I have only fought ONE speeding ticket in my life, the rest I just plead guilty to and let the court choose the punishment. I have been very lucky in that all were deemed supervision and I was let off.
As for the ticket I fought? I won. Why did I win? Mistake on the officers part, not that I wasn't speeding.
I was given a speeding ticket for 85 in a 55mph zone. It was late at night, and the car in front of me was burning oil. There were't any exits and I didn't want to smell it for another 10 miles. The car was about 3-400 feet in front of me so I rolled onto the gas passed him, let off and coasted back down to the 65mph I had been doing.
As I was costing back down I saw a car come flying up from way behind, as soon as it caught me the lights came on and I realized it was a cop.
The officer wrote me a ticket for 85mph in a 55mph zone, and the method stated was "Pace".
Well the problem with pacing is that the officer is required to match your vehicle speed. They can't simply guess how much faster you are going than their speedo. And for a human to give a good estimate via pacing they must be fairly close so they can just distance better, espeically at night when there are less visual references.
They officer wrote 85mph because she had to "go 90mph to catch me". Based on that I was able to prove that the officer never matched my speed because while I was decelerating from passing, she was accelerating to catch me from several hundred feet back.
Now, was I doing 85mph? I would say I might have gotten close to it. 65-85mph isn't anything to any decent V8 power car, even in overdrive. But since the stated speed was 85mph, and the officer couldn't prove I was doing 85mph with any degree of confidence the court had no evidence to support the case and it was dismissed.
Lucky me. Had the officer used LIDAR or RADAR, it would have been much more difficult to defeat, maybe impossible as I would have had to bring up the LIDAR/RADAR calibration, and determine if the officer used the equipment correctly. I'm no lawyer, and I'm not savvy enough to do that.
As for the ticket I fought? I won. Why did I win? Mistake on the officers part, not that I wasn't speeding.
I was given a speeding ticket for 85 in a 55mph zone. It was late at night, and the car in front of me was burning oil. There were't any exits and I didn't want to smell it for another 10 miles. The car was about 3-400 feet in front of me so I rolled onto the gas passed him, let off and coasted back down to the 65mph I had been doing.
As I was costing back down I saw a car come flying up from way behind, as soon as it caught me the lights came on and I realized it was a cop.
The officer wrote me a ticket for 85mph in a 55mph zone, and the method stated was "Pace".
Well the problem with pacing is that the officer is required to match your vehicle speed. They can't simply guess how much faster you are going than their speedo. And for a human to give a good estimate via pacing they must be fairly close so they can just distance better, espeically at night when there are less visual references.
They officer wrote 85mph because she had to "go 90mph to catch me". Based on that I was able to prove that the officer never matched my speed because while I was decelerating from passing, she was accelerating to catch me from several hundred feet back.
Now, was I doing 85mph? I would say I might have gotten close to it. 65-85mph isn't anything to any decent V8 power car, even in overdrive. But since the stated speed was 85mph, and the officer couldn't prove I was doing 85mph with any degree of confidence the court had no evidence to support the case and it was dismissed.
Lucky me. Had the officer used LIDAR or RADAR, it would have been much more difficult to defeat, maybe impossible as I would have had to bring up the LIDAR/RADAR calibration, and determine if the officer used the equipment correctly. I'm no lawyer, and I'm not savvy enough to do that.
, I could really care less who he is, it's actually probably better than I don't know
