LEOs chime in!

[SBSPEED3]

(five-0)(five-0)(five-0)
alright, i have some questions about speed sensing equipment.
talking with some buddys the otherday, we got on the subject of speeding tickets. somebody suggested that it was easy to get out of a speeding ticket because the procedures for certifying and calibrating things like radar/laser guns are so strict that many guns are not up-to-date on their certifications. someone else brought up the point that in order for the radar/laser evidence to be submissible, the road must have been surveyed and approved for said equipment within a year of the offense date.

i was just wondering if any of the officers on here were willing to debunk some of these ideas.
(five-0)(five-0)(five-0)
BTW i am in no way encouraging or suggesting that it is ok to speed or drive dangerously, i am simply curious about the calibration process, and how controled the use of speed equipment really is.

 

[Sport6]

By the title at first I was thinking you were looking for your horoscope or dating advice.

 

[BillTheCat]

These things will likely vary from state to state. But a high school teacher I had was a former NY State Trooper and said that in NY, you can request to see both the calibration records of the hardware in use and the officer's certification for use of said hardware. Both must be renewed on a regular basis (yearly, if I remember correctly) and tickets issued when out of certification are regularly overturned. Apparently, many troopers didn't like taking what amounted to an entire day to get themselves and their equipment recertified, so it wasn't entirely unusual to beat a ticket with this strategy.

Again, though... the rules & regulations are probably different for every jurisdiction.

That bit about the road being surveyed & approved for speed sensing equipment yearly? I seriously doubt that. Every state, county, city and town in the country would have to have (highly paid) full-time survey crews out 24/7/365 to keep up with that, or 98% of speeding tickets would be bogus. I call shenanigans.

 

[SBSPEED3]

That bit about the road being surveyed & approved for speed sensing equipment yearly? I seriously doubt that. Every state, county, city and town in the country would have to have (highly paid) full-time survey crews out 24/7/365 to keep up with that, or 98% of speeding tickets would be bogus. I call shenanigans.

thats what i figured as well.

 

[oaklandopen]

you can calibrate a radar in seconds. my uncle is an officer in port st. lucie FL and he showed me how to do it. and he has to callibrate it every morning before going on duty

there are 2 tuning forks he uses, they each are a different speed (i think like 25 and 35mph or something like that). if you know what they are and how to use it all you do is slap it and hold it in front of the radar. if the radar shows the correct speed you're good. if not then i think he can callibrate it right there

don't know how a laser is done, or if it really even needs callibration at all (besides wiping off the lens to get a clear shot)

 

[///M Compact]

The prosecution's burden of proof varies from state to state. WRT to radar, the tuning fork procedure is more properly called a test, not a calibration. You have a better shot at proving that the LEO hasn't been trained and certified to operate the speed measuring device in question. I used to work traffic court and a lot of the smaller municipalities don't require their officers to obtain the proper training- due to either ignorance or negligence.