Guess My Speed and Give Me a Ticket, In Ohio 636
quall writes "The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that police may estimate your car's speed and issue a ticket if they believe you were speeding. The hearing threw out a radar gun as evidence because the officer was not qualified to use it, but apparently his guess was good enough. If you make your way into Ohio, I suggest driving 5mph under the speed limit because this leaves little room to dispute your ticket in court. The only chance you have is if the issuing officer decides to skip your hearing."
I wonder whether the court would also accept a driver's own GPS log as exculpatory evidence.
This isn't so strange. (Score:1, Insightful)
Next Stop: Murder! (Score:5, Insightful)
Guilty with no evidence? (Score:2, Insightful)
So much for a fair trial.
So by now, who hasnt wiped their ass off with the bill of rights?
Re:This isn't so strange. (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you make your way into Ohio... (Score:2, Insightful)
They may have a point (Score:2, Insightful)
Sometimes they are not set with their radar but a driver is going way too fast for the situation and the fact is obvious to any observer. Cops in motorbikes without radar come to mind, for example. They should have a way to ticket that driver. The problem, obviously, is the gray area. How fast is too fast? Is too fast if they estimate the driver is 50% faster than the limit?
Perhaps a common sense solution to that kind of situation would be just to stop the driver. The mere fact of stopping someone is usually deterrent enough; I know I don't want to be stopped by the cops even if they don't give me a ticket. I wonder if that would work for the general case?
Where I live, the cops can ticket a driver for driving negligently. That should be enough to cover the "too fast but no hard evidence" case.
Re:GPS (Score:3, Insightful)
It's doubtful that you could show an appropriate chain of evidence with the GPS. It's easily argued that you tampered with any such evidence.
Ticketing for illegal speeds is pretty easy, most people confess to it.
"Do you know why I pulled you over?" "I was speeding." "I saw you doing 80mph" "Yes sir, that's about right. I'm sorry."
Voila, instant ticket for 80mph, and a confession to back it up.
I did the opposite. You never *KNOW* why the officer stops you. You may have been speeding. He may be pulling you over for a burned out taillight, or your vehicle may match a description of one seen at a crime scene, or it may even match the description of a vehicle from a missing persons case. Don't guess.
Amen to that. Any conversation with a police officer should start with you saying "Evening officer, what seems to be the trouble?" - don't offer anything up, ever.
Re:This isn't so strange. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Next Stop: Murder! (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been stopped for suspicion of DUI before. Well, not stopped. I was standing outside my car talking to friends when the police showed up. The officer driving down the road, seeing us stopped and talking, could estimate my blood alcohol content. I've also been told I looked like I was going to buy drugs; speeding (without actually driving); and thinking about robbing a closed store (with my car parked in front, under a street light, on a busy street).
Just a couple nights ago, I was (to the best of my knowledge) parked legally. I came out of where I was visiting, and saw a patrol car stopped in the road with his spot light aimed at a house across the street. I got in my car, and started the engine. The patrol car pulled up and he rolled down the window. "You weren't going to drive off while I'm running your plates, were you?" My plates?
I played along nicely. I told him I'd wait while he did, and provided my license. In talking to him, it's illegal to park along any road in the county, even though it's not posted anywhere, and it's done all the time.
Then we started having a nice conversation.
We talked some more, and he said a lot of times when they spot a car parked on the side of the road in that area, it means someone's robbing a house, and they left the car in the road for a quick getaway. He was feeling me out to see if I had intended to rob someone, or if I was just leaving a friends place.
He then warned me that besides being against the law, about half the time when they try to do a traffic stop in that area, the person will run, and that doesn't usually end nicely. Cars parked on the side of the road frequently get hit. He liked my car, and didn't want to see it damaged.
Now he knows what I look like, and what my car is. If someone else is messing with my car, they'll get stopped. He knows I'm one of the "good guys", so it's less likely I'll be messed with.
Re:Anyone should be able to estimate speed... (Score:3, Insightful)
If some car ZOOMS by it's pretty easy for me to tell its speeding, radar gun or not (I'm not a police officer). If you have even a modicum of experience driving and you can't estimate whether or not a car is speeding you should probably have your driver's license taken away.
If you're talking about someone doing 50 in a 30, you're correct that it's pretty easy. But the difference between 60 and 70 isn't as obvious as you may think. Calling it accurately, and consistently? BS. That's why they have Radar and LiDar and all their other toys, so they can catch the minor offenders as well.
Re:Reading from the actual article... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not just $50, that is the immediate cost. Don't forget the $200 increase in your mandatory auto insurance for the next 3 years.
Re:This isn't so strange. (Score:2, Insightful)
There is some hope of maintaining independent calibration of the radar gun, your jolly officers can increase the apparent speed by standing a little closer together or using a quick thumb on the clock.
