stilletto
Well-Known Member
Copied this from over at JDM Chicago. I encourage everyone to read the entire post.
Why should you trust me? Well, I've been ticketed for over $10 thousand dollars in fines through the later 2 of my 4 years driving. I've paid just under 6grand of that. Not all THAT impressive, I admit, but 4grand is 4grand. On the other hand I was stupid and paid many of these fines before I had a chance to argue them in court. I've never once developed a case, gone in front of a judge to fight a ticket, and lost. My Great Uncle whom I talk to all the time is a retired Sgt. with the St Louis PD. He's worked with Highway Patrol etc. I was a Criminal Justice major before I switched to Computer Science and then Business Administration. And last, 4 years of undefeated victories in Mock Trial and Debate (including State), plus a few little real life court hearings here and there for hell raising as a young kid have all given me a little extra knowledge as to the inner workings of the law.
First off, the most important ticket, speeding. I'll go over that first, as that is what I am most familiar with.
There are several different ways an office can give you a speeding ticket. They will undoubtedly use one of the following methods: Laser or "Lidar", Radar, Pacing, Visual Estimate &/or VASCAR.
We'll start with Radar. How radar works is when the radar device is pointed at your vehicle, it emits a radio waves on a particular frequency (I'll explain how important for you this frequency is later). These radio waves eventually travel to your vehicle, and bounce off, returning to the radar device on a different frequency. In theory, this change in frequency is directly proportional to how fast you are traveling. The radar devide merely calculates this difference, and comes up with an estimated speed. In order for the radar to work properly, it must be pointed DIRECTLY at you. There can be no obstructions in the way ie: other cars, bushes, trees, rocks etc. The device must also be relatively close to you in order to insure that it's reading your speed and not another vehicle's. Radar does not emit an even, narrow, direct beam, but instead is more like a sprinkler or headlight. It is emitted from the device, and spreads out wider and wider over a distance. It's proven that at only one eighth of a mile from the standard unit, a radar beam will be around 4 lanes wide, and sometimes wider. So if your speeding ticket is based on radar, make sure you ask the officer "How far away from me were you when you "clocked" me if you don't mind my asking?" If there was enough space, he could very well have clocked someone in a different lane, or even on the other side of the road.
In addition to all this, radar based speed reading devices have a tendancy to read speeds of bigger objects rather than smaller ones, so if there is some bigger truck near you, he may cause you to get a speeding ticket when you were only traveling the speed limit due to the fact that the radar device read the speed of the truck behind you, but the officer tickets you because you were in front. I've also read in a radar training manual (don't ask how I got it) that sometimes the radar unit can read the speed of blowing dust, branches, rain, leaves etc. So if you were ticketed under these conditions, you might have ample reason to get your ticket dismissed.
Now the how get ammo to fight the pigs. Far too many people think that if they get a radar ticket, thats means: pay, end of story. This couldn't be further from the truth. There are a vast amount of opportunities that will present themselves for you to get out of a radar ticket. First off, there are certain things that are a matter of public record and that you have a right to know and sometimes see. Radar is a VERY sensitive piece of machinery, and as such, it is VERY vulnerable to other variables causing it to be innacurate. If you can raise a reasonable doubt that any of these variables were involved with your ticket, the radar reading becomes inadmisable in court, and your case will have a VERY good chance of being dismissed.
If you get a radar ticket for exceeding a posted speed limit, make sure you find out if there has been a recent traffic and engineering survey taken on that road. Most often, they must be updated every 5 years in order to be valid. What they do is measure the speed of 85% of the traffic, and from this average, is supposed to be the basis of which speed limits are made. Often times, an officer CANNOT use radar for the purpose of ticketing people if there is not an up to date copy of the traffic and engineering survey present with him in court. Remember, the judge and the pig are friends, and they are expecting you not to know your sh!t when you show up in court so often times the judge will not ask the pig for this document, so its up to you to make sure you ask for it if the judge doesn't. In many places, the court will permit you to actually request the data that makes up these surveys, therefore, if your so inclined (like myself) you can often challenge the city's accuracy on the survey itself.
