anthrax144

My last two speeding tickets I hired a lawyer to represent me. Both got dropped and I didn't have to do a thing other than pay his $300 cost.

My0gr81

This should help. It is a little old and from a Canadian province, but the concepts apply pretty much anywhere. Hopefully you didn't get tagged by a laser radar or a LIDAR, because, then you are scr3wed.

fyst.ca/fyst0499.pdf

cbishop11

I've done the same thing. $100 for the lawyer, $160 in court fees, never even had to show up in court. Got the ticket dropped and this was a 109 in a 65. But that was here in Texas, might be different in CA.

Lil4cyl

If you were speeding, suck it up and take it like a man. You get caught, you pay..simple.

dmvp29

You'd have to establish that your starting speed was 45 MPH to begin with. I know you haven't described the scenario in full, but obviously you're trying to prove that it's not possible to accelerate to 90 MPH from 45 MPH in just 1/10 of a mile.

And it sounds like you were clocked at around 90 MPH and are trying to dispute that. Reducing the charge from 90 MPH to, say, 85 MPH isn't going to make much of a difference. And what do you mean once the radar gun is "off, it's off [and therefore] not reliable?" Obviously the police officer caught you with his radar, which means obviously it had to have been on.

Anyways let's go back to the matter at hand. You're dead set on proving that your car can't go from 45 to 90 in 1/10 of a mile, but do you have any proof that 45 MPH is the correct starting speed you should use? Maybe you were going 50 or 55 MPH to start, and maybe it is possible to accelerate from 50 or 55 MPH to 90 MPH in 1/10 of a mile.

I actually have personal experience (in court - not in front of a full fledged jury, just in front of the judge and with the cop present) trying to weasel out of a ticket using this very same defense. Here's the scenario -

I'm traveling in a 30 MPH neighborhood late at night going approximately 20 MPH (allegedly according to me). The road curves to the left and once you've cleared a certain point on the curve you can see a stop sign at a T intersection up ahead (I'm traveling along the short, top end [left side] of the "T" and the stop sign is for the long, vertical end of the "T", only in this case the top end of the T is curved as I said).

Anyways, I'm traveling along the curve and eventually the stop sign at the T intersection comes into view and I see a police officer waiting at the stop sign.

Because I'm traveling somewhat slow (~20 MPH), I have the following brilliant idea - I decide to pound the accelerator in my (old) 100 HP honda civic. Why? Because I thought I was doing the officer a favor. I thought I was going so slow that it would've taken a good 5 seconds for me to clear the T intersection and allow the cop to turn into my lane, thus I pounded the accelerator and accelerated from 20 MPH to X MPH.

The instant I crossed the T intersection (actually, slightly before I crossed), the cop turned his lights on and pulled me over.

He claimed that I was speeding. I asked to see the radar/lidar, and he said he didn't catch me on radar/lidar because his radar was off and he was caught off guard. Instead, he claimed that he could "tell by the sound of my engine that I was going too fast." He writes me up for speeding. In the section titled "method of capture" he bubbled in "radar" and then crossed it out with a big X. The section for "alleged speed" was left blank. The reason for the stop was "speeding."

I took this to traffic court (well, I talked to a judge with the cop present. This is more like a "preliminary" trial without a jury to see if the matter can be settled without going through the fuss of finding a jury) and came in with the following general idea for a defense - I wanted to prove that it was physically impossible for my 100 HP honda civic to accelerate from 20 MPH to > 30 MPH in the distance D from the point on the curve where the T intersection stop sign is first visible (to me and the cop) to the T intersection stop sign itself (where the officer turned on his lights and where even he would admit that I immediately started slowing down).

When I was traveling along the curve at some speed (I claim this to be 20 MPH), the cop (implicitly) agreed there was no problem. He didn't turn on his siren immediately because I was presumably going at an acceptable speed. I pounded on the accelerator before the stop sign but after the point on the curve where the stop sign was first visible. To make calculations simple and conservative (in the cop's favor), I assumed D was the full distance from the point along the curve where the stop sign is first visible to the stop sign itself.

Here's a really horrific drawing of the scenario -




Long story short, I went in with all this data on my honda civic's acceleration and I proved with simple elementary math (and the assumption that acceleration at WOT is constant) that it was impossible for me to accelerate from 20 MPH to > 30 MPH in that space.

