizen/state relationship and regain our rights on this front. Just don't blame the cops for that.

Very well said Jeff!

An update:
Indiana has an program available for drivers with clean driving records where a speeding ticket will be "deferred" for a designated period of time after which, if the driver remains penalty free, the ticket will be dropped. Of course the deferral program has significant cost ($242) to cover all the administrative expenses of keeping a file open for 6 - 12 months (I wish I had that business).
In my son's case, he decided it was less expensive to pay for the deferral ($242) and an attorney ($250) than take the 6 year hit on his insurance which would total more like $2000 cumulatively. So in the end, he remains points free and, if after the 12 month deferral period, will be done with this ticket.
He still remains frustrated that he has to pay for what he considers a bogus ticket. But he feels better about this "not guilty" result than admitting guilt and paying the ticket.

Good result.

Has he reached any conclusions from the experience?

Texas also has what's called either "deferred disposition" or "deferred adjudication". The cost is generally similar to the ticket or maybe a bit less. It's a decent option to let the state get there money without having to take a hit on the insurance. It's unfortunate that you had to pay for the lawyer to get it. Depending upon what's going on sometimes the time can be as short as 90 days.

A money game pure and simple. Folks are glad to pay as long as their auto insurance does not go up. The State as scam artist.

Jeff, very well done.

Well, no one is really "glad" to pay, especially when as Jeff says you are "guilty until proven innocent." And to John L's comment, my son has learned a lesson which is simply "drive at the speed limit and try to stay cool when a corrupt traffic ticketing system gives you a bogus ticket." That's about it. Basically, this situation did nothing to improve or restore any of our faith that law enforcement are "out there" trying to keep us safe and working for the collective good. We all see this as a money making scheme for Indiana (I bet it works great!) and a boon for auto insurers who can extract significant premium increases from safe drivers.