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I got a response back for my Freedom of Information Request about "tuning fork test requirements removed from radar manuals" and the request has been approved.
However they have to notify a "third party" that was involved, and if this party does not object, then information will be released in January.
So more wait and see!
Amazing how if tuning forks are so obsolete, there are still sold by Decatur. How is anyone supposed to verify the speed of an oncoming vehicle?
http://www.decaturelectronics.com/produ ... forks.html
Pretty sad, how we can't get operator manuals. I requested disclosure and got only the test procedure, which is a joke. I went to the police station and was told they would not let me read the manual and they couldn't give me a copy due to copyright laws. Said I must contact manufacturer. So I called Decatur...."We are not allowed to give out manuals, but your detachment is free to give you a copy if they want".
This is a shameful abortion of a so called justice system. Legal system maybe, revenue generating system, but it's not justice system when you use tax payer money to purchase equipment and then not allow those tax payers access to it.
For local police, I got the full manual with disclosure when I requested it.
For OPP all I got was the test page. I had to make a freedom of information request to get a copy of the full manual from OPP.
So you better start that process now as it can take a while!
Did you get you request granted?
For local police, yes I got the full manual with disclsoure. For OPP I only got test page and they would not give me the full manual.
But my freedom of information request for the full manual from OPP was granted and I got the full manual that way.
Decatur Genesis II Select Directional Radar Manual Canada Variant Rev 25-Aug-2010
I see. Thanks. Is 2010 is outdated now?
I don't think so. I have not seen or heard of a newer one.
Yep. It's outdated.
CBC did a report on this issue:
I was just told about the CBC report by a co-worker of mine.
I find it funny how two people confirmed what I had said in my earlier post regarding the testing procedure being modified at the request of the "customer" (Ontario)
Note the former OPP officer stating he made the request for this change and the ex employee of Decatur stating they made the change to make the sale.
So, if you are a big enough customer, corporations will bend the rules to please you...
There you have it, the question is, can you use any of this in court? I highly doubt it, unless you are willing to pay the expense of flying the ex Decatur employee up here to stand as expert witness at your trial, CBC report has no legal weight.
Okay so I got a couple letters back from my freedom of information request.
To summarize, it was the OPP who asked Decatur if tuning forks were necessary and Decatur basically said no they are not, so we will remove it from the manual for you.
If anybody wants a copy of what I got, send me a PM and I will send you the PDF file (5 pages).
So the bottom line is, the OPP did not ask them to remove the tuning fork requirement, the people who designed and built the radar indicated that they weren't necessary for testing and removed that requirement themselves?
It is not clear to me if the OPP asked them to remove the requirement or if they volunteered to remove it. From the two letteres I received back in my fredom of information request, they would both appear to point to there being much more communication about the issue, however this was not provided to me.
You can download letters from here:
Why did they not include the OPP correspondence so you can get the whole story?
Well that would be a good question for them to answer as well.
I got only one letter on my first request, so I made a second request and got only the second letter.
It would appear to me that there should be quite a bit more communication regarding this issue, but as always somebody in government is either covering it up or inept at their job.
Are you aware that you can file an appeal for $25.
Yes. I wil probably do that. Was just debating whether I wanted to waste $25 to find out what I already know.
Get the guy in charge of purchasing radar guns for the OPP to the stand.
1) What is the OPP's philosophy with regards to buying radar guns with tuning fork requirements?
2) Does the OPP put pressure on radar gun vendors to drop the tuning fork test?
3) What discussions have the OPP had with regards to tuning fork requirements and why they don't want to have them included in user manuals?
4) Would the OPP ever buy a radar gun from a manufacturer if it had a tuning fork requirement in its user manual?
5) What scientific evidence does the OPP have to show that tuning forks aren't necessary to externally validate the accuracy of radar guns?
6) Who are the experts that were consulted regarding the necessity of tuning fork tests that weren't vendors who had a vested interest in selling radar guns to the OPP?
7) Do you know the failure rate of the radar guns you are buying?
If no, why are you not testing the failure rates of the guns you are buying within the OPP?
If you look at THE LAW ON SPEEDING AND SPEED DETECTION DEVICES 3rd Edition (formerly known in previous editions as THE LAW ON SPEEDING AND RADAR) by A. Shakoor Manraj and Paul D. Haines in Chapter 10 under IMPROPER CALIBRATION, it lays out really nice. (see attached excerpts)
Their comment is that internal test only is NOT sufficient. You also need an external test, that being either tuning forks OR against a vehicle of known speed.