The judge said she was actually impressed that I had gone through all that work, but that this defense would never work because I wasn't able to establish that I was going 20 MPH to begin with in the first place. Maybe I was actually going 25 MPH to begin with (in which case it would be possible for me to accelerate beyond the speed limit within the distance "D"). Hell, maybe I was going 30 MPH to begin with. Any additional acceleration would obviously render me beyond the speed limit.

The point is, this defense is totally worthless because you can't prove that you were going 45 MPH to begin with (or can you?).

The only way you can prove you were going 45 MPH to begin with is if you have some sort of camera/GPS type device on board that continuously monitors your speed, but if this were the case, you could just go directly to the end game and say "look, I wasn't going 90 MPH, I was actually going 87 MPH," but again, that doesn't help. Perhaps there are other ways to prove you were going 45 MPH to begin with. What proof do you have? "I said so" won't work.

So what happened in my case? The ticket was dismissed. "But wait!" you ask, "didn't you just tell me your 'it's impossible to accelerate from 20 MPH to > 30 MPH in distance D'-defense didn't work because you were unable to prove that you started at 20 MPH to begin with?"

Correct, that defense didn't work.

My ticket was dismissed because the cop had no proof that I exceeded 30 MPH. No radar. No LIDAR. No video/audio record of me confessing that I was speeding. "I could tell by the sound of your engine that you were going too fast" wasn't an acceptable form of evidence, so the ticket was dropped.

prairiefir

And, if I wasn't?

Of course, you espouse the problem -- the belief that radar guns and patrol officers are infallible.

You can choose to believe that. I don't.

Thanks for the advice.

prairiefir

Opps. My last comment was meant for lil4.

dmvp29

You can try the "Was his radar calibrated properly?" defense. You can even try this 45 MPH to 90 MPH math exercise and try to show that because it's impossible to accelerate from "45" to 90 in 1/10 of a mile, the cop's radar must be faulty.

I'm not saying don't try. I'm just saying don't get your hopes up because I've personally tried going down this exact same route before and it didn't work because I couldn't prove that I was traveling at the starting speed I claimed to be initially traveling at (20 MPH in my case, 45 MPH in your case).

prairiefir

DVMP -- I can testify that I was going 45 to start. There was a string of cars following the car in front of me, and I was first in the row. I watched my speedo and the car was going 40 to 45. The jury or judge can choose to disbelieve me, but that's what happened. I told the cop that and I'm sure it's in his field notes. And, he did not dispute it. Actually said something like "why pass, there will be anothe person going 45 on the road somewhere up the way."

I needed help with two things: A source for the acceleration curve of the car, and I got that. And, some idea of how to do the math; got that too.

Thanks, to all.

dmvp29

That might actually work for evidence. "Evidence" in traffic court doesn't require the same standard of "evidence" for, say, a murder trial.

For a murder trial it's "beyond a reasonable doubt?"

For things like traffic court of small claims court, the standard is "more likely than not?"

Obviously these phrases are very subjective but that's supposedly how it is.

prairiefir

When we testify about things we experienced ourselves, based upon our own first hand impressions, it is admissible evidence in any trial -- including a murder. Witnesses do that all of the time. The impact of the testimony will depend on our credibility.

If the officer shows up and testifies, and admits he made that statement, it's admissible, too. If he denies making the statement, and it's not in his notes, I can testify to it. It is not hearsay for a couple of reasons.

But, the real bottom line for those who are challenging tickets at this level: The rules of evidence are not applied formally -- do not be intimidated. Tell your stories, ask your questions.

If you are attacking technology -- understand the technology you are attacking and where it is vulnerable. Be prepared to be questioned on your base understanding. And, be aware that in many states the legislatures have passed laws that say the devices are accurate unless we prove they were not OR were not used correctly; the burden is on us. Given the right facts, that burden can be carried.

But, truth be told, unless you can get a jury, and I cannot in CA, it is very difficult to win these cases. The judges see the same officers every day and bond with them. In a credibility contest, they will always win. That's why it will take some "science" and "math" for me to win.

Nothing in here is to be construed as legal advice -- just my thoughts.

Again, thanks to all who helped. This is my way of trying to pay back to the forum.