[Jeff Higgins]

Interesting to see how much the crosshairs dance around on the target. As an old shooter, that's the first thing I noticed. The laser targets the license in the first part; the headlight in the last part. From how far away? 1500 meters? Even 500 meters is absurd. Gimme a break. There is no way in hell anyone can hold such a device steady on that size of a target from that distance. It would be damn difficult to hold a heavy benchrest rifle, on sandbags, steady enough to stay on a license plate or headlight at that range. Hell, even with the best target scopes "bumped" to 40+ power it would be difficult to even clearly see a license plate or headlight at that range. And they would have us believe a cop can hold what is essentially a handgun out the window of a car and stay on target at that range? No way.

So why would this even be important, you may ask. They could just target the whole car, right? Well, not exactly. A couple of court cases in Britain exposed the innaccuracies in laser speed measurement introduced through "laser creep". In a nutshell, if the first "hit" is somewhere like the top of the windshield, and the second "hit" on which the laser calculates the speed difference is at the front license plate, it has picked up a greater "distance travelled" by adding that length to its reading. The studies introduced as evidence in those British cases found this can add 15-20 mph to the speed of an average car travelling at 60 mph or so. They found the innaccuracies even worse, for obvious reasons, on "side shots". Imagine taking the first reading on the extreme rear of the car, and the officer's natural shaking making it pan to the front of the car for the second reading. They found at extended distances the wobble of the gun held by an average officer was certainly enough to pan that far down the side of the car between laser impulses.

The laser manufacturers know all of this. The departments using laser know all of this. In the British cases, even when proven to the satifaction of the courts (by a couple of university studies)that these devices are inherently innaccurate, the police determined that with "proper training" they were still effective. And the courts allowed that. Bull*****. It is beyond the realm of human ability to hold one steady enough, and track a moving target smoothly enough to ensure the laser "hits" the target in the same spot. This would be akin to having an officer hit the license plate twice in a row on a moving vehicle at extended range with his sidearm. There is clearly no way in hell any man could ever do that, yet that is the level of steady holding accuracy demanded to make laser reliable.

I find it appalling that these devices are still in use in the face of these credible university studies that so clearly show they are inaccurate. Lasar readings should be inadmissable in any court. The departments that deploy them should, in good conscience, pull them. Yet they remain admissable and in widespread use. I guess a 10-20% error rate, accusing innocent citizens, has become acceptable to both the courts and the departments using laser.