Speeding

So here you go Bear. The last time I was in court, appeal is pending, the officer mentioned that I was travelling at a marked departure from the other traffic on the road. So, if the only reason I was singled out was due to my relation to other traffic why does the fine and demerit points come down to the base speed of the road. No one else was even close to the limit. I'm not saying everyone else should have been pulled over, but the reasoning has a large hole....... This isn't just for Bear, anyone can weigh in.

Are you saying that you were stopped say 35over and others were at 15over, that your ticket should have been for 20over and not 35 over?

Interesting concept, but what IF another vehicle was then at 20under and your still 35over.....this then makes you a....hmmm....calculator...55 over...how do I say this......doh... STUNT DRIVER

I sometimes use similiar words in testimony, I find it adds to credibility, that yes there were others exceeding the limit, but quite clearly this one was far faster than everyone else. I can only stop one at a time, so I would also take the fastest vehicle

I understand the one at a time stop but, if no one else is stopped eventhough they are above the limit but within a "socially acceptable" tolerance, legally the limit imposed on the road would be the "socially accepted" one.

You as an officer have a direct bearing on the "limit" as it is your discression as to who gets stopped. My main beef about driving is that we, the public, realistically have no consistant expectation of what we are going to see on a day to day basis. I find those driving at the limit to be a hazard, those too far from the limit also a hazard, and yet there is no "one" style or thought pattern that is taught to all. Why?????????

Reflections wrote:

, and yet there is no "one" style or thought pattern that is taught to all. Why?????????

We are all taught the same, but then it goes back to officer discretion of when to stop someone, when to issue and offence or not.

I have my own style and reasons for it.

I generally allow up to 20 over. This allows someones speedometer to be off by 10km/hr and allows that driver to be within 10km/hr of the posted speed limit.

Pass me in a marked patrol vehicle at any speed and you will be stopped every time.

99% of the time, I have used rear antenna radar, clocked the vehicle over my tolerance range, they slow down and "inch by me" then stare dumbfounded when I tell them their speed. Most often a response "when I was passing you I was doing "X" speed. Yeah, radar goes straight out from my driver's door and you slowed down in time

I generally allow up to 20 over.

Is this the case for all officers?????

We are all taught the same

Are we all taught by the same instructor???? When I got my license I did not have to take driver training. I did mind you but what you get out of it is solely upto the instructor. When I took the government exam, we never ever went near the 4-series highways. I am the ripe old age of 32 and still have many years of driving left to do and the graduated system that was introduced has failed miserably. What to do?????

Reflections wrote:

I generally allow up to 20 over.

Is this the case for all officers?????

Not at all. I gave my reasoning for how I use my discretion, I believe it is fair. I also do not drive my personal vehicle OR cruiser outside my own tolerance. Exception while working for priority calls and to catch a violator.

Reflections wrote:

We are all taught the same

We are all taught the same material on the use radar/lidar. How each officer chooses to use their own discretion on whether to stop a vehicle or not is up to them. Further discretion on to lay a charge or not once a vehicle is stopped is still up to the officer.

We are all taught the same material on the use radar/lidar.

I meant as drivers.....

But now that you mention that......the same "incident" I spoke of at the beginning of this thread, I asked the officer how big the lidar beam was at the distance I was measured at. The distance was 431m and my rough calculations make the beam 1.6m in diameter with the lidar unit being an LTI Marksman. The officer could not tell me what size the beam was, could not tell me how accurate the unit is(plus/minus 2 KMH) or even tell me what the maximum operating distance was. Very simple questions if you look at the specifications page of the operators manual. Now, if I had ask you 'bear, I probably would have gotten the answers.

This is a small example that you can use to compare drivers too. How do you begin to compare drivers "trained" in Ontario to say, European, Asian or South American "trained" drivers?? The drivers testing in Ontario is a joke and like my friend says" It's not you I worry about, it's the other guy".

I gave my reasoning for how I use my discretion, I believe it is fair

So what do the rest of the officers at your detachment think is fair???

We have black and white speed limits here in Ontario.......grey enforcement............

it is 30cm per 100m....431m is approx 1.3m wide

(400 = 1.2 and 500 = 1.5, take 1/3 of 100 about 33m give one 1.3m)

The drivers testing in Ontario is a joke and like my friend says" It's not you I worry about, it's the other guy".

Got that right!

So what do the rest of the officers at your detachment think is fair??? We have black and white speed limits here in Ontario.......grey enforcement............

I think every officer in my office would stop someone that passes a marked patrol vehicle.

I can not directly speak for others on their tolerance per se. I do not ride with anyone else to see their style either. Anytime I have stopped with another officer and asked the seen the person stopped, it is always greater than 20 above the limit.

As I'm sure you can appreciate, I would rather stop someone for a higher speed than a lower, in particular where demerit points will be added. We do not have enough officers to stop everyone at 1km over, so where would do we start? Pick off the 105km? 110? etc..

Only option would be to go back to photo radar in moving mode (so people just don't slow down at one point) and ticket every vehicle over the posted limit.

I believe the older marksman has a beam divergence of 3.5 milliradians.

And the laws of Ontario are clearly written, 1 over = XX$. The laws are there but not used.

I can not directly speak for others on their tolerance per se

So, what is the true limit??????????????

