Radar gun operator's manual
 

As the subject says, I'm looking for a copy of the operator's manual for a Decatur Genesis II. I'm fighting a speeding ticket and would like to research the unit. I did contact the manufacturer, but he said they'd only provide it to law enforcement agencies.

A hard copy, photocopy, pdf, whatever format, is acceptable, and I'm happy to pay for it, or copies, etc. I'm keeping an eye on ebay, but so far nothing.

Anyone know where I should look?

Thanks!

freedom of information act? you could file a FOIA request w/ your local law enforcement agency but this process *may* take some time. not sure what your schedule is like.

just realized you're in canada. don't know whether you have a FOIA thing going on there or not, but you could still file the request w/ a u.s. police dept that is closest to you

We do have pretty much the same thing, but that could definitely take months, if not years, sometimes! My court date is Oct. 31, so there's a fair amount of time, but the internet's way faster than FOIA requests. If I'm stuck after searching for a week or so, I'll do that.

I don't know about Canada, but here you can subpoena the manual directly from the manufacturer or from the police department. It is actually better to try the police department first because if they "don't have it" then that is a trump in your defense case.

Some info at this PDF link: http://tinyurl.com/2hox2t

Thats pure BS, making the manual available only to LE.

Wonder what they do not want everyone else to find out?

When you were tagged did you ask the last time the radar gun was calibrated? They used to requre calibration fairly often and if it had not been calibrated recently the tickets given were not valid...

Subpoena the ***** if they're dicking you around with it. You should be able to by filing a simple request with the Clerk of the Court.

What Cash said. If the prosecutor has a witness that is going to testify as to how the radar gun works he has to produce the manual. You need to file a "Request for Production of Documents."

Christen

That is one of the systems we use along with the Gen 1's as well, the manual really is not that much it just shows how to install and gives some factory specs , most of them get thrown away, it is not really a reference or how to type of book , no more than a small 4 x 8 phamplet of a few pages with diagrams,.

I know nothing of Canada's traffic laws , but you would be better served trying to locate a copy of the LE radar operators course text for the class the operator had to attend in order to run the system, this will cover what he has to do in order to operate the radar according to your rules, also you might check your provience code/law about the operation of radars, U.S. states have specific laws regarding the operation of radars and the acceptable types for each state to use, IMHO

I will hunt around for one of the manuals for you and see what I can find,

Todd SmileWavy

Yup, it is. Private businesses LOVE to hide documents. They are not subject to public disclosure laws, so if they don't want to provide you with a document.....guess what? And you guys want to hand government work over to private companies. Great......just don't expect to be able to get ANY questions answered.

Now public agencies, that's a different story. Except for small bits of information that are confidential under statute (like your Social Security Number, for example), public agencies are required to provide you access to all records. ALL records. So.....if they have that manual and it's not protected by a specific confidentiality statute, it's yours.

What's not yours is information about HOW the radar and laser guns work. They work using some assumptions and some math, for example, that nobody will disclose to you. At least, not with laser. The developer of that technology confesses that the laser gun locates you with one "firing" and then locates you with another subsequent "filing," and calculates your speed depending on how much closer you were the second time. Other than that, there is nothing you can learn about your accuser when you go to court. It says you are guilty, and maybe it's correct and maybe not, but nobody had learn how it came to its conclusion.

Like I say, if you guys get private companies doing government work, you will finally get what you deserve.

Hey guys, thanks for everything so far! I should've been more specific as to what I'm looking for - when I was pulled over, I asked to see the unit, and the officer obliged, bringing me back to the cruiser. He indicated the unit on his dashboard which was reading dashes or hyphens and said something to the effect of 'oh, the unit sometimes automatically clears the speed'. I smelled a fish and asked around and by luck my father happened to be talking to an officer a few days later who said he'd never heard of anything. I'm trying to get the manual to see exactly what the deal is with the unit clearing or resetting itself. Basically, if the unit is showing a dash or blank and there's no printout, I don't see how any court could find evidence that I was speeding. I realize that in real life traffic court doesn't really work on the principal of innocent until proven guilty, but surely there's a limit somewhere. At least he could have shown me the evidence, notice me acknowledge it, then make note of such in his notes. His notes are very detailed (I obtained copies of them under request for disclosure), even noting himself that the unit had cleared itself.

I think the officer was feeding you a line of crap. Clearing itself? I rather doubt it.

I once had a state policeman tell me he had a special radar that didn't set off radar detectors. He had it "tested" by experts and "nobody could figure out why it was special."

Complete horse****.

Fight this one to the death. You'll win.

JR

Well, I don't think he was exactly full of *****, but I don't believe I was going the speed he stated, and without evidence it seems obvious. I am indeed fighting it - that's why I need something to offer as evidence, because no doubt the judge will question my knowledge (or lack thereof) of radar guns.

Oh Supe, if only you had a clue. If they do not produce the document, then Christien can effectively say that the LEO cannot prove the radar gun was calibrated to specs as no specs were available. BTW, private companies are subject to subpoena just like everyone else.

Now take the fine governor of Illinois, who has refused for 8 months to make the subpoenas he has been served with public, despite the FOIA and a court ruling stating he must make them public. Hmmm....seems government doesn't have to follow its own rules if it wants to...at least private companies can say they are not subject to those laws.

I'd wager his radar gun never got a lock on you. You may have been speeding, but the rules generally require that the speed gets locked into the unit. That is intended to prevent error (the unit needs to get more than one reading at the same speed) but in practice, if the unit doesn't achieve a lock, a decent officer won't bother stopping you. Radar isn't infallible. Although the physics are pretty irrefutable, there are things that can give false readings.

JR

Legion, I'm not sure you're exactly right there. I don't think the company who manufactures the gun is under any legal obligation whatsoever to provide me with copies of what would be considered copyrighted intellectual property. Now, I could subpoena it, they'd refuse, then I could get a court order, but 1. a judge would have to find I have reasonable cause to require such a document to the extent that not having access to it would deny me a fair trial and thus prove unconstitutional, and 2. would have to occur in a timely enough fashion for me to receive the documents by Oct. 31. I've already adjourned once, and I'm not sure if they can/will grant me a second adjournment.

Under my disclosure request the court provided a certificate stating the was checked for accuracy by the manufacturer Mar. 26/06. My ticket was Jan. 2/07. So if option 1 (the manual) doesn't pan out, I can also exploit this. I think they're required to be calibrated every week or month, though I'm not sure where to look to determine that.

Christien, practically speaking, a judge will just give you the fine no matter what you say or do. At least in the U.S., traffic courts operate under "Guilty until proven innocent--by a large margin".

In any other kind of trial, the manufacturer refusing to provide a manual would be enough to earn you a mistrial.

Yeah, frustrating, isn't it? It's no different in Canada - it's just another goddamn tax. Especially when they're handed out like mine - straight road, no traffic, completely sober - even if I were doing the alleged 141 km/h (about 88 mph), it's the standard speed of traffic, and perfectly safe.

I was under the impression that radars aren't the primary evidence and are only to be used as a back up reference to what the officer saw. they are trained to approximate your speed by eye to within a couple miles per hour an are tested frequently(unless its just a towny) for accuracy. in court, the officer will say something to the effect of, "I saw him speeding at x mph and the radar confirmed it."

I had a similar incident last year in my 944 where I was stopped by a State Trooper in a state just to the north of Georgia claiming I was doing 89 in a 70. It was 6am in the morning, dark, on an Interstate in the middle of nowhere, I have no idea at all where the guy came from, and I had out of state plates. I knew I was going over 70 but there was no way on earth that I was going 89 and didn't see the value of arguing on the spot. I ended up going into court to appeal, which was a very strange experience. The 'court house' was in a small rural town and was little more like a village hall, one step away from a shed really, with two or three State Trooper's cars parked outside. I went inside and was greeted by a gentleman who turned out to be the Jugde. I didn't guess that at the time as I didn't expect a Judge to be wearing a pair of worn out shoes, baggy corduroy pants and a plaid shirt. I was shown where the court room was and told to wait until I was called in. When called I entered the court room to be greeted by the Judge, who was now wearing a black cape over the plaid shirt, and the State Trooper who had stopped me. The Judge called me straight over and asked if I wanted to request a jury trial. I said no, but I did wish to question the speed on the ticket. He asked me the speed I was booked for and then asked the State Trooper if it could be dropped to 75 in a 70. This was agreed upon instantly, the fine reduced from nearly $200 to about $70, no points and a thank you. To be honest the 75 was far more realistic in the first place.
If I didn't know that the Police were honest law enforcing officials just trying to do their job I would have wondered if this was a small town revenue generator. I mean, the guy with the out of state plates unlikely to drive out of his way to appear in court and more likely to pay the fine for the higher than actual speed. Of course I'm just paranoid.

Of course, if anyone wants to question why I now run a Radar detector...

Years ago, and I mean something like 15 years ago since I got my last speeding ticket the cop showed me the display to prove that he had tagged me and at what speed.