Most of these surveys are conducted using one of those remote radar trailers. I'm sure you've seen them around, they look like little boxes mounted onto a trailer with a little screen that shows you how fast your going. The main pain in the *** is the fact that when most people see these things they slam on their brakes because they think there is a little camera that will take a picture of their liscense plate and ticket them in the mail. This is NOT true. What IS true, is often times a pig will sit a little after one of these and radar people himself. So look around, if there are no cops, GUN IT, as soon as you pass the trailer, or it stops reading you, slam on the brakes and slow back down to the posted speed limit. You'll be doing everyone a favor.
When an officer pulls you over for speeding and he used radar to clock you, you may ask to see the reading on the unit at that time. Usually, it has been my experience that they'll allow me to look at it. If they say no, then I take note of that and will later use it as ammunition against the officer in court.
Many radar based speeding tickets are dismissed every year because the defendant may request any or all the following and does not receive them:
1. The Radar unit's calibration, maintenance, and history records.
2. The officer's certifications for radar training or other things.
3. The tuning fork(s) used to calibrate the radar unit as well as their calibration certificates.
4. The specific radar unit that was used.
5. That agency's FCC license
6. List of models, makes and serial numbers of every radar unit currently in use with that agency.
The things above are a matter of public record, which as most of us know, means that we all have a right to obtain these records to insure that a safe, fair, and truthful trial takes place. You may obtain these records one of a few different ways. The first is you may go to the officer's (who issued you the ticket) specific agency, and ask to speak with someone whom can help you with public records like the Public Records Custodian, or another officer. You give them a detailed list of what exactly it is you want. If they aren't *******s about it, they'll give you pretty much everything you asked for except probably the tuning forks and radar unit itself. They'll probably tell you that the officer will bring these with him to the trial.
If on the other hand, they ARE *******s and refuse you any of this information, you can call the State Attorney General whom is in charge of prosecuting all violations of public records laws. Mark my words, you'll get EXACTLY what you asked for in short order after notifiying the S.A.G. If you really want revenge you can even file a civil lawsuit against that agency for punitive damages.
You can also sobpoena anything reasonable you wish from the court. You may do this by requesting them at the court clerk explaining the things you want. The only catch to this is you need to do it 14days in advance, furthermore you won't get to check out the records until the actual court date, which takes valuable time from the construction of a bulletproof case. Look for any inconsistancies within whatever records you get, these leave the cop very unstable ground to testify upon.
Many times an agency will be sending and reveiving radar units for various reasons constantly. The FCC gives a liscense to the agency for every single radar unit being used, but this isn't automatic. The agency must request these liscenses from the FCC by giving them all the information on the unit, only then can they legally use them. Make sure that the serials and other information on the unit match the FCC liscense list that you look at. Because agencies are getting many new units in from time to time, sometimes they fail to register them with the FCC, which is grounds for immediate dismisal of your ticket, and the agency is in a heap of trouble! =) If it's not liscensed with the FCC, they can't use it against you in court, and when radar can't be used based on a radar ticket, your ticket is history.
In addition to what I've mentioned thusfar, there are a few other things that can be used as ammunition for you in court.
A Radar unit can sometimes read the speed of the patrol car's heater or AC fan.
An inadvertent false reasong can appear on a radar unit if the unit's antenna (which is moveable) is pointed for any period of time at the readout part of the unit.
Neon lights, power transformers, electrical storms, and other sources of harmonic frequencies can all influence radar readings as well.
Radio transmitters and towers are a great source of radar interference. Radar itself is a radio wave, CB radios are notorious for messing with radar speed readings. The fact is, many MANY cars have CB equipped, Police Cruisers included, this means that this error happens quite frequently.