Re:They may have a point (Score:3, Insightful)
Observation based on a single eyewitness account who is biased against the accused (as the accuser).
Clearly Ohio doesn't subscribe to the concept of "presumption of innocence" i.e. "proof".
Re:Oh no they didn't. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a law against waiting till the cop is walking to your car, then put it in reverse, crank the wheel, floor it and flatten the crooked bastard, as well. The same sort of problem cropped up in Louisiana. Cops were targeting out of state tags and towing cars to impound for further inspection, even if you were speeding. Then you pay inflated rates for impound and your belongings were probably stolen and there would never be an investigation. So don't defend yourself against tyranny and injustice from crooked law enforcement by killing as many of the cockroaches as you can.
That would be illegal. But then so is jaywalking.
Re:No real difference (Score:3, Insightful)
Ugh, I got a reckless op once in Illinois... I "changed lanes too fast". The court didn't even see it. they had some administrator tell me I was wrong because they knew the officer was a "fair man." I moved back to Ohio because I've had better experience here... but apparently we are getting as bad as IL.
That's a lousy analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not analogous to condemning a person for "looking wrong". It's eyewitness testimony as evidence of a person's actions: "It looked like you were speeding" is analogous to "It looked like you stabbed that guy". Yes, eyewitness judgment can be wrong, but eyewitness judgment is not the same as "you look evil therefore you are guilty".
"You look like a murderer" is more analogous to "you look like a speeder". It is quite different from "it looked like you were speeding", and has nothing to do with the case being discussed here.
Re:Juries? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm starting to think that forcing the accused (in either civil or criminal proceedings) (and later found blameless) to pay for their defense and/or court appearance is a terrible injustice within our society.
Re:Oh no they didn't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, no, don't worry - vehicular law has a get-out-of-jail-free card (pun soundly intended) in that, because automobile operation and licencing are a regulated activity, your rights don't extend to cover it. Hence why RIDE programs are legal, hence why so-called 'routine' traffic stops are legal. It's a nice grey area that your local cops live to bask in.
Judges... (Score:5, Insightful)
My uncle got a ticket for a speed higher than he was traveling, and the officer testified in court that speed was determined by time over distance between two very close markers. The officer thought the closer his markers, the more accurate the measurement. My uncle, a professor, tried to explain that human timing error meant that the closer the markers were, the LESS accurate the speed measurement was. The judge didn't understand, was frustrated, and finally said he thought my uncle was a speeder, and let the fine stand.
Re:Next Stop: Murder! (Score:2, Insightful)
See, this is the correct way to interact with the police. Be polite and friendly, build rapport, be willing to learn what the law is, and they'll be a lot nicer to you in return.
I have made a number of acquaintances who don't understand that, won't try it, and they unsurprisingly got roughed up and written up by the police a lot.
Wish I had mod points for you.
Re:This isn't so strange. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which, of course, requires visually estimating that your speed is approximately equal to that of the target vehicle.
Telling whether or not an object is getting closer to you is not very difficult. It's an ability that evolved in animals several million years ago.
Re:Next Stop: Murder! (Score:5, Insightful)
See, this is the correct way to interact with the police. Be polite and friendly, build rapport, be willing to learn what the law is, and they'll be a lot nicer to you in return.
I have made a number of acquaintances who don't understand that, won't try it, and they unsurprisingly got roughed up and written up by the police a lot.
And you don't see a problem with that?
The cop treats the guy like a criminal, he kisses the cop's ass and you say "good for him!"
It may be smart, it may be the way of the world, but it is definitely NOT something that is compatible with American ideals.
Re:Next Stop: Murder! (Score:3, Insightful)
American ideals are more aligned with the Roman Empire nowadays than the frontiers of colonial wilderness. I usually don't get into trouble by asking the question, "how would I behave if this were to happen to me in China?" The chinese police aren't there to punish you for just being you; but they will punish you if they don't think you respect their authority. So kiss ass, say "yes sir", and usually they'll let you go. Then go home and write online about you hate f@#ck!ng pigs, or some such comment.
Re:What is next useing the EZ-pass times for Ticke (Score:3, Insightful)
IIRC, the timestamps on New York Throughway tickets have been used to give people tickets before. I.e., you entered here, you left there, it took you so much time, bingo, average speed. Probably the same in other states. That's why I always planned my trips to include lunch or dinner stops on the throughway. I could do 80 and still average out to 55.
There really is nothing new in this story. Police are trained to estimate speeds. If they write a ticket based on that, you are likely to get the benefit of the doubt as to just how fast you were going, but not a cancellation of the ticket.