A cop stopping someone and showing a radar unit with dashed lines then saying that "it cleared itself" is again BS. They can press a button to hold the indicated speed in the window or so I was told by a friend of mine who is a policeman.

Dig futher and this one smells a bit stinky...

In the states, you can file a request for discovery -- I'm sure Canada has something similar. I requested the entire maintenance history of the unit that had been used against me. It was full of problems -- hadn't been calibrated in eons, had entries like "Antenna full of water, drained and replaced seal" or "Spurious readings; could not duplicate."

In any sane court, you'd think that evidence like that would invalidate the piece of gear. No such luck, the judge didn't see anything wrong with that.

I assume you've tried googling? When I went through all this, I was able to obtain the manual from a back-channel source. Some guy happened to have stacks of old radar manuals lying around, and was selling them slowly. Of course, the only reason the judge allowed the manual to be used as evidence is because he used a line from it against me. Otherwise, he would have rejected anything from the radar manual out of hand. (Why is the judge prosecuting, again? Can someone help explain why the arbiter of justice is pointing out evidence against the defendant? Shouldn't he be .... impartial?)

Good luck, my friend. Fight the good fight, an' all that rot.

Here is another story.

My brother and I were driving up to the Pelicans on the Dragon meet we were driving a rented 350Z. It was about 1:00 in the morning on I-26 in South Carolina, my brother was driving, we were basically alone on the road except for truckers.

My brother was beating cheeks, moving along in spurts at pretty quick speeds. Porbably 95+ at times, then back down to 80 or so.

We were running my V1 on the windshield. For the moment we were running 80 MPH and we see a trooper coming the other way. Detector never goes off, Trooper slows and flips a u-turn and pulls us over.

He tells us he clocked us doing 85 in a 70. We knew he was full of it:

A. We were doing 80

B. the V1 never even made a blip.

What to do? Argue at 1 in the morning with a South Carloina State Trooper, us being out of state folk. Ir just take it since we have been triple digits at times and this was a gift of sorts. I told my brother to go to court. He jus tpaid it. Kaching! Revenue for South Carolina.

I am pretty sure the truckers called us in to the police. Lesson learned? Get a CB, and slow down when you pass the trucks.

Did he actually use the term "clocked" or did he said his radar picked you up?

There is a difference.

Jim,

Not sure that he "called you guys in" to the cops but there have been a lot of times I have heard the truckers talk on the CB about a "sports car" driving over the limit.

Wonder if he was listening on the CB and knew that you guys were coming his direction and made a speed up based on the truckers chatter?

Agree about the CB. Between a CB and V1 your chances of getting caught are a lot lower.

Have you talked to Pointts or X-Copper? I have had a couple of tickets (speeding and a flagrant red light violation) reduced to 'disobeying a traffic sign'. There is a fine but no demerit points for that violation. Compromise is the easy way out. Pay the lawyer, pay a fine and move on.

I really think your chances of success are slim on your current path.

The problem is the insurance racket. As far as the insurance company goes, a conviction is a conviction, whether it's 1 over or 100 over. Pointts and x-copper are completely useless - it's a scam. Most courts now have a hearing with the prosecutor as part of the process where they offer to reduce your ticket by a set amount to avoid court. These services attend these hearings and accept what's offerred - they never go to court, ever. This still results in a conviction, though, which increases your insurance rates automatically. Never mind that I've done 3 years of DEs, never drive drunk, overly aggressively, overly tired, in a *****box of a car, and am one of the safer drivers out there, no doubt. If it were just a case of get a ticket, pay it, end of story, I'd happily pay it and consider the odd speeding ticket as the price you pay to drive fast. Even with the demerit points, ok, fair enough. But the insurance racket is just that, a racket.

For this ticket, I attended the hearing, only to find out the prosecutor can't completely drop the charge, so I didn't accept the deal. The contract you sign with Pointts states that any reduction in fine is considered a win, therefore you pay the fee. IMO, it's only worth it for an out of town ticket, to save you from having to attend there.

But you are allowed one or two convictions every three years aren't you?

And with Points you don't have to take a day off work.

I can see the cop sayng 'I clocked him at xx', 'I cleared the radar machine', (or took another reading), and I gave him the ticket. I don't believe he is obliged to show you the actual reading on the machine.

On the 407 they use laser and another cop pulls you over about 1 km later, there is no way you get see your speed on the machine. Does that make those tickets invalid?

As far as I know, those are all true and valid points.

1. It's either 2 convictions in 3 years, or 3 in 2, I can never remember which, but when I got this one and looked it up and calculated, I had to have this one pushed back beyond July or August to stay within that. I used to be the proverbial lead foot, although I've slowed it down considerably because of the tickets.