Moving radar which is no different from stationary radar besides the fact that it has to calculate in the speed of the police vehicle into the equation. When an officer accelerates too quickly, this throws off the reading of the radar. Most units are unable to compensate for the sudden increase in ground speed from the officer, and until it does catch up, it will add the increase in the officer's speed to the target...which is usually YOU. When an officer makes this mistake, it is known as "batching". When "batching" occurs, it can cause a very substantial error in the speed reading, and this can in turn lead to an unwarranted citation.
Now onto Laser, or "Lidar"
Lidar stands for LIght Detection And Ranging. It works relatively on the same principal as radar only it uses a laser beam as opposed to a radar beam to detect your speed. A laser beam is however very direct, and will hardly ever give a readout of another vehicle. The narrowness of the beam however can be used to your advantage. For instance, if you drive a black RX-7 or Corvette, you have little to worry about. Since lidar uses light to measure speed, there has to be something to reflect that light in order to give a reading. When you drive a black vehicle with retracting headlights, there is very VERY little targeting area in which the Lidar can be used effectively. The only target now is your front liscense plate (if you even have one), if you do, simply tilt the liscense plate upwards a bit to deflect the straight travel of light, after all, its not illegal to make your vehicle invisible to lidar, as long as the cop can see your plates. If your vehicle deflects or absorbs most or all of the light, then the calculation cannot be completed. So if you drive a dark colored vehicle with retractable headlights and little or no chome etc, you are a VERY hard target. In addition to all this, Lidar involves a number of complex counterparts that mean problems for the officer trying to use it. Because of this, Lidar is not terribly popular with cops. An automotive "bra" is also a good way to help make your car invisible to lidar. Or if you drive a pile of crap and really don't care about areodynamics, you can use carpet...anything that absorbs light. Remember, DEFLECT not REFLECT.
Next is pacing.
I won't spend too long with this because anyone who gets a ticket from being paced, is not paying enough attention to their surroundings. Cops have tried to pace me hundreds of times, never with success. I have studied the headlight, taillight, and turn signal paterns for every known vehicle that my local law enforcement uses, and thus can spot that type of vehicle behind me, in front of me, or to the side of me, even at night. You should at LEAST be familiar with the paterns of Ford headlights, especially those of newer model Crown Victorias. They are pretty easy to spot for a few different reasons. The Amber turn signal area is on the inner part of the headlight pointing towards the grill, they are brighter than any other amber strip I've seen, and they have the scattered LED appearance. It's better to waste a little gas slowing down when you see a pair of lights you think might belong to a cop and then speed back up as soon as he passes you. Better safe than sorry. I slow down quite frequently at night when I'm doing 100-160 in the Supra for false alarms, but I can honestly say I've never once been paced by a Cop and received a ticket. The worst thing that happened was once I was doing like 100, saw a Cop come up quick behind and dropped it down a few gears as not to use my brakes. The cop pulled up along side of me and moved his finger back and forth in a "No-no" motion, and then sped off.
One of only a few attacks you have on pacing is the police cruiser's speedometer calibration records. You might ask the officer "Just out of curiosity, when was the last time your cruiser's speedometer was calibrated?" You will probably want to obtain as much of his vehicle's calibration records as possible. Go about obtaining these the same way I told you earlier with the radar records. You will want to try to establish a history of his speedometer being off by any substantial amount by looking over the service records, etc very very carefully as you would with radar documentation. When you actually do show up to court, never tell the officer you have his records. See if you can catch him contradicting himself or the records, regardless of what your talking about. People seem to think that officers are all angels with halos over their heads that would never in a million years do anything like this. Just like us, cops are people too. Try to use stratedgy and tactics. Often times an officer will not bring these records with him. I've put three different Cops in VERY uncomfortable situations in front of the judge by nagging them about the history of their vehicle's calibration records. Due to the fact that I had not yet "revealed my ace", I was able to force the officers to adlib in a last ditch effort to save credability. After I presented evidence that the officer was in fact mistaken, I had scored even more points with the judge. Remember, although the Judge and officer are on the same side, YOU can impress the judge. First impressions are everything. If you show up to court dressed sharp, with a well developed case and knowledge of the law, you impress the judge. Judges are supposed to be impartial to things like this, but they are just like employers, you impress them, you have a better chance of getting what you want. Its that simple. One last thing about pacing, remember, and officer can just as easily pace you while he is in front of you as he can behind you. Don't think for a second that just because a cop blows by you he is always on call or chasing someone else and its ok to follow.
