by Admin » Sat Jun 19, 2010 10:00 pm
Jesse 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 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 divide 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 i.e.: 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 tendency 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, that 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 inaccurate. If you can raise a reasonable doubt that any of these variables were involved with your ticket, the radar reading becomes inadmissible 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 ass 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 license 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 notifying 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 subpoena 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 inconsistencies within whatever records you get, these leave the cop very unstable ground to testify upon.
Many times an agency will be sending and receiving radar units for various reasons constantly. The FCC gives a license to the agency for every single radar unit being used, but this isn't automatic. The agency must request these licenses 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 license 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 dismissal of your ticket, and the agency is in a heap of trouble! =) If it's not licensed 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 thus far, 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 reading 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 license plate (if you even have one), if you do, simply tilt the license 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 chrome 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 aerodynamics, 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 patterns 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 patterns 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 you’re 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 strategy 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 credibility. 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. It’s 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.
The last method of speed estimation is known as VASCAR
VASCAR means Visual Average Speed Computer And Recorder. How it works is an officer will pick a beginning and end point on a given road. He measures the distance between those two points, and waits for you to cross his "entry" line. Once you have crossed his entry line, he then waits for you to travel the distance to his "ending" line. After you've gone through the measured distance he quickly calculates your rate of speed based on how long it took for you to travel the given distance. The major problem with this type of estimation is usually the POV or point of view of the officer, due to the fact that he will most likely be trying to stay out of immediate site of commuters, will often have a poor line of site on you. If he misjudges the point where you cross his "entry" line, then the officer starts the time late, or stops it early, then your speed can read far over what you were actually going. Another one of many ways of using VASCAR is a cop will fly by you at some extremely high speed, as soon as he flies by you, he begins measuring time and distance. You think he's off on some call for a triple homicide, all the while he is still checking time and distance. A few miles down the highway, he pulls over, and waits for you with his watch still going. You think he's long gone and then WHAM, you cross his line, and he calculates once again, how fast you were going. The problem with this is VASCAR can be VERY inaccurate at long distances, and especially because of the problems in the first example I gave you. For these reasons VASCAR has been outlawed in many areas due to the fact that is qualifies as a "speed trap".
Another thing I think is important to talk about is the use of patrol planes or choppers. If you get a ticket based on a reading from a patrol plane my first piece of advice is TAKE IT TO COURT. I don't care if your scared shitless of the judge and cops, take it to court. The reason is the patrolman in the air will radio down to an officer with a description of your vehicle, and if the officer on the ground does not get your speed himself, he must rely on the air patrol person. These pilots are very rare. There are not many Cops being certified to fly these planes or choppers and as such they get paid a lot. They rarely show to court. I've only been ticketed based on an aircraft reading once, but due to the fact that both the testimony of the ground cop as well as the air cop are required to hold case against you, your chances of having your case dismissed by default double.
Unless the officer on the ground actually obtains his own speed reading on you, all he has to go on is the word of the air patrol man and his description of your vehicle. Obviously there are a lot of things that can go wrong here. Say you drive a common vehicle like an black pickup, or white Camry, etc they have no way of proving that it was in fact YOU that the air patrol man was targeting. They are unable to read your license plate number from those aircraft, so all they have to go on is description. Make sure you point out to the judge the fact that you drive one of the most popular cars in America, if that is in fact the case, popular colors will help as well. It will also help to get the sales figures from your local dealership for every year of your car that uses the same body style. If there are other cars made by different manufacturers on the same chassis or relatively same body style, get them too. From that high up they can rarely tell EXACTLY what model of car your driving, unless its an exotic, and lets face it, none of us drive exotics or we wouldn't give a rat's ass about tickets.
If for whatever reason the hand of God comes down, and both the air patrolman, and the ground officer show up, make sure to politely request to the judge that one leave the court room while the other gives his testimony. This will prevent them from prompting each other and building false facts against you...which happens ALL THE TIME.
Photo Radar...this is one of my FAVORITES.
You want advice now that you've received a photo radar ticket in the mail? Well, step one is...wipe your ass with it, and then throw it away, burn it, flush it, give it to your kid to draw on, whatever. FUCK Photo radar. Photo radar is an invasion of our privacy. To make matters even worse, the photo radar units that are setup at intersections aren't even owned by law enforcement...most are owned by PRIVATE companies. They are very complex devices, in very hard to reach places, and they cost a LOT to keep and maintain. Because of this most law enforcement agencies across the country can do nothing more than lease them from private companies.
When you receive a normal ticket from a Cop, there is the little line at the bottom where it says something like "without admitting guilt, I promise to show up to court at the above date, or pay the fine..." When you get a photo radar ticket, you don't sign shit. You’re not obligated to do shit. You didn't sign anything promising a damn thing. Hell, you didn't even know you GOT a ticket. They are not sent out registered mail, that costs too much. They can't prove that you received it either. This type of ticket pisses me off so much. The fact that they use a fucking camera hooked up to a radar unit because the Cops aren't doing their jobs and the county just wants to get it's greedy little hands on more revenue by praying on the idiocy and scare tactics impressed upon it's citizens is an angering thought indeed. The reason you will probably NEVER hear another thing about any of these tickets is there have been MANY lawsuits against multiple counties across the nation where people have successfully sued them for invasion of privacy, because that’s exactly what photo radar is. They know of these lawsuits and will not press you for fear that you will become angry like the hoards of other people and fight back. Remember, they pray on the naive nature of the few people who are scared into paying the fine.
If you so choose to fight your photo radar ticket (and this also works most of the time), make sure to request ANY of the pictures that were taken. They will usually not send the pictures along with the citation, they learned better to do that after a man sued the county for invasion of privacy when his spouse and him opened a ticket that had pictures of himself and an unknown female passenger "messing around" in the front seat. The wife split apart from her husband, and the husband sued, and he won, a lot...
Statistics indicate that the vast majority of photo radar pictures are illegible in at least ONE of the following three critical categories.
1. Legible license plate number
2. Make and model of the car identifiable
3. Clearly distinguishable driver.
Number three is usually pretty unclear as most windshields have that dark stripe across the top, people drive with hats on, sun visors down, hands are in the way, head is turned, etc. Even if the driver sort of looks like you (and probably is) you can say "Your honor, I don't know who that is in the driver's seat but I'm 100% sure it isn't me." if you get a reply along the lines of "You mean to tell me that’s YOUR car and you don't know who's driving it?" you can reply "exactly...everyone in my family has keys to it, I let my friends use it from time to time, my family members lend it to people on occasion as well for emergencies, or whatnot." I seriously doubt the judge will subpoena everyone in your family, and all your friends, etc. for a speeding ticket.
If you have a truck, leave your tailgate down, you'll get better fuel economy, and it will obstruct your license plate. If you live in a state that does not require a front license plate, take it off. I take mine off even though I'm required to have one on for the simple fact that it’s only a repair violation, and most cops will ignore it anyway. "This is how I got the car officer."
