In Ohio speeding tickets can be based upon an officers visual estimate of speed

[Paul_Heery]

In Ohio an officer can stop you any time they want and just say you looked like you were speeding.


Police officer's visual estimate of speed is enough for a conviction, Ohio Supreme Court rules









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[Porsche-O-Phile]

"New Rome", just on a statewide scale.

One more reason I'll never drive in Ohio. The door is wide, wide open for all sorts of abuse here.

[sc_rufctr]

Same law applies here and it has for many years.

But they would rarely use it. Mostly Radar cameras and hand held laser.

[UconnTim97]

$50 fine plus court costs. I can only begin to imagine what the court costs will be on this one.

[Geronimo '74]

Originally Posted by Paul_Heery

In Ohio an officer can stop you any time they want and just say you looked like you were speeding.


Police officer's visual estimate of speed is enough for a conviction, Ohio Supreme Court rules

.

Please someone go over there and smack that judge on the back of his head...
This is absurd and would irritate the living daylights out of me if some cop would fine me like that.
Ok, pig, you estimate my speed, I'll estimate the amount of the fine and the time in which I'll pay... and your IQ while I'm at it.... (zero, never and not much...)

[Joeaksa]

Guys, someone allowed this law to be voted into effect. Talk to your legislators and get it taken off of the books if you can.

[Jim Richards]

On our cross-country road trip a month ago, we drove through Ohio on our final leg of the trip. From the Ohio-Indiana border to just east of Columbus, the interstate was crawling with police. My V1 was constantly squealing, and the cops were pulling over people left and right. I've never seen so many police and so many cars/trucks being pulled over in so short a time in my entire life. Ohio appears to be a police state run totally amok.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by Jim Richards

the cops were pulling over people left and right. I've never seen so many police and so many cars/trucks being pulled over in so short a time in my entire life. Ohio appears to be a police state run totally amok.

The state must be like many others and running low on funds. This is not catching people for breaking the law, its revenue enhancement using the police and highway patrol.

[Taz's Master]

I think I might do a little math and test the officer's ability to judge speed in court. Held shoulder high, how fast is this nickel going when it hits the floor? I believe that a visual estimate can be fairlt accurate, but there's no evidence. Police: You were going what I estimate to be 75mph in a 55mph zone. Driver: My speedometer said 55mph. It basically comes to Police: Judge I think you should fine this guy $XXX. Driver: Please don't. I'm not saying visual estimates aren't accurate, but when there's no evidence, there's no opportunity to prove innocence.

[Pazuzu]

I thought all police could determine speed visually, and it was considered an acceptable speed measurement? They take training for it, learn how to take known distance measurements where they are (two trees for example), and time transit. I am surprised that this wasn't generally the case.

no, they couldn't tell you how fast the nickel was falling.

[Rikao4]

guy did just that..
brought in some tech guys and a funny Lawyer..
it did not end well for the Leo...
when all was said and dropped for 'how fast do you think this is"
the Leo felt that penis in his crack..

Rika

[nineball]

hell, we have worse laws than that. there is one where you can be ticketed for street racing even if you are driving alone.

yep, i can't explain that one either.

[sc_rufctr]

Without any special police training...

Do you think you can judge if someone's speeding just by observing them?

I don't understand why you guys are so upset about this.

I'd like to think that if the police "observe" someone breaking the law they should be able to do something about it.
That includes speeding. They don't always have time to use their laser/radar guns.

I believe the Police are the good guys. They're on our side.

[legion]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

I believe the Police are the good guys. They're on our side.

When it comes to enforcing traffic laws, nothing could be further from the truth.

First of all, traffic enforcement is not about public safety, but about generating revenue. "Driving school" as a punishment is evidence of this. It is also the one time that most of the public comes into contact with the police, and they are routinely treated no better than career criminals. I have personally have had an officer call me a potential killer for being 1 mph over the limit. Somehow, crossing that number magically turned me from a mild-mannered citizen to a vicious sociapath. Nevermind that 1 mph is well withing the margin of error for both my speedometer AND any radar or laser gun. Nevermind that just an extra second of paying attention to a distracted driver around me would easily allow me to pick up that 1 mph on a mild downhill stretch.