Re:Next Stop: Murder! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, but then everyone thinks you're a pussy, and you know they're right. Better to argue with the cop, curse him out, take the pepper spray and/or beating which ensures, spend the weekend in jail, and THEN go home and write about how you hate fucking pigs. Of course, everyone will then think you're a LYING pussy, but you'll know better.
Re:Next Stop: Murder! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. Definitely not coarse, ignorant or self important enough for the typical American stereotype. The driver should also have been wearing a cowboy hat, blowing cigar smoke in the officers face, and hollering about "taxes!" and "unconstitutional!".
Re:They used to have to match your speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Exact same discussions? They were measuring speeds with a radar gun, not confronting the alleged speeder, but then mailing them a civil citation, fining them with no opportunity to prove their innoce-- oops I mean -- have the proof of their guilt be examined by a court?
The main issue with radar guns was technology and how much people trust equipment. The main issue with red light cams is basic due process.
Watch this! (Score:5, Insightful)
Got this link off another
Never talk to Police [youtube.com]
In a nut shell, the police will take what ever you say and use it against you.
Re:Oh no they didn't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GPS (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no such thing as instantaneous speed. Velocity is always distance over time. If time is zero, that's a divide by zero.
You didn't do well in calculus, did you?
Speed traps cause erratic driving, divert cops (Score:4, Insightful)
Roughly stated, speed traps and red light cameras cause people to slam on their brakes, which more than one study has shown causes the very accidents they're hoping to avoid.
The other big point of discussion used to be that when you need to find a cop, they shouldn't be hidden from view. Speed traps raise tons of revenue, but they make society as a whole less safe by leeching police presence and resources away from attending to actual crime and accidents.
Exact same discussion was ... (Score:3, Insightful)
(Speed traps || Red Light cameras) are about raising revenue, not enforcing the law. They actually make driving less safe by causing drivers to slam on their brakes at unexpected times. They engender contempt for the law by making law enforcement about revenue generation and bill collection, not serving the public.
But yes, I'm in total agreement that red light cameras are a far more egregious case, though I would argue that radar speed traps paved the way for them, in the same way that red light cameras will pave the way for in-car black-box gps monitoring, where all apparent violations will be billed automatically to your credit card.
Re:Next Stop: Murder! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all cops are out there to make your life a living hell. You'd be surprised how well being civil to them works if you get pulled over.
Re:GPS (Score:3, Insightful)
That was pretty much the way it went with a traffic stop with me several years ago. I was scooting down a large road in a convertible with the top down. I saw him on his motorcycle going the other way, and didn't think anything of it. I ended up stuck in the middle of a large clusterfuck of cars, where a few roads merged. I heard the siren behind me, so I pulled over.
The conversation went pretty much the same. After asking me twice, he told me, "you're really making me mad. I'm going to walk away and come back, and you'd better tell me what I expect to hear." When he came back, I said the same thing, "No sir, I don't know why you stopped me.".
He had me get out of the car, patted me down, and told me I was going to jail. That's odd, since I still didn't know why he stopped me.
He believed I was speeding when he saw me a few minutes earlier. Well, his words were "you were passing the other cars like they were standing still." Since I wouldn't confess to anything, and he had nothing to prove his statement, he gave up. We ended up having a nice polite chat after that.
It's a lot easier for them if you just confess to whatever. "Oh ya, I must have been speeding, and I was following that car too closely." Great, 2 tickets with no proof.
Part of a traffic stop is high visibility. When the police have someone on the side of the road, it makes everyone slow down to the speed limit. By spending an extra 5 minutes with me stopped, even without a ticket, it brought the flow of traffic down to the legal limits.
Re:This isn't so strange. (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither is, with some training, estimating approximate speeds for a narrow class of objects (e.g., "cars") under very specific situations (e.g., "being observed from rest from the roadside"). Surprisingly enough, its fairly common for traffic police to be trained in that skill.
Just like arson forensic investigators?
http://search1.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=114005470 [npr.org]
In that case, an innocent person was put to death because being 'trained in that skill' usually means the older guy saying 'Yeah, the new guy can do this.'
Re:This isn't so strange. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Happened to me in MO (Score:3, Insightful)
I had a nice little presentation prepared for her. The case would have been thrown out of court, had the cop shown up, which he didn't. So it was thrown out anyway. I still want the damn time I spent researching it back.
She should have been issued a repair order not a speeding ticket.
Re:That's a lousy analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not the spirit of it at all. The ruling is that eyewitness testimony can constitute reasonable evidence, albeit evidence which is not as strong as, say, photographic proof. It's bizarre that you can't understand this. Are you also railing against eyewitness testimony in murder trials? The real issue here is not that "appearances trump facts". The real question is whether eyewitness testimony about vehicle speeds constitutes sufficient evidence. This can be debated reasonably without ridiculous claims that "appearances are more important than facts".