Next is Visual Estimation
This is just a fancy term cops like to use instead of "guessing". It sounds better, and more technical. If your in court for a speeding ticket and at any point the officer says something along the lines of "I estimated your speed to be ___" you might want to use the following example...you have a chance to make him look REALLY bad in front of the judge yet again. Pick up any object, I usually use a pencil. Take any reference point, your shoulder, top of your head, waist, etc. Ask the officer to watch closely. Drop the pencil and then ask him to estimate the exact speed of the pencil at the moment of impact with the ground. Due to the fact that all object have the same rate of speed while falling, I will include a little chart. All you have to do is measure the distance between your reference point and the ground.
Distance Speed
================================================== ===========
3.5 ft..................................10.2mph
4.0 ft..................................10.9mph
4.5 ft..................................11.6mph
5.0 ft..................................12.2mph
5.5 ft..................................12.8mph
6.0 ft..................................13.4mph
6.5 ft..................................13.9mph
Lets say you dropped your pencil from 5.5ft (which is the height of my shoulder). Lets say the officer estimates the speed to be roughly 15mph. Pretty good guess right? Only about 2mph off! Your screwed now right? WRONG! If you were ticketed for around 60mph, the officer's estimation would have been off by roughly 10MPH! You can adapt the calculations to fit whatever your ticket was. The higher the speed is, the more the officer would have been off by. Just make SURE your math is right, YOU don't want to be the idiot.
Why should you trust me? Well, I've been ticketed for over $10 thousand dollars in fines through the later 2 of my 4 years driving. I've paid just under 6grand of that. Not all THAT impressive, I admit, but 4grand is 4grand. On the other hand I was stupid and paid many of these fines before I had a chance to argue them in court. I've never once developed a case, gone in front of a judge to fight a ticket, and lost. My Great Uncle whom I talk to all the time is a retired Sgt. with the St Louis PD. He's worked with Highway Patrol etc. I was a Criminal Justice major before I switched to Computer Science and then Business Administration. And last, 4 years of undefeated victories in Mock Trial and Debate (including State), plus a few little real life court hearings here and there for hell raising as a young kid have all given me a little extra knowledge as to the inner workings of the law.
First off, the most important ticket, speeding. I'll go over that first, as that is what I am most familiar with.
There are several different ways an office can give you a speeding ticket. They will undoubtedly use one of the following methods: Laser or "Lidar", Radar, Pacing, Visual Estimate &/or VASCAR.
We'll start with Radar. How radar works is when the radar device is pointed at your vehicle, it emits a radio waves on a particular frequency (I'll explain how important for you this frequency is later). These radio waves eventually travel to your vehicle, and bounce off, returning to the radar device on a different frequency. In theory, this change in frequency is directly proportional to how fast you are traveling. The radar devide merely calculates this difference, and comes up with an estimated speed. In order for the radar to work properly, it must be pointed DIRECTLY at you. There can be no obstructions in the way ie: other cars, bushes, trees, rocks etc. The device must also be relatively close to you in order to insure that it's reading your speed and not another vehicle's. Radar does not emit an even, narrow, direct beam, but instead is more like a sprinkler or headlight. It is emitted from the device, and spreads out wider and wider over a distance. It's proven that at only one eighth of a mile from the standard unit, a radar beam will be around 4 lanes wide, and sometimes wider. So if your speeding ticket is based on radar, make sure you ask the officer "How far away from me were you when you "clocked" me if you don't mind my asking?" If there was enough space, he could very well have clocked someone in a different lane, or even on the other side of the road.