Second, due process has been removed from traffic infractions in practice. Many states deny people accused of traffic offenses trial by jury. States with traffic cameras (be they red light of speeding) have denied the accused the right to face their accuser. Further, most tickets issued by such cameras presume guilt. You must turn in another guilty party to be deemed innocent. Imagine if murder trials worked that way. Come to think of it, you are presumed guilty whether or not a traffic camera is involved. Go to a traffic court. The only evidence required for conviction is an officer saying he saw you speeding. He may have used a radar or laser gun, but the gun itself and a log of the speeds it measured at what times is not required. This would be analogous to a DNA expert simply testifying that the accused is guilty, with no supporting documentation or explanation of the process. Appeals are all but unheard of in traffic court. They purposefully keep the cost of fines below the cost of an appeal so it is not worth it financially to challenge a guilty ruling. This ensures that violations of due process are never challenged, AND the money keeps rolling in.

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by Geronimo '74

Please someone go over there and smack that judge on the back of his head...
This is absurd and would irritate the living daylights out of me if some cop would fine me like that.
Ok, pig, you estimate my speed, I'll estimate the amount of the fine and the time in which I'll pay... and your IQ while I'm at it.... (zero, never and not much...)

LOL, that's what i'm talking about.

This "law" and "legal finding" is a complete and utter joke.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by Paul_Heery

In Ohio an officer can stop you any time they want and just say you looked like you were speeding.
Police officer's visual estimate of speed is enough for a conviction, Ohio Supreme Court rules
.

Actually, in Ohio CERTAIN OFFICERS can stop you for speeding based on CAREFUL SPECIALIZED TRAINING.

"Officer estimates enough for speeding convictions
By Associated Press
POSTED: 09:59 a.m. EDT, Jun 02, 2010
COLUMBUS: Ohio's highest court has ruled that a person may be convicted of speeding purely if it looked to a police officer that the motorist was going too fast.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an officer's visual estimation of speed is enough to support a conviction if the officer is trained, certified by a training academy, and experienced in watching for speeders. The court's 5-1 decision says independent verification of a driver's speed is not necessary."

Ohio.com - Officer estimates enough for speeding convictions

Damned those details...

[m21sniper]

And they still can't due to parallax shift.

Damned details.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by m21sniper

And they still can't do to parallax shift.

Damned details.

Ah parallax shift, that thing that prevents us from being able to walk, grab anything in front of us, or not walk into doors and walls all the time. Life would be so much easier without that parallax shift.

[m21sniper]

There are countless precedents of VASCAR speeding tickets (cop observes car drive over line A, starts timer until car drives over line B, resulting in a speed) being overturned because of parallax shift.

"The only sources of error in VASCAR are the Officer's reaction time in pressing the start/stop timing button and his judgment on precisely when a vehicle was passing a landmark. In the case if the bridge shadows, the second error possibility is almost zero, but for an Officer in a moving Police car, determining the precise second when you, a quarter-mile ahead, pass some landmark, could be off by a number of feet. If an Officer would use a baseline of 60 seconds or so, a one second error would only represent 1.5% error. But that's an awfully long baseline. Essentially, VASCAR determines your AVERAGE speed for the measured distance. (RADAR determines your instantaneous speed). In a mile long stretch of highway, most drivers would see the Police car and severely slow down. Since he is only determining the AVERAGE speed for that distance, that average would be substantially less than your beginning speed. Therefore, most Officers tended to use the shortest possible baselines for VASCAR, to get a speed average before you might see him and slow down. If he used a 10-second baseline (around a block and a half), a half-second error in clicking the beginning time and a half-second error in clicking the ending time could total a one second error, which represents a 10% error in speed determination (either up or down). (That type of poor Officer understanding of VASCAR is a main reason it got replaced by radar. Some Officers would try to use even shorter, five-second baselines to get a speeding value even faster before being seen. Such Officers really gave VASCAR a bad name because they would sometimes get VASCAR results that were 20% off. A vehicle actually traveling a legal 65mph would be arrested for going 78mph, because of the incorrect use of too short a baseline. A lot of people got improperly arrested because of that. Eventually, some important people got improperly arrested in that way, and RADAR came along anyway, so VASCAR almost disappeared from Police use.)"

http://mb-soft.com/public/radar.html

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by m21sniper

There are countless precedents of VASCAR speeding tickets (cop observes car drive over line A, starts timer until car drives over line B, resulting in a speed) being overturned because of parallax shift.

I think you posted the wrong stuff, since it has nothing to do with parallax, it was all response time errors. Of course, it also has nothing to do with Ohio officers getting specialized training to determine if someone is speeding. It really has nothing to do with how the human brain deals with parallax all day every day in every single thing we do, and is quite capable of compensating for it.

Finally, I'd bet a dollar that no Ohio officer is going to use this to bust you for going 68 in a 65 zone. They'll use it to bust someone going 80 in a 65 zone, which they could not do before this unless they were setup and had the radar going.