. . . and then write you a ticket based on their estimate, no further proof needed:
Police don’t need radar to cite you for speeding.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled this morning that an officer trained to estimate speed by sight doesn’t need an electronic gauge to catch speeders.
The 5-1 ruling was a defeat for 27-year-old Akron-area motorist Mark W. Jenney and speeders across the state. Jenney had challenged a visual speed estimate by a Copley police officer, but a trial court and the 9th District Court of Appeals upheld his conviction.
So, Ohio drivers, expect to see your state assess a lot more speeding tickets (a nice form of revenue for the depleted state coffers), now that the police have been given carte blanche. There’s little reason for them not to treat this as a newly imposed tax on drivers: no evidence is required, other than the officer’s estimate, and the court clearly isn’t too worried about the legal implications of this.
As Eric Moretti says:
Hey “Supreme Court Justices” why don’t you guys get this part of what laws are supposed to do through your thick skulls. It’s safe to say that officers might be trained to identify speeds, and they might even be great at it — but it blasts the notion of burden of proof being on the state out of the water. You didn’t just blast it out, you nuked that fish to dry land. There is no factual evidence when officers have the ability to do this, “I think you were going 120 mph.”
Where is the public recourse for police officers who abuse their abilities? We have to take an officer’s (the state) word that we committed a crime? Did you guys even go to law school?
Many moons ago, I was a cop (briefly) and trained in visual speed estimation for working traffic. Radars were new, and very expensive back then (not to mention dangerous to the user, though we didn’t know that yet), so “visual speed estimation” was the norm, something that has been lost to the public as we’re so used to radars.
Back then, I had to have two markers of a known distance apart and a stopwatch. I had to have a diagram of the speed trap, showing all the relationships. I had a table of time-to-speed conversions for the known distance. And I had a log. Clock the car, if it’s below the threshold, reset the stopwatch, wait for the next vehicle. Repeat. If you forget to reset the stopwatch – that’s in the driver’s favor. He’ll have to be going damn fast to get caught then… as in fast enough to turn back time.
I don’t know what the standard is for “trained to visually estimate speed” is in Ohio, but I know the method I described is still in use.
That’s what those white marks in the middle of the lane on highways are for – known distance markers for an aircraft overhead, using a stopwatch and then calling down to a patrol vehicle to pull over a speeder. Though for the costs of aircraft use, I doubt those are being used much for that anymore. I don’t think I’ve seen an aerial speed trap for well over a decade.
Comment by John of Argghhh! — June 9, 2010 @ 08:15
Perhaps I’m being over-generous here, but I’d have assumed if the officer involved in the case in question had any of the items you named (diagram, log, conversion table, stopwatch or other timing device), I think the case wouldn’t have even gone to that court. This sounds, based only on the media coverage, like the court has decided to give police officers a blank cheque for speeding.
I happen to think this is a remarkably bad idea, but I know that lots of folks who’ve never had a speeding ticket will think differently.
Comment by Nicholas — June 9, 2010 @ 12:31
I think ohio government will have to properly explain how visual speed estimation works. maybe then people would be more willing to accept it.
Comment by Penman — June 9, 2010 @ 13:26
Our Constitution ain’t worth the cotton it was written on, anymore.
Quote: “I had to have two markers of a known distance apart and a stopwatch. I had to have a diagram of the speed trap, showing all the relationships. I had a table of time-to-speed conversions for the known distance. And I had a log. Clock the car, if it’s below the threshold, reset the stopwatch, wait for the next vehicle. Repeat. If you forget to reset the stopwatch – that’s in the driver’s favor.”
The above would support a conviction, per a scientific approach. To unconditionally tender evidence based on a visual approximation, without some type of formula (like the above quote) is not enhancing any Ohioan’s quality of life. For example, an individual caught possessing cocaine is not charged until it is tested. Now, let’s change that too. “Hey, the guy had some white powder, which due to my training and experience as a police officer indicated to me that it was, IN FACT, cocaine. So I summarily hung him until dead at the side of the road. Oh, yeah, my probable cause to search his vehicle, was that FACT that he was speeding–I think.”
Comment by Chuck Salter — June 11, 2010 @ 16:01