In addition to all this, radar based speed reading devices have a tendancy to read speeds of bigger objects rather than smaller ones, so if there is some bigger truck near you, he may cause you to get a speeding ticket when you were only traveling the speed limit due to the fact that the radar device read the speed of the truck behind you, but the officer tickets you because you were in front. I've also read in a radar training manual (don't ask how I got it) that sometimes the radar unit can read the speed of blowing dust, branches, rain, leaves etc. So if you were ticketed under these conditions, you might have ample reason to get your ticket dismissed.
Now the how get ammo to fight the pigs. Far too many people think that if they get a radar ticket, thats means: pay, end of story. This couldn't be further from the truth. There are a vast amount of opportunities that will present themselves for you to get out of a radar ticket. First off, there are certain things that are a matter of public record and that you have a right to know and sometimes see. Radar is a VERY sensitive piece of machinery, and as such, it is VERY vulnerable to other variables causing it to be innacurate. If you can raise a reasonable doubt that any of these variables were involved with your ticket, the radar reading becomes inadmisable in court, and your case will have a VERY good chance of being dismissed.
If you get a radar ticket for exceeding a posted speed limit, make sure you find out if there has been a recent traffic and engineering survey taken on that road. Most often, they must be updated every 5 years in order to be valid. What they do is measure the speed of 85% of the traffic, and from this average, is supposed to be the basis of which speed limits are made. Often times, an officer CANNOT use radar for the purpose of ticketing people if there is not an up to date copy of the traffic and engineering survey present with him in court. Remember, the judge and the pig are friends, and they are expecting you not to know your sh!t when you show up in court so often times the judge will not ask the pig for this document, so its up to you to make sure you ask for it if the judge doesn't. In many places, the court will permit you to actually request the data that makes up these surveys, therefore, if your so inclined (like myself) you can often challenge the city's accuracy on the survey itself.
Most of these surveys are conducted using one of those remote radar trailers. I'm sure you've seen them around, they look like little boxes mounted onto a trailer with a little screen that shows you how fast your going. The main pain in the *** is the fact that when most people see these things they slam on their brakes because they think there is a little camera that will take a picture of their liscense plate and ticket them in the mail. This is NOT true. What IS true, is often times a pig will sit a little after one of these and radar people himself. So look around, if there are no cops, GUN IT, as soon as you pass the trailer, or it stops reading you, slam on the brakes and slow back down to the posted speed limit. You'll be doing everyone a favor.
When an officer pulls you over for speeding and he used radar to clock you, you may ask to see the reading on the unit at that time. Usually, it has been my experience that they'll allow me to look at it. If they say no, then I take note of that and will later use it as ammunition against the officer in court.
Many radar based speeding tickets are dismissed every year because the defendant may request any or all the following and does not receive them:
1. The Radar unit's calibration, maintenance, and history records.
2. The officer's certifications for radar training or other things.
3. The tuning fork(s) used to calibrate the radar unit as well as their calibration certificates.
4. The specific radar unit that was used.
5. That agency's FCC license
6. List of models, makes and serial numbers of every radar unit currently in use with that agency.
The things above are a matter of public record, which as most of us know, means that we all have a right to obtain these records to insure that a safe, fair, and truthful trial takes place. You may obtain these records one of a few different ways. The first is you may go to the officer's (who issued you the ticket) specific agency, and ask to speak with someone whom can help you with public records like the Public Records Custodian, or another officer. You give them a detailed list of what exactly it is you want. If they aren't *******s about it, they'll give you pretty much everything you asked for except probably the tuning forks and radar unit itself. They'll probably tell you that the officer will bring these with him to the trial.
