Hi all

I am new to this forum, and have a couple of questions.

I have noticed in speeding trials that police officers always testify that they visually observed the vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed (sometimes they state what their estimate was) and then they turned on the radar and confirmed this high rate of speed...(funny, its almost always the same as the radar speed - but I digresss)

So my first question is: Why do they have to testify that they "observed" the vehicle first....before they activated the radar. Can't they have the radar on all the time? Or is this tantamount to an illegal search by operating it all the time without reasonable or probable grounds???

My second question is: Can an officer really testify that while driving in the opposite direction of a vehicle with closing speeds of equal to or greater than 160km/h that they can visually pick out a "speeding" vehicle?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Paul

Nothing magical there PaulinCanada.

Courts have recognized that when you do this daily over the course of years you get good at estimating and really anybody can develop the skill...

After 2-3 months on the job I was almost always bang on...I'd estimate 100 km/h and activate the radar 103km/h.

The reason courts prefer officers make their observations before activating the radar is so that the observation is considered independent, the radar merely confirms the speeding and gives the accurate reading.

The observation you've made re: How can they do this with car speeds differentials being 160km/h...simply put, they do it 100 times a day, it's a skill you could develop if you had a radar to confirm your estimates, eventually you'd get better at it...in fact after 22 years I am usually on with 1 or 2 kilometres...

Actually if they were to solely rely on the radar it would not carry much weight. Simply because a machine can be WRONG. They have the officer state that he 'believed' that the vehicle was going at a high speed to have an actual witness to the alleged 'crime'. Only a man or woman can bring a complaint into court, A piece of radar equipment is unable to speak or calculate and can only relay as much as it is programmed to relay.

Therefore it is not without premeditated thought that they approached the alleged 'crime' of speeding this way.

siriusone wrote:

Actually if they were to solely rely on the radar it would not carry much weight. Simply because a machine can be WRONG. They have the officer state that he 'believed' that the vehicle was going at a high speed to have an actual witness to the alleged 'crime'. Only a man or woman can bring a complaint into court, A piece of radar equipment is unable to speak or calculate and can only relay as much as it is programmed to relay. .

- the "machine" you speak of is not wrong

- speeding is NOT part of the Criminal Code

- radar does make calculations

hwybear wrote:

siriusone wrote:

Actually if they were to solely rely on the radar it would not carry much weight. Simply because a machine can be WRONG. They have the officer state that he 'believed' that the vehicle was going at a high speed to have an actual witness to the alleged 'crime'. Only a man or woman can bring a complaint into court, A piece of radar equipment is unable to speak or calculate and can only relay as much as it is programmed to relay. .

- the "machine" you speak of is not wrong

- speeding is NOT part of the Criminal Code

- radar does make calculations

You cannot guarantee that radar is infallible !

Commercial courts ie traffic courts are quasi courts apparently. This would mean that they are either quasi civil or quasi criminal as there are no other types of case. Civil courts are based on contracts and Criminal courts are based on harm loss injury. Therefore which quasi court do you think speeding falls into?

FYI Quasi means 'almost'

Radar may show its readings of speed but courts are there for people not radar machines, as I said earlier a radar machine cannot bring a claim to court it is an inanimate object.

siriusone wrote:

You cannot guarantee that radar is infallible !.

I have never ever seen an inaccurate reading from the equipment we use.

Of the readings I've had on the radar unit 200 a day, 200 shifts a year, 22 years on the road...I've never once had a single reading that didn't match my observations.

If a radar fails, it doesn't operate, it doesn't register a reading or shows error.

It's like if your hearing starts to fails, you don't start hearing in another language, you just stop hearing...read up on the theory of the radar, it's very educational.

There are cases where stationary objects, bridges come to mind, that will register a speed on radar equipment. I'll see if I can dig that up....

I think what the OP is suggesting is that radar theory is sound but the situation may fool the officer. I.E. multiple vehicles, multiple readings....etc.

No need to dig anything up Reflections, you obviously know the difference. Those that want to question, should learn what they are talking about, prior to grasping at straws.

I've never seen a speeding bridge, but if I do, it's getting a ticket!

FyreStorm wrote:

I've never seen a speeding bridge, but if I do, it's getting a ticket!

Maybe a swinging bridge over a canal, with the wind causing too much wake on the water? Now would we catch that one with a vessel or cruiser...hmmm

I use some fairly sophisticated radar equipment and I've never seen it fail or produce erroneous readings. I've seen plenty of people misread it or not use the controls properly, but the radar doesn't lie.

siriusone wrote:

Commercial courts ie traffic courts are quasi courts apparently. This would mean that they are either quasi civil or quasi criminal as there are no other types of case. Civil courts are based on contracts and Criminal courts are based on harm loss injury. Therefore which quasi court do you think speeding falls into?

This business of traffic courts and traffic being "commerce" and "contracts" is completely fictitious and it does not apply in real life. I've seen people try these sorts of stunts in court (or even trying to "ignore" the court), just like FyreStorm has seen, and they lose every time. Many of them are currently in jail, because they lost, then got their licence suspended, then got caught driving with a suspended licence, etc., and insisted the courts don't have jurisdiction or that they didn't have to get a licence because of some legal argument they made up... then they found out the hard way that the world doesn't work the way they'd believed it did.