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California Family Bets GPS Trumps Radar, Will Help Beat Teen's Ticket.
Given the option of contesting a traffic ticket, most motorists 19 out of 20 by some estimates would rather pay up than pit their word against a police officer's in court.
A retired sheriff's deputy nevertheless hopes to beat the long odds of the law by setting the performance of a police officer's radar gun against the accuracy of the GPS tracking device he installed in his teenage stepson's car.
I wouldn't think this would be a very accurate way to measure speed. The GPS unit in that car, in ideal conditions, has about 5 meters worth of error. In reality it is probably closer to 15 meters.
Quote:
"Radar is a pretty good tool, but it's not an infallible tool," said Rude, who spent 31 years in law enforcement. "With the GPS tracker, there is no doubt about it. There is no human interference."
This guy doesn't know what he's talking about; there is certainly doubt about it. Maybe not human interference, but interference from other sources. GPS accuracy is subject to a lot of potential distortion: signals bouncing off buildings and trees, too few satellites overhead at a given time, ionospheric distortion, clock errors, etc.
This will be interesting as well. Police radar are notoriusly innacurate as well, but at least they are calibrated within a certain error range. It's going to be tough to prove the officers radar was off by 15MPH or 30% however assuming it's a competent department with trained radar users and calibrated equipment (rather than Barney Fife using a second hand X 80's era radar, clocking trees going 80MPH, which has happened).
Dad will have to hire some pro's to validate the accuracy of GPS, and then it will be the pro's error rate calculation word against the police department's. I doubt Dad will win.
Since the "radar" used by law enforcement has been established in the courts as an accepted means of speed verification even with all it's known faults, I doubt that the GPS will be enough to discredit the ticket.
The burden will still fall upon the teen to disprove the accuracy of the radar itself that day ... improper use, improper calibration, not following protocol for verifying accuracy after writing a ticket, etc.
Otherwise, the court will go with an officer with a legally accepted means of verifying speed for a citation. That's more important to the court than your speedometer or any other means you've got to measure your speed.
Since the "radar" used by law enforcement has been established in the courts as an accepted means of speed verification even with all it's known faults, I doubt that the GPS will be enough to discredit the ticket.
The burden will still fall upon the teen to disprove the accuracy of the radar itself that day ... improper use, improper calibration, not following protocol for verifying accuracy after writing a ticket, etc.
Otherwise, the court will go with an officer with a legally accepted means of verifying speed for a citation. That's more important to the court than your speedometer or any other means you've got to measure your speed.
Your right when it comes to the courts accepting speed verification by radar. I'll take it one step further (at least in New Jersey). The estimation of speed is one of the most critical points that a Police Officer can testify to in a court when it comes to a trial for a summons issued for speeding. Perhaps the G.P.S. manufacturers will now lobby the states to have their equipment certified as speed measuring devices as well.
Alot of companies are going to step up to the challenge!
My father works for Terminex and they track everyone's speed through a PDA. That thing is very accurate. Guys get fired all the time for speeding.
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Alot of companies are going to step up to the challenge!