So the problem we have with Decatur handheld radar devices is that they only require the internal test to be done... no tuning forks and no external vehicle... this should be a problem but we have no experts on an appeal yet that have shown this to be necessary.
The problem we have with Decaur vehicle-mounted radar devices is that they require the internal test and an external vehicle speed test, but the courts seem to accept that the vehicles speedometer used for the speed test (usually the patrol car) does NOT need to proven to be accurate. So how can you say the radar is accurate when it was tested against a speedometer that is not proven to be accurate? Just because the radar speed matches the speedometer speed does not mean either are accurate unless one of them has already been proven thru some other method that it is accurate.
Anyways lots of problems with all this, and even if one of us could afford an expert witness which might allow us to win our one speeding charge, you would still need to bring an expert witness in for each and every speeding charge until somebody gets their case up to the appeal level and wins there.
Hypothetical question I do not know the answer to... If you win your trial and get the charge dropped, can you still appeal it in order to get a Judge at appeal level to recognize the expert witness testimony?
Anyways the point I am trying to make is that I am okay with them not using tuning forks IF they test it against a vehicle with an accurate/calibrated speedometer.
Excerpt from book:
No you can't appeal if you win. That's ridiculous.
It seems ridiculous, but should be allowed... How does the average person who can not afford a Supreme Court challenge stand up for everybody else and these court rulings recognized?
If i recall correctly, the Decatur genesis 2 manual states that if there is a difference between the radar speed displayed and the speedometer speed displayed during the test, then the radar should be considered accurate. The radar instructor explained to me that this is because the radar uses Vehicle Interface protocol". He went on to say that VIP means the radar is tied to the cars ECM therefore it doesn't matter what the speedo says. I had several questions that I planned to ask the instructor about this thought process when I put him on the stand but unfortunately the crown dropped the charge. If one spends a little time thinking about this, it begs some questions.
jsherk wrote:
... How does the average person who can not afford a Supreme Court challenge stand up for everybody else and these court rulings recognized?
Haha you can't and that's what they want. The crown would have to screw up royally to allow a trial to proceed in front of a JP if he/she gets the feeling you're on to something. I hope the JP finds me guilty just so we can go to appeal.
rank wrote:
I hope the JP finds me guilty just so we can go to appeal.
Yes exactly... sometimes you want them to mess up so you can take it to appeal to get a point made at that level of court. However if prosecutor is smart and sees what you are doing and thinks there is a chance you might win on appeal, then they will not fight the appeal and just allow you to win it so that none of those issues get brought up, and then you still do not have the appeal level ruling you were trying to get!
rank wrote:
The radar instructor explained to me that this is because the radar uses Vehicle Interface protocol". He went on to say that VIP means the radar is tied to the cars ECM therefore it doesn't matter what the speedo says.
Wow, this is important... I had always assumed that the patrol speed displayed on the radar unit was calculated using the radar itslef.
If the patrol speed on the radar unit is tied to the ECM then of course it will always be almost exactly the same as the speedometer... they are both getting the same number from the cars computer!
This to me is even more of an issue because you still have no way of knowing if the ECM computer reading is accurate or not. So it goes back again to getting calibration/accuracy records of the speedometer (or ECM computer as the case may be).
Again you can not say the radar is accurate because it matches the speedometer/ECM and the speedometer/ECM is accurate because it matched the radar... you need an independent test of one of them to prove it is accurate before you can claim the other is also accurate.
argyll wrote:
No you can't appeal if you win. That's ridiculous.
jsherk wrote:
It seems ridiculous, but should be allowed... How does the average person who can not afford a Supreme Court challenge stand up for everybody else and these court rulings recognized?
So after reading R v Jackson 2015 ONCA 832 (paragraph 45 to 59) I think that you could actually file an appeal even when you win. You would be asking the court to review based on the doctrine of mootness. Something for me to try down the road I guess.
There is no way any speeding charge will make it up to the Supreme Court...The Supreme Court gets to pick and choose what cases it will hear, a speeding charge would be so for down the list it likely would never get heard at that level. There would have to be something so big within that speeding charge that the outcome would have an effect on the whole country...and by big, I don't mean the use of tuning forks, it would have to be a huge charter of rights issue, something that could not be heard / solved at the Ontario Court of Appeal level...I just do not see it happening, ever...
I am talking about Ontario Court of Appeal, not Supreme Court.
"How does the average person who can not afford a Supreme Court challenge stand up for everybody else and these court rulings recognized?" You said Supreme Court...not Ontario Court of Appeal...
And for the record...the patrol speed on the radar IS established by the radar unit itslef, not by the cars speedometer or the V.I.P. (portal, not protocol)