If on the other hand, they ARE *******s and refuse you any of this information, you can call the State Attorney General whom is in charge of prosecuting all violations of public records laws. Mark my words, you'll get EXACTLY what you asked for in short order after notifiying the S.A.G. If you really want revenge you can even file a civil lawsuit against that agency for punitive damages.
You can also sobpoena anything reasonable you wish from the court. You may do this by requesting them at the court clerk explaining the things you want. The only catch to this is you need to do it 14days in advance, furthermore you won't get to check out the records until the actual court date, which takes valuable time from the construction of a bulletproof case. Look for any inconsistancies within whatever records you get, these leave the cop very unstable ground to testify upon.
Many times an agency will be sending and reveiving radar units for various reasons constantly. The FCC gives a liscense to the agency for every single radar unit being used, but this isn't automatic. The agency must request these liscenses from the FCC by giving them all the information on the unit, only then can they legally use them. Make sure that the serials and other information on the unit match the FCC liscense list that you look at. Because agencies are getting many new units in from time to time, sometimes they fail to register them with the FCC, which is grounds for immediate dismisal of your ticket, and the agency is in a heap of trouble! =) If it's not liscensed with the FCC, they can't use it against you in court, and when radar can't be used based on a radar ticket, your ticket is history.
In addition to what I've mentioned thusfar, there are a few other things that can be used as ammunition for you in court.
A Radar unit can sometimes read the speed of the patrol car's heater or AC fan.
An inadvertent false reasong can appear on a radar unit if the unit's antenna (which is moveable) is pointed for any period of time at the readout part of the unit.
Neon lights, power transformers, electrical storms, and other sources of harmonic frequencies can all influence radar readings as well.
Radio transmitters and towers are a great source of radar interference. Radar itself is a radio wave, CB radios are notorious for messing with radar speed readings. The fact is, many MANY cars have CB equipped, Police Cruisers included, this means that this error happens quite frequently.
Moving radar which is no different from stationary radar besides the fact that it has to calculate in the speed of the police vehicle into the equation. When an officer accelerates too quickly, this throws off the reading of the radar. Most units are unable to compensate for the sudden increase in ground speed from the officer, and until it does catch up, it will add the increase in the officer's speed to the target...which is usually YOU. When an officer makes this mistake, it is known as "batching". When "batching" occurs, it can cause a very substantial error in the speed reading, and this can in turn lead to an unwarranted citation.
Now onto Laser, or "Lidar"
Lidar stands for LIght Detection And Ranging. It works relatively on the same principal as radar only it uses a laser beam as opposed to a radar beam to detect your speed. A laser beam is however very direct, and will hardly ever give a readout of another vehicle. The narrowness of the beam however can be used to your advantage. For instance, if you drive a black RX-7 or Corvette, you have little to worry about. Since lidar uses light to measure speed, there has to be something to reflect that light in order to give a reading. When you drive a black vehicle with retracting headlights, there is very VERY little targeting area in which the Lidar can be used effectively. The only target now is your front liscense plate (if you even have one), if you do, simply tilt the liscense plate upwards a bit to deflect the straight travel of light, after all, its not illegal to make your vehicle invisible to lidar, as long as the cop can see your plates. If your vehicle deflects or absorbs most or all of the light, then the calculation cannot be completed. So if you drive a dark colored vehicle with retractable headlights and little or no chome etc, you are a VERY hard target. In addition to all this, Lidar involves a number of complex counterparts that mean problems for the officer trying to use it. Because of this, Lidar is not terribly popular with cops. An automotive "bra" is also a good way to help make your car invisible to lidar. Or if you drive a pile of crap and really don't care about areodynamics, you can use carpet...anything that absorbs light. Remember, DEFLECT not REFLECT.
Next is pacing.
I won't spend too long with this because anyone who gets a ticket from being paced, is not paying enough attention to their surroundings. Cops have tried to pace me hundreds of times, never with success. I have studied the headlight, taillight, and turn signal paterns for every known vehicle that my local law enforcement uses, and thus can spot that type of vehicle behind me, in front of me, or to the side of me, even at night. You should at LEAST be familiar with the paterns of Ford headlights, especially those of newer model Crown Victorias. They are pretty easy to spot for a few different reasons. The Amber turn signal area is on the inner part of the headlight pointing towards the grill, they are brighter than any other amber strip I've seen, and they have the scattered LED appearance. It's better to waste a little gas slowing down when you see a pair of lights you think might belong to a cop and then speed back up as soon as he passes you. Better safe than sorry. I slow down quite frequently at night when I'm doing 100-160 in the Supra for false alarms, but I can honestly say I've never once been paced by a Cop and received a ticket. The worst thing that happened was once I was doing like 100, saw a Cop come up quick behind and dropped it down a few gears as not to use my brakes. The cop pulled up along side of me and moved his finger back and forth in a "No-no" motion, and then sped off.
One of only a few attacks you have on pacing is the police cruiser's speedometer calibration records. You might ask the officer "Just out of curiosity, when was the last time your cruiser's speedometer was calibrated?" You will probably want to obtain as much of his vehicle's calibration records as possible. Go about obtaining these the same way I told you earlier with the radar records. You will want to try to establish a history of his speedometer being off by any substantial amount by looking over the service records, etc very very carefully as you would with radar documentation. When you actually do show up to court, never tell the officer you have his records. See if you can catch him contradicting himself or the records, regardless of what your talking about. People seem to think that officers are all angels with halos over their heads that would never in a million years do anything like this. Just like us, cops are people too. Try to use stratedgy and tactics. Often times an officer will not bring these records with him. I've put three different Cops in VERY uncomfortable situations in front of the judge by nagging them about the history of their vehicle's calibration records. Due to the fact that I had not yet "revealed my ace", I was able to force the officers to adlib in a last ditch effort to save credability. After I presented evidence that the officer was in fact mistaken, I had scored even more points with the judge. Remember, although the Judge and officer are on the same side, YOU can impress the judge. First impressions are everything. If you show up to court dressed sharp, with a well developed case and knowledge of the law, you impress the judge. Judges are supposed to be impartial to things like this, but they are just like employers, you impress them, you have a better chance of getting what you want. Its that simple. One last thing about pacing, remember, and officer can just as easily pace you while he is in front of you as he can behind you. Don't think for a second that just because a cop blows by you he is always on call or chasing someone else and its ok to follow.
Next is Visual Estimation
This is just a fancy term cops like to use instead of "guessing". It sounds better, and more technical. If your in court for a speeding ticket and at any point the officer says something along the lines of "I estimated your speed to be ___" you might want to use the following example...you have a chance to make him look REALLY bad in front of the judge yet again. Pick up any object, I usually use a pencil. Take any reference point, your shoulder, top of your head, waist, etc. Ask the officer to watch closely. Drop the pencil and then ask him to estimate the exact speed of the pencil at the moment of impact with the ground. Due to the fact that all object have the same rate of speed while falling, I will include a little chart. All you have to do is measure the distance between your reference point and the ground.
Distance Speed
================================================== ===========
3.5 ft..................................10.2mph
4.0 ft..................................10.9mph
4.5 ft..................................11.6mph
5.0 ft..................................12.2mph
5.5 ft..................................12.8mph
6.0 ft..................................13.4mph
6.5 ft..................................13.9mph
Lets say you dropped your pencil from 5.5ft (which is the height of my shoulder). Lets say the officer estimates the speed to be roughly 15mph. Pretty good guess right? Only about 2mph off! Your screwed now right? WRONG! If you were ticketed for around 60mph, the officer's estimation would have been off by roughly 10MPH! You can adapt the calculations to fit whatever your ticket was. The higher the speed is, the more the officer would have been off by. Just make SURE your math is right, YOU don't want to be the idiot.