The following article was written by Theodore Sliwinski, Esq. and can be found on New-Jersey-Lawyers.com
1. How do the police measure a driver’s speed?
Generally, police use the following methods to catch you speeding:
a. A visual estimate. The officer sees your car and estimates how fast you are going.
b. Pacing. The police officer follