Officer estimates enough for speeding convictions

COLUMBUS: Ohio's highest court has ruled that a person may be convicted of speeding purely if it looked to a police officer that the motorist was going too fast. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an officer's visual estimation of speed is enough to support a conviction if the officer is trained, certified by a training academy, and experienced in watching for speeders.

The court's 5-1 decision says independent verification of a driver's speed is not necessary. The court upheld a lower court's ruling against a driver who challenged a speeding conviction that had been based on testimony from police officer in Copley, 25 miles south of Cleveland. The officer said it appeared to him that the man was driving too fast.

Source

Surely this isnt going to cause any problems, especially since Ohio, like every other state, is having big time financial problems.

The time has come to do away with revenue seeking police departments through any means necessary.

Speeding tickets are easy enough to beat in court, if you use the proper methods (calibration logs and charts for lasers, radars, and speedometers). I bet this will increase in court appearances by off duty officers, and a loss in production from the everyday folks fighting these tickets...

That is if it isn't thrown out immediately.

Here in Louisiana you have to pay different prices for different excesses of speed. Is a police officers eye good enough to tell if im going 5 mph over or 10 mph over? I dont think so. This is rediculious. Our cage is getting smaller and smaller by the day.

MessOnTheFED!

Originally posted by RicketyCricket
Speeding tickets are easy enough to beat in court, if you use the proper methods (calibration logs and charts for lasers, radars, and speedometers). I bet this will increase in court appearances by off duty officers, and a loss in production from the everyday folks fighting these tickets...

That is if it isn't thrown out immediately.

Governments dont care about loss of production, they have one concern and only one concern: Getting our money.

reply to post by brainwrek


A very true statement.

Next they will say that they can ticket you for hate crimes for even looking at them wrong.

They are such good observers now after all.

It is a travesty when the very people who where hired to protect us have turned out to be a bunch of blood sucking leeches doing everything necessary to hold up a corrupted system that makes laws such as this.





[edit on 2-6-2010 by warequalsmurder]

Its always been like that in Australia. It's easy to tell when car is speeding and even what their speed is anyway. No big deal.

reply to post by brainwrek


LOL , I would like to see a Police Officer in the State of Ohio " Guesstimate " a Car going 26 MPH in a 25MPH Zone . Cannot be Done ! This New Law Will be Challenged by Defendants Lawyers in Traffic Court for sure .

[edit on 2-6-2010 by Zanti Misfit]

It would never stand up to a jury trial. Most speeading tickets for moderate speed can always be beat.
1-when and officer stops you he will ask how fast did you think you were going?-never say i dont know-or a little over-----Always say i was doing the speed limit---
2- always ask for the radar model-and the report on its testing----ALL radar detectors do make mistakes so it might have errored when he pointed it at you.
3-- Always ask for a jury trial, people are more likely to let you off then just the judge, since the radar gun does have flaws, and they will be stated in the report on the gun you get from the court. So it is impossable to know if the gun didnt error when the officer pointed it at your car.
Google --never pay a speeding ticket again and you will get a site that you can join of which if you do their list, their way, you are garenteed to get off or they will pay the fine--

My dad, who is a truck driver, told me this week-end that he was told by a friend trucker it had happened to him. They'll strike on 2 points. Save money for not buying the radar guns and rip us off! "Legally"