Can Police Give You A Ticket For "Sounding" Too Fast?

[madmom]

....Police can even pull you over based on their observations and cite you for driving too fast - but they can't say they knew how fast you were going based solely on their observations.

Nor would one suspect that a speeding ticket could be supported based on an officer saying he could hear a driver exceeding the speed limit, but that's exactly what happened to Daniel Freitag.

On October 7, 2007 in the Village of West Salem, Ohio, Patrolman Ken Roth was sitting in a marked police car on the shoulder of Route 42. Roth was parked parallel with the flow of traffic, while Daniel Freitag, driving his 2006 Lincoln Navigator, was approaching him from behind. Roth would later say that he could hear the Navigator speeding, even though there was other traffic and Freitag was more than 150 yards away. Roth turned on his Genesis Radar unit and waited. When Freitag was 100-150 yards away, his headlights appeared in Roth's sideview and rearview mirrors. When Freitag passed the patrol car, Roth worked his radar unit and measured Freitag's speed at anywhere from 42 to 46 mph in the 35-mph zone.

Then he followed Freitag and issued a ticket.

Then Freitag, instead of paying the $22 fine and submitting to the 2 points that would have gone on his license, put up a defense stiff enough to impress Rocky.....


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[BakedAtAMileHigh]

1. Cops Can Do Pretty Much Whatever They Want To You

as long as there is no videotape rolling. Get used to it: police brutality isn't just reserved for minorities any more!

[dajoki]

20. I don't trust a single one of them n/t

[NJmaverick]

2. I don't see the point

the article talks about the use of radar measurements.

[Xenotime]

3. People need to learn to respect the law.

[Flaneur]

23. The law needs to learn to respect the people.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

27. That is damn funny to see here...

[CreekDog]

40. You are also in favor of wet water?

:shrug:

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

4. I hear people speeding all the time

I wish someone would pull them over. Cats on my street are becoming roadkill like squirrels.

[Cronus Protagonist]

10. At least some good is coming out of it then. n/t

[mackdaddy]

5. Radar evidence thrown out, and tried to keep only "sounded fast" cop statement.

From the article: "We should note, though, that it has been made to sound like Roth ticketed Freitag solely based on what he heard. That's not the case. Roth ticketed Freitag based on the reading given by his Genesis Radar unit, which registered Freitag's speed as anywhere from 42-46 mph. Freitag exercised his legal rights and got that evidence thrown out. The eyebrows get raised when it takes two trips to court to assess Officer Roth's ability to hear one single car, in traffic, further away than the length of a football field, speeding."

Interesting he got the radar evidence thrown out just because they did not list the radar units model/serial info into evidence.

[jobycom]

6. SUV-driving asshole got the radar evidence thrown out on a technicality and stuck taxpayers

with his legal fees for a crime he committed. The "hearing" argument was used only because the radar evidence was disallowed. I imagine he'll run for president, now, and the Republicans will love him.

Anyone can do that. No ticket would stick if you threw thousands of dollars of lawyer fees at it. There are too many variables, including the fact that by the time the cop has to testify about the ticket, he's written dozens more and never really thought about any of them afterwards. I knew a bunch of cops who routinely saw Michael Dell driving 90 mph or faster in residential areas, but never bothered to ticket him for that reason--he would just hire attorneys and cost the city more than it was worth, and even if he lost a couple of cases it wouldn't affect him any.

So the media turns the guy into a Robin Hood, when he's much closer to Bad King John.

[Fumesucker]

11. The cops know the law, it was the cop's fault the ticket was not written correctly..

The cops are professionals, it is incumbent upon them to follow the letter of the law.

[jobycom]

12. You get a team of lawyers to examine anything you do

and they will prove you didn't do it right. Take your post, for example. If I were an attorney, I'd argue that your whole post had to be thrown out because you used a comma splice in each sentence, and two periods at the end of your first sentence. Doesn't affect your point any at all, but they are technicalities, and in the legal world if I hired enough attorneys I could totally negate your point because of them.

