CA-Speeding 72 in 45, Bridge, Work Zone

[bobc]

CA-Speeding 72 in 45, Bridge, Work Zone-HELP!!!

This is a bit complicated, but to start I wasn't going 72.

I was driving across a bridge that has on-going construction. It was early on a Sunday, and the light traffic on the road was flowing at about 60. I was being passed on the right by a full sized pick-up as I came across the crest of the bridge and as the truck pulled ahead I noticed a police officer on the right. I checked my speed and it was just over 60. The police officer pulled out and quickly got behind me. He pulled me over and not the truck that was passing me, probably because I was driving a sports car. When he wrote me the ticket he said he visually assessed my speed as well as got me on radar.

I have been driving for 21 years and have never received a speeding ticket, mainly because I don't go faster than the flow of traffic.

I have already set a court date to contest the ticket and am looking for any and all advice on how to go about this and be successful. I don't want to do or say the wrong thing and get convicted of something I didn't do.

Any ideas?

 

[mach375]

First off, your record speaks volumes for you in court. Just your record alone will help a somewhat weak arguement result in a judgement in your favor.
As for the actual ticket. Radar is notoriously inaccurate. It is wide-sweeping, and not very aimable. The fact that you were being passed, coupled with the radar use, tells me the cop picked up the pick-up truck's speed. Radar is highly accurate if you are fairly alone (no one else on the road, or pretty far ahead of any other traffic), or fairly large (ie. an 18-wheeler). If you are small (ie. motorcycle), or are in a pack of vehicles, it is nearly impossible to use radar with any kind of accuracy--it will pick out the biggest and most obvious (and usually fastest) vehicle of the pack. Laser is a different story--highly accurate, but prone to false light reflections (say, off a mirrored building, or in particular a strobe light from an emergency vehicle).
What you need to do is: get the testing record for the exact radar gun the officer used. Note any discrepancies. Also get the gun's manual, which will describe how and when to test the accuracy of the gun. Ask the officer exactly what he did with the gun during the day, and note anything that deviates from the manual.
Also get the radar survey for the area. This is a record that shows documentation as to the approval process for why radar is authorized in that particular area. If the exact area is not authorized for radar use, the case is dismissed. BTW: it is fairly difficult to gain authorization to use radar in most areas-- a very long process to determine any negative effects of interference it may cause; usually it is only approved for use in open, uninhabited areas (like I-5 through the central valley, or I-10 east of Palm Springs). When you look at the radar approval map area, focus very closely on the exact boundaries and where those translate to exactly, to the foot, on the real estate, especially if you are anywhere near a boundary.
When the officer responds to your bringing up radar's innaccuracies, hit him with a barrage of official information or questions. You'll be well informed if you do copious research into exactly how radar works (look up military documents, for example). He will likely only be able to repeat what is in his Radar 101 class from the Academy, or what is printed in the manual (which, BTW, is written by the radar manufacturers, who will tout their own product as highly accurate). And it will help to actually ask the gun manufacturer the technicalities of radar's use.
Remember that the only thing you have to do is show some doubt as to the officer's methodology. It helps to be able to show the judge you've done your homework and know more about the officer's duties than he does.

If the officer gives up the radar story because you have him beat, and he falls back on his professional estimate of your speed via visual estimation, throw this at him. Pull a quarter out of your pocket and hold it above your head, about the ten foot level. Drop it. Ask the officer to tell you how fast the quarter was moving. He will likely not be able to answer. Now you tell the judge that if he can't visually estimate the speed of that quarter standing only 20 feet away, how could he visually estimate your vehicle speed from 200 yards away? And if he tries to guess how fast it's going (likely), use some math whiz skills on him. Tell him how fast it actually was going (this is where you've looked up on the internet how fast an object, such as a quarter, is moving when dropped from a height of ten feet), then tell the judge how far off his estimate was, in percentage form. Then translate that percentage into the speeds discussed on the ticket (60 and 72). Let's say he's reasonably good and is only 3% accurate as to the speed of the quarter. That means that his visual estimation of your vehicle speed could be as low as (sorry, no calculator in front of me, so I'm going to have to pull numbers out of my arse) 7mph, or as high as 133mph. Which is where you ask the judge if he thinks writing tickets for 133mph to drivers doing 10 over posted is reasonable. Of course not.

 

[bobc]

Well, I lost in court. I pulled out all of that info, also a nifty chart that talked about beam angles and distances (12 degree beam from 800 feet yields spread of approx. 168ft long at the point of contact). He said his radar was capable of tracking multiple vehicles from that distance but that it wasn't necessary because...

At the end, the officer lied and said there were no other cars on the road. He also said he didn't need any of the information that I thought he did (calibration records, DOT Survey, Engineering Reports). He even lied and said the consturction workers stay late to hose the bridge off after working to clean up, and that made the road conditions unsafe for me to be traveling at that speed. Who the heck ever heard of construction workers hosing a bridge off after every day or work and why would CALTRANS make the road conditions unsafe for motorists?

When I questioned the judge about the information he was supposed to have, she just said it wasn't relevant. She also didn't care about my clean driving record.

My license was suspsended, $350 fine and who knows how much my insurance will go up? First speeding ticket, EVER!!

So now I need to appeal, anyone have any good information to offer?

 

[Robbie]

Scan the threads here.

Anytime you have that much at stake, you need and attorney.