2. True, and I've already taken 2 days off work for this ticket.

3. You're right, as far as I know the officer isn't obliged to show you the unit, however in this case he did, and it was cleared. Furthermore, he showed it to me before completing his notes - I know this because his notes recount taking me back to the cruiser, indicating the unit and noting that it had cleared itself. So the process was not yet complete by the time the unit was cleared. Definitely not diligent.

4. No, I'm sure it doesn't make it invalid, but if we want to go by the book, maybe it should. I don't understand why radar units don't have a print out. Otherwise there's really no evidence other than the officer's word. The courts have allowed the "slippery slope" argument to stand before, so theoretically it could be argued that if we permit an officer's word to stand as gospel, what's to stop police from "reporting" all sorts of crimes? Where does it end?

I realize this is all hypothetical and traffic courts don't necessarily operate the way real courts do, but again, I come back to the insurance racket. If the police and the insurance companies weren't in league together to take advantage of people, I wouldn't fight, even if I didn't really believe the officer (which I don't). But the way it's set up, I'll fight to the bitter end.

Christien, the police and insurance companies are not "in league together". The simple fact is that the ONLY thing the police departments write tickets for with any reliability is speeding, so that is the only thing insurance companies have to go on when trying to differentiate "safe" drivers from "dangerous" drivers. Most police officers will overlook erratic lane changes, tailgating, and driving too slow or intentionally blocking traffic, but they will write speeding tickets all day long.

Well, whether they're in league together or not, until insurance companies get their act together and start charging people more appropriately, people will continue to fight tickets to avoid having their insurance rates go through the roof. It's simply market forces - set unfair prices and consumers will do what they can to avoid paying them.

Insurance in Ontario is problematic, to say the least. For years the companies lobbied the governments because they were losing money paying lawyers for all the claims against them. Laws changed, and now insurance companies are making record profits, yet rates are still incredibly high. I work in used car financing, dealing with a lot of low-income people, and a lot of these people can barely afford insurance - I'm not talking about welfare people, I mean two-income familes (albeit low incomes). Other provinces have set up gov't-run insurance programs which, as far as I understand, has worked quite well and forced the insurance companies to compete at affordable rates. Ontario has no such thing. I'm in the lowest-risk category with my insurance company, (no convictions, had a policy for at least x # of years, over 25) and still pay $170/month to insure the 911 (with an agreed-value clause of $13K), and that's only a mediocre policy. My house is worth 30x what my car is worth (including contents), but costs less than half to insure.

And don't even get me started on speed being the problem with safe roads. Yes, speed compounds problems, but it's like arguing that guns kill people. Only when used irresponsibly is it a problem. Speeding tickets are a voluntary tax. Period.

We have enough insurance companies to have a competition, that's what matters. The government isn't the answer, getting rid of bogus claims and inlfated repair costs is the answer.

How many people do you know who collect thousands for accident repairs, then get the repair done at half that cost? That's where your money goes. And the repair shops are in on it too. Why do they need to know if a repair is going through insurance? Because if it is an insurance claim they jack up their prices.

And it is unreasonable to compare house insurance with car insurance, unless you drop collision, take the plates off the car and get just fire insurance on the car.

Drive your 911 as a collector car, not a daily driver, and you'll pay about $250 per year through silver wheels.

When I drop liability in the winter, it's about $15/month, or 1/5 of what I pay for house insurance, so the ratio is way off. Car at $13K = $15/month. House & contents @ $400K = $75/month. Value of the house is 30x that of the car, cost of insurance of the house is 5x that of the car. But I do see your point, and generally agree.

I looked into Silver Wheels, but it's way too restrictive for me. I have no interest in owning a car that only sees a thousand clicks a year. My car is far from concours, and not valuable enough to be kept pristine. It's truly a driver.

Not only do I enjoy driving it as a somewhat daily driver (I use it for any trip long enough to get the engine warm), I do a ton of mileage in a year (7-10K kms in the 911 alone), plus, the real deal-breaker, track events. When I spoke to the woman at Silver Wheels she said if I go to the track they won't write me a policy, period, even if there was a clause or a separate contract that excluded coverage while at the track (which would of course be fine with me). Even if I agree that I'm not covered, say, within 50 kms of any track, they won't touch me. I do see a time when I have a dedicated, trailered track car that won't even need insurance, but that's not in the cards (read: budget) right now!

You are way too forthcoming with info to your agent. :)

Track the car, don't tell them, if you wreck it it's your problem, just like regular insurance.