[Fumesucker]

14. I'm not a professional writer..

And this is a fucking post to the internet, not a doctoral dissertation.

It is the cop's responsibility to do his job according to the letter of the law, the same fucking law he holds others to.

[jobycom]

26. That's not the point.

The only reason the ticket was eventually dismissed was because the state during the trial didn't identify the specific model number of the radar gun used to measure his speed. That threw out the only objective evidence, so all that was left was the cop's attempts to bolster his radar evidence with personal observations.

In other words, the cop wasn't claiming he gave the jackass a ticket because he "heard" him speeding or "judged his speed by his headlights." The cop gave him a ticket because the radar gun clocked the vehicle as speeding. During testimony, he was asked questions like "How do you know it was the Navigator your radar clocked as speeding?" and "Could the radar gun have been wrong?" The cop tried to explain that he had witnessed the car speeding, judging by how he heard it and how fast the headlights approached him.

When the radar evidence was thrown out, the only thing left was what the cop had said to bolster the radar evidence. The cop did his job, and did it well, since none of the objections raised by defense were upheld against him. The only objection that was upheld was that the state failed to mention the model number of the radar gun in its case.

In other words, if we tried George W Bush for war crimes, and the evidence showed conclusively that he was guilty, but all the evidence was thrown out because the prosecutor failed to mention which version of Microsoft Word was used to type up the charges, then you've got a parallel.

My point was about your typos--I make tons of them. My point was that an examination can find trivial errors in any case or any situation, even if those errors have nothing to do with the substance of the case.

[Fumesucker]

29. And my point is that whoever was responsible for writing up the case knew the requirements..

They are professionals and should be held to professional standards, whether it is the cop or the state's attorney or whoever it was that failed to do their job properly.

And your parallel is ludicrous unless there is some requirement that what version of MS Word is used to type up the documents is a necessary part of a case.

If the model of the radar gun is not set forth then there might have not even been a radar gun at all, the cop could well be making the whole thing up, it certainly wouldn't be the first time.

And doing 42 in a 35 does not automatically make one a jackass, nor does exercising one's rights in court.

[jobycom]

31. You don't understand the case or what happened.

There was no question about whether the radar gun was used or was real, or even which one was used, only that the state didn't list the model number in their official case. It was only a technical point the attorney raised, and one I'm sure he expected to fail, too. The parallel I used was accurate, because the model number of the radar gun was no more relevant than the version of the word processor to the case. It was simply a distraction the attorney threw in to earn his keep. He was probably more surprised than anyone when it worked.

And 46 in a 35 in a huge SUV that can't stop or steer as quickly as a car does make one an asshole.

[Fumesucker]

39. You sure have a low threshold for assholedom..

I'd be very surprised if you have never exceeded the speed limit by eleven miles per hour.

And it is still the professional's responsibility to do their job properly, nothing you have said changes my opinion on this one iota.

[TexasObserver]

32. It's called The Bill of Rights. You should read it some time.

Also, you might want to read up on the Democratic party and find out who we are. We aren't the prosecutors. We're the defense lawyers. We're not the cops. We're the civil liberties lawyers.

Every right you have, every right you hold dear, has been protected hundreds or thousands of times by the same lawyers you can't stop yourself from maligning.

[jobycom]

35. What part of the Bill of Rights do you think he was defending?

Another rich Republican gets over on the law to make a mockery of the judicial system while the poor have to suffer for it, and you think that's a Democratic value? You're in the wrong place.

[TexasObserver]

38. You draw conclusions are unsupported by evidence.

This is about the rule of law. It's about requiring prosecutors and police to get it right.

You don't know if the man was really going 46 mph. You only know that a cop and a prosecutor said so. You don't know if this was even the machine used by the policeman. It may not have been. Did it ever occur to you that they might have listed the "wrong" serial number because it wasn't even this machine? Like most police lap dogs, you believe everything as gospel the police say. Fortunately, we strike for cause such biased jurors, and they don't get to sit on trials.

There's a reason we don't allow them to "sort of" get it right and call that fine. Such a practice would allow evidence to come in that was not supported by proper conduct by the police or prosecutor.

As I said, every right that you have is there because of lawyers like the ones you can't stand.

[jobycom]

41. I won't even get into how ridiculously wrong your personal attacks on me are.

I just don't respect you enough to give a shit after that tirade. But you ought to pay a little attention to what happened. Rich SUV Bubba filed a junk appeal full of nonsense. There was no question of what radar gun was used, nor was there a question about whether Bubba was speeding. The only issue was that the state's legal team didn't include the model number of the exact radar gun used. They didn't record the wrong one, they just didn't include the model of the one they did use. This was not required information, and the defense wasn't arguing that the radar gun was wrong, just that the number wasn't included in their initial paperwork and therefore the radar gun shouldn't be allowed in the court case as evidence. That would be like throwing out a murder conviction because the lawyer didn't include the model of the patrol car used to arrest the suspect.

Every time some rich jackass mocks the Bill of Rights like this, Jesus kills a baby kitten. Worse, it undermines the serious, legitimate cases defense attorneys represent by making all such objections trivial. This wasn't a case of someone not being told his rights, or of illegal search and seizure, or self incrimination, or denial of the right to face an accuser or cross examination, or any constitutional right expressed or implied. This was a legal team scouring a document until they could create a technical flaw, and in so doing making a joke of every serious attempt to defend a person's rights in court. This is exactly the same as when a white male tries to sue for job discrimination because a black woman got a job he applied for and felt he deserved, only in this case he got away with it.

Whatever. Support the rich Republican trying to sound like Rosa Parks. I know all I ever need to about you. I won't bother with this anymore.

[TexasObserver]

42. Stop acting like you're a victim. I corrected your silly notions.

You rant about lawyers every time the topic comes up.

Do you know which side of the legal docket Democrats live? Clearly you don't.

[OnyxCollie]

7. My friend got a ticket for accelerating to the speed limit too quickly.

[jobycom]

13. That's a crime in most places.

It's in the handbook I've been using to teach my kid to drive here in Texas.

[EOTE]

17. So what is the limit for feet per second per second in terms of accelerating?

Is it completely subjective or are there actual guidelines in terms of how fast you can accelerate? If there are guidelines, would you then need an accelerometer in your car? Is it instantaneous acceleration or is it averaged? There are so many things wrong with that, I can't even begin to list them all.

[jobycom]

21. Yeah, I agree with all that. Just saying, it is a law on the books in most places.

It's like Reckless Driving. You can't really measure it, but they can still write a ticket for it. It's part of what I was saying above, that you could get any traffic ticket dismissed if you are willing to pay 20K in legal fees to avoid a defensive driving course and a $30 administrative fee.

[EOTE]

22. I don't understand how any subjective law is enforced.

Won't it simply be your word against the cop's? Would the cop always get the benefit of the doubt? If the cop had actually tried to give me a ticket for that rather than a warning, I would have fought it tooth and nail.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

37. They manage to do it for porn

:sarcasm:

[EOTE]

16. I got stopped for "unnecessary acceleration" as well.

My jaw dropped when I hear the cop tell me why he stopped me. He said that I pulled away from the stop sign too quickly and he noticed a lot of "unnecessary acceleration". I was absolutely flummoxed. Did he have an accelerometer trained on me or something? So I said to him "Just exactly how many feet per second per second was I accelerating?" As expected, I got a blank stare in return. After waiting a bit for a response, I said "If you're going to tell me I was accelerating unnecessarily, you should be able to tell me how fast I was accelerating, right?" He gave me a blank look again and then yelled at me a bit before letting me off with a warning. I can't see how this is legal at all, just how the fuck are you supposed to determine your own rate of acceleration? Is it completely subjective? Are you required to have an accelerometer in your car? What incredible bullshit. I've read stories about others getting tickets for accelerating too fast, but I can't imagine the bulk of them stand up in court.