And what about that fellow who got charged with mischief for doing 100 on the 401??? I am so confussed

Do the limit, don't do the limit.....slow down in bad weather, slow down in good weather........I'm never driving again. End sarcasm.

I think every officer in my office would stop someone that passes a marked patrol vehicle.

Even if the officer was doing 10 over the PSL in the left lane??????

Reflections wrote:

I think every officer in my office would stop someone that passes a marked patrol vehicle.

Even if the officer was doing 10 over the PSL in the left lane??????

Do not see how/what the difference is if the cruiser is in whatever lane.

hwybear wrote:

...I generally allow up to 20 over...

...I think every officer in my office would stop someone that passes a marked patrol vehicle...

Dilemma: I want to go by a cruiser that is right at the speed limit. If I'm 10 over the limit, he'll stop me after passing him! If he was coming the other way, that same 10-over would have been just fine.

Could there be just a teency weency bit of ego involved when being passed by some dude who has the nerve to pass in the same direction?

I had to feel sorry for the OPP passing through town the other day. Both lanes were pinned to the speed limit because of his presence. In fact, he was boxed in (looked like a queen bee swarmed by workers, LOL) . I had to believe he longed for the "pre-Fantino" days when the OPP just RIPPED through our town, hehe.

Question.

If a car is following another car and the lead car is doing 78 in a 80 zone, and the trailing car passes the lead car in a legal passing zone, what is the speed limit the car doing the passing can do?

Clearly, the car passing can legally pass but hell never accomplish the pass in the space provided if hes only allowed to go 80 kms; which is only two kms faster than the car he is passing?

Is he permitted to go as fast as need be in order to make the pass safely?

technically, 80 is the limit..........black and white laws enforced in a grey way. I work with a lot of American contractors and always the question is " So, what can I get away with up here". Bears response is in line with what I tell them, but there is no guarantee. I would just like to head out on the roads one day, set the cruise and off to my destination, 4-series driving here. Oh, what a day that would be.

The posted speed limit is the legal limit, is the legal limit, no? We're welcome to venture into outlaw-land above the limit, and I imagine all of us do, but that is at our own risk. And passing a marked cruiser who's traveling at the limit ... give your head a shake! It's like in the game of rugby (not football, rugby) where there is a principle: Do whatever you need to do, just don't do it in front of the referee and make him blow his whistle. You can't show a guy up that way -- he has to stop you.

4-series highways, 20 over in the left lane is normal, monday to friday, and moving out of the left lane is the "usual". Saturday and Sunday, WTF. Lets drive whatever speed we want, in whichever lane we want and throw out all the courtesies from the week. I'm willing to put money on the fact that on a per day basis, there are more accidents on the weekend then on weekdays, mostly due to the fact that people who don't drive very often are out on the roads. And apparently at night the speed limit drops even on the extremely well lit 4-series around the GTA, some of which you don't even need head lights to drive at night.

So, if officer O'Rourke wants to drive the limit in the left lane of a 4-series highway, I'll be the first one to call his supervisor with a need for a charge of public mischief.

Just a couple of thoughts, as far as speed tolerance. Here in Toronto, up until very recently, OPP wouldn't stop you unless you were going over 130, sometimes considerably faster. The ones who patrol the 416 start pulling drivers over at 125 km/h.

Toronto Police, unless it was Traffic Services, usually gave drivers 25-30 over. Traffic Services seemed to pull people over at 20+, same for the Ottawa Police, on city streets. Windsor will stop you at 10 over.

Saturday and Sunday, WTF. Lets drive whatever speed we want, in whichever lane we want and throw out all the courtesies from the week. I'm willing to put money on the fact that on a per day basis, there are more accidents on the weekend then on weekdays, mostly due to the fact that people who don't drive very often are out on the roads.

"Sunday drivers." Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!!

One of the rules I always follow is "Keep right except to pass." It's not that hard. In fact, it's more difficult to stay left. You are more likely to become involved in a collision when you're travelling in the left lane, for numerous reasons... but that's a different topic.

Reflections wrote:

4-series highways, 20 over in the left lane is normal.

That is NOT normal in the area I patrol. I just finished 4 shifts (2 days, 2 nights). I think I stopped 10-15 in that time (48hrs) traveling greater than 20 above the speed limit. I had A LOT of sitting and waiting, even on nights sitting in the centre median in darkness....and NO, my eyes were not shut, keep them open, don't want my boston cream to ooze all over

Reflections wrote:

So, if an officer wants to drive the limit in the left lane of a 4-series highway, I'll be the first one to call his supervisor with a need for a charge of public mischief.

Public Mischief is misleading a police officer in an investigation.

We also been put under the microscope on our driving. A vast majority of us have changed our ways on enforcement to moving radar using rear antenna. This way we can patrol at the speed limit, let speeders catch us and clock their speed. This reduces our time spent at higher speeds to catch vehicles. 99% of the time people do not even see the cruiser until they are 2-3 car lengths back anyway. Basically once you see the cruiser, it's too late anyway.

Posted signs say MAXIMUM not minimum.

And to take this into a another "lane" of thought...it is in fact an offence to drive in the centre lane on a 3 lane hwy.

http://www.ontariohighwaytrafficact.com/topic4.html

Please read the following post. There is a link in here that might confuse all of us.

checked out the links and now need a new smilie...

(head spinning)