Find a mechanic near your work if you have an accident on your way there, or home, you were taking the car to him ;)

Here's a "last resort" request to make of an officer who is ready to write a ticket based upon radar. I've never used it, but a friend of mine did many years ago to avoid a ticket. Ask the LEO to produce his license to operate the radar :)? If he/she does not have the license on his person (not at home, like many), then he is not legally authorized to issue you a citation. Of course, he's going to balk, but that's when you ask for a supervisor (or even higher) until you find someone who KNOWS the law, and you must be willing to "stick to your guns", 'cause you're not going to be very popular :).

I'm sorry Legion, but that's pretty naive. You don't think the insurance industry has had anything to do with the development of radar gun technology, laser gun technology and automatic traffic signal cameras? Even if you have no idea how these technologies were developed and marketed, that would be a naive viewpoint. And if you look into where those technologies are coming from, then you'd know the answer.

Back to public disclosure. Public agencies are indeed required to satisfy requests for public records. Period, paragraph, end of story. Private companies are not. Subpoena'ing then on a traffic ticket? Get real. And again, the ACLU among other organizations, have tried their best to get the lowdown on how laser guns work, and that information is NOT PUBLIC. Those organizations, and various other liberals and groups of liberals, think this is a violation of our right to face our accusers. And still, it is a brute fact that the private companies who developed that technology are not disclosing those details.

Again, when public functions are handed over to private companies you will NOT like the change.

Police Officers attend a class (California its 30 hours for Radar and another 10 for Laser) and then do a practical exercise in which they "estimate" the speed of passing vehicles. Its pretty easy to estimate speed once you get used to it.

So an officer sees your car and says to himself, "Self, that car is going 75 mph." The officer then utilizes his radar/laser device to check his visual speed estimation.

If the device confirms the officers estimation, he stops the speeding car and issues a citation or gives a friendly warning.

The LED display in the window proves nothing. If he bumps the power cord while chasing you down and the radar/laser loses power, the LED number will disappear from display. No big deal.

I wouldnt inconvenience myself by showing the LED display to some citizen unless I feel like having some fun with them because they are an A**hole.

In that instance I spend about 5 minutes telling them that I'm not going to let them get out of their vehicle to come back and look at the device because if they get hit by a car while out of thier vehicle, the city attorney will get mad at me. We go back and forth and back and forth, and then I pretend that I am "afraid" because I didnt "lock the speed in." Then I tell them that I have no legal duty to show them the device, all the while giving them a very stern frown.

Then I finally smile at them, make them climb across their center console, go out the passenger door, taking them back to my car and show them the LED display that shows the same speed that I wrote on the citation. FINALLY, they shut the F--- up.

The LED display speed means NOTHING. I wish that Myth Busters would interview 5 or 10 traffic court judges/commissioners so that people would finally shut up about it.

One other thing. The Radar can be manipulated during the pursuit portion of the enforcement stop to display any speed in the LED display up to the fastest speed of the pursuing police car during the brief chase.

In other words, the radar can lose power, lose the speed indicated in the LED display, and the cop can artificially put any speed back into the LED display that he wants to. But why would he bother???

Again, PPOT descends into left vs right :rolleyes:

Supe, while I'm most definitely liberal, and by the CDN definition of liberal, which would make any American conservative's head spin :) I do disagree with you here that private companies should be subject to disclosure of what amounts to industry trade secrets. When a competitive company has researched and developed a technology that allows them to get the better of their competitors, to force them to disclose that technology to the courts, which then by prescript of law enters public domain (because court records are public) is in effect to take away their competitiveness.

Even if such disclosures were to be held confidential in terms of court records, I don't agree that a private corporations or individuals should be subject to subpoena for such things, unless the records in question are themselves questionable as to negligence, etc.

Silver, theoretically speaking, how then can an accusation hold up in court, with no evidence to prove the alleged offence? How is it one person's word vs. another is enough to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? What's to stop officers then from accusing anyone of anything?

You mean like O.J.?

I understand, Christien. I'm not sure I place corporations' financial interests above the interest of justice, and I wouldn't have a problem if those corporations stopped developing those technologies (laser, radar, etc). Indeed, I am considering launching an information-gathering campaign around the traffic signal cameras that have now been placed on pretty much EVERY intersection in my small city. The information I will be after is a public record. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that traffic accidents have steadily increased since the appearance of those cameras. One intersection turns green, then turns yellow about six second later and then red about two seconds after that. It's not about safety, Christien. It's about revenue. I care more about people than I care about money.