Re:This isn't so strange. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, the village of Linndale (an inner ring Cleveland suburb) is a classic example. At one point fully 60% of their village budget came from a speedtrap they ran on I71, the village officers had to exit their jurisdiction to even get onto the highway!
Re:Next Stop: Murder! (Score:4, Insightful)
If there had been a rash of burglaries in the area, it's a completely acceptable police response to the guy being parked there.
Its a perfectly reasonable response to say "you aren't going to drive off while I am running your plates?"
Like the guy is supposed to know what the cop is doing?
Not all cops are out there to make your life a living hell.
Of course they aren't. What they are out to do is make their lives as easy as possible at your expense.
Re:Don't visit NC (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Watch this! (Score:2, Insightful)
You do not have to show ID. Unless you're brown and in Arizona, of course. /snark
Re:Don't visit NC (Score:2, Insightful)
I would argue that the fact that he doesn't know what type of car he's writing a ticket to could mean that he has the wrong car. Maybe he saw another car speeding, couldn't locate it, and pulled me over instead.
A Mustang and a Charger are extremely hard to confuse if you remotely know anything about cars. One has two doors and one has four for a start.
Why should I have to negotiate? Admitting to broken equipment when I had none is illegal. Plain and simple.
Clerical error? Lets say a police officer is sent out to a crime scene and told that they are looking for a white male with a gun. The officer runs up to the scene, looks around and finds the first guy he can, which happens to be a black guy. He arrests that black guy and writes up the incident report stating he arrested a white guy. Clerical error?
Again, I don't know if I was speeding. I'm almost 30 and have only had one other speeding ticket. That was when I was 16. Maybe I was speeding, but 4mph over the limit, with no other cars on the road, in an area where the limit changes from 55 to 45 back to 55 in less than 100 yards is a little extreme. Speeding tickets are 100% about generating revenue, nothing more.
Re:That's a lousy analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
Eyewitness testimony certainly can be, and often has been the basis of conviction, even for captial murder cases. If one guy stabs another guy right in front of you, it's not really difficult to ascertain that actually happened and wasn't a hallucination, provided the light is good, you got a good look at the guy or know him, etc.
Likewise, it's not hard to ascertain that someone is, say, going 20 mph over the speed limit just by looking.
Your attempt to conflate "he's was obviously going way over the speed limit" with "it appeared he turned into a flaming dragon" only shows how absurd your position actually is. In the real world, people are able to judge physical events which happen in front of them, such as distances, speeds, or actions.
Certainly this is not perfect -- a person can't tell reliably if someone is 1 mph over the speed limit -- and in the case discussed here, there is room for debate.
But that doesn't change the fact that it is totally ridiculous for you to claim that eyewitness testimony about physical events doesn't constitute evidence or that it's equivalent to belief in the Second Coming. Just give up and stop embarrassing yourself. You're replacing a bad analogy with a ludicrous one.
Re:That's a lousy analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
Your position is utterly absurd - it seems to ignore the fact that people can 1) lie and 2) be mistaken.
I didn't say that people can't lie or be mistaken. I explicitly said that people can be mistaken. I also said that is not an excuse to discard eyewitness testimony. It is the judgment of the court whether the testimony provides a reasonable standard of evidence or not. It is your position that is utterly absurd: that no evidence such evidence can ever decide a case.
A single person saying X should not be enough for a court to decide X with NO OTHER INFORMATION WHATSOEVER.
It can be and often is. As I said, criminal trials have been decided on the basis of eyewitness testimony before, and this isn't even a criminal trial. It's up to the judge to decide whether the witness is credible and the testimony likely to be reliable; if so, the testimony can decide the case. If there is some reason to doubt the witnesses credibility -- and there could be, but this is not automatically the case -- then the testimony can be ignored.
It may not be hard to ascertain someone is going 20 mph over the speed limit, but it should not PROVE IT BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT.
Yes, it can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, unless reasonable doubts have been raised about the credibility of the witness. And this isn't a murder trial. As another poster pointed out, minor moving violations don't have to be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt" in the first place, in most courts of law -- they have a lower standard of evidence.
You wouldn't believe conclusively in Aliens if a guy in Iowa said that he saw a UFO out in his field.
Look, you would come across as a lot less stupid if you'd drop these moronic analogies and just argue the case at hand. If you want to argue that there's reason to believe the cop was lying, or unable to adequately judge the speed, then argue that. But a cop visually estimating the physical speed of a vehicle is not even remotely equivalent to a random guy in NYC claiming he saw Jesus.
Jesus.