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Originally Posted by bobcowan
Again, flawed reasoning. To estimate a speed of 130mph, you have to practice at it, even to get within 10% most of the time. How often do you see a MC traveling past you at 130mph? How often does the average motor cop practice estimating that? Probably never. So, clearly, he has no training or experiance in performing that function/duty/task. I am probably more qualified to testify, since I drive that fast on a regular basis, and watch other vehicles do the same. (on the track only).
So now the officer has to testify about something has no training, knowledge, or experiance. And the court just says, "OK"? You find that acceptable? Really?
What does the officer say? "I saw him riding really really fast". And out of what orifice does the officer pull the actual speed from? That's important, because the fine/punishment is based on the speed.
If you want to convict and punish some one for comitting a crime, you have to specify what that crime is. You can't just say that they did one of many possible crimes, and only on the say-so of one guy. That IS unconstitutional.
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How often do you see a MC traveling past you at 130mph?
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Not that it really makes a whole lot of difference, but around here you can see it daily on IH-20, State Hwy. 287, SH 360 or IH-30. It's a huge problem that I'm not exaggerating about!
Bob, the exact wording of the laws are different from state to state. I was using the 130 MPH motorcycle just as an example. Here are a few more of my thoughts.
In my state an officer can pull over a speeding vehicle based on visual estimation too. The point isn't to go out and do speed enforcement without a radar or laser. Sometimes an officer isn't able to get a reading on a vehicle that is clearly going significantly faster than the speed limit, all because of the excessive speed of the vehicle. A vehicle traveling in excess of 100 MPH can be very difficult to shoot with laser/radar, depending on where the officer is set up. The other possibility is that the officer may not even have an electronic speed measuring device in his car.
With that said, it's very easy to tell the difference between a vehicle going 100+ MPH compared to a vehicle traveling 55 MPH..
By having the law allow for visual estimation, the officer is still legally allowed to stop the vehicle, even though no radar/laser verification was used. Please tell me that you would want an officer to be allowed to stop the speeding vehicle! Not allowing for visual estimation would make the stop illegal! I used to made visual estimation type of stops from time to time. I don't remember the break down because it's been many years since I have done speed enforcement, but at some point the fine is the same beyond a certain speed. Something like 30 or 40 MPH over the speed limit. So it really doesn't matter from a fine standpoint if the speed is written at 130 MPH or possibly 90 MPH.
So back to my original statement about the 130 MPH motorcycle. An officer could write the citation for 110 MPH. Who cares if the motorcycle was going 130 MPH, the fine is the same and he clearly had to come back down through 110 MPH as he slowed down.
When it comes to speeds like that on public highways trust me, we want officers to be able to get those people off of the roads before they kill someone and don't want some stupid law from preventing officers from doing their jobs.
Is there a possibility that officers could abuse the visual estimation law? OF COURSE. But then again, if an officer is going to lie, he could just lie and say that he clocked the vehicle with laser/radar too.. All bets are off if the officer is corrupt.
Courts have always recognized an officer's visual estimation as being valid and required for laser/radar citations for the past 28 years that I have been in law enforcement. Requiring officers to visually estimate speeds has always been very important, especially back in the radar days. Based on the way radar works it was always really easy to point the radar at one vehicle going the speed limit and get the reading from another vehicle that was exceeding the speed limit. Visual estimation was the only thing that kept innocent people from getting citations. Do you really want a law that says visual estimation is not allowed and the officer should rely solely on what a radar or laser displays? I hope not!
I guess to make a long story short, I feel there are a couple of reasons why courts give the authority and requirement to make visual estimations.
#1 - It's a important part of speed enforcment even when using an electronic device.
#2 - Officers need to have some legal authority to stop a person driving at excessive unsafe speeds, even if the excessive speed hasn't been confirmed with laser/radar/lidar.
Now, with all of that said, I have now read the above court case. The officer said he estimated the vehicle was travelling at 70 MPH. The radar said 82 MPH. The officer gave the defendant a break and only wrote the defendant for going 79 MPH, to keep it under the 20 MPH over fine. The court found the defendant guilty of 70 MPH since that was the officer's visual estimation. And you guys want to get upset over the court's decision?? lol...