[Winterblues]

8. I once received a ticket for "exhibition of speed" for just rapping my pipes.

Wasn't moving at all. Just making a bunch of noise..:shrug:

[JuniperLea]

15. There are fancy neighborhoods in So Cal that have vehicle noise restrictions...

Ocean Blvd., in the Bluff Park neighborhood of Long Beach has it posted, and the bikers take heed because the fines are mighty stiff. I don't blame them. I don't want engines roaring and pipes rattling outside my house either.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

28. Those laws are an attempt to ban motorcycles, not noise reductions

There are several areas like that in SoCal. One of them is a preferred route for me. Motorcycles are my primary means of transportation. I have stock pipes, stamped and everything. I also had my bike(s) tested and they are well within compliance levels. I have been stopped there often enough that the beat cops know me and we wave at each other, thought it was somewhat acrimonious at first

[JuniperLea]

30. Judging by the number of Harleys in the garages on that street...

I don't think so. It's doctor and lawyer row... and they drove them to city council meetings to lobby for the new civil codes.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

33. Not in all the areas...most of the time its NIMBY against motorcycles

Some of the summer communities in the Outer Banks have tried that to ban all motorcycles. There are other examples.

The real issue is cruiser riders who want that special sound that really does not help the pathetic performance of their bikes. Clearly I am with the "loud pipes lose rights" crowd.

[HopeHoops]

9. My first car was notorious for blowing out the doughnut gasket (connects exhaust to engine).

The part cost about $1.00 and took me a couple of hours to install because the bolts were ALWAYS rusted tight.

Anyway, the gasket was shot, I was speeding (16 years old), and I cut through a 7-11 parking lot at far too high a speed. I got out on the main road and three police cars converged on me from multiple directions. The cop came up to my window and I asked, "Did you hear me or smell me."

He answered, "Oh, we heard you - about a mile away." I got off with a repair warrant for the doughnut gasket and a warning for reckless driving.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

18. "Just A Technicality"

I love how people use this phrase in contempt. It was "just a technicality." Just remember, that when people sneer the word "technicality" through their teeth, the word means "the Constitution." Yeah, just a technicality. Just the Constitution. That little, meaningless thing. The radar evidence was suppressed because the police officer violated one of YOUR Constitutionally-guaranteed rights. Trust me, it had absolutely NOTHING to do with the cop finishing a sentence with two periods. If you want to start giving up your rights, it won't be long until you don't have any anymore. There are people out there who are hunky-dorey with having their phones tapped without a warrant too because they think it makes them safer. And they're equally as foolish.

And speaking as one those evil lawyers who does nothing but sit around and all day and think up innovative ways to put criminals back on the streets, I can tell you that when police officers do their jobs correctly, the way they've been trained to do it, there's not a thing I or any one of my colleagues can do to negate it. I'm sorry, but that post reeks of the kind of thinking that has caused the public to rush to the defense of bad doctors who injure and kill people while hating the lawyers who sue them to hold them accountable for their mistakes.

[Shagbark Hickory]

19. That's right... it's called "Driving Too Fast For Conditions."

[Greyhound]

24. They can do whatever they want, this is the Fascist States of America after all.

Where did you think you lived?

[Papagoose]

25. $22 fine?

Wow - I've only been ticketed once, about 20 years ago. I was clocked 10 miles over the posted limit and got fined almost $300.

[derby378]

34. Our cops ALWAYS use radar guns (n/t)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

36. Many are have gone to LADAR

The radar detectors and other counter measures had gotten too effective.

Last area I lived in the cops were livid when they finally found out about text messages being used to identify enforcement areas. It was about the only way to beat LADAR at the time.

[ThoughtCriminal]

43. Sonic Booms are a give-away

try to keep it under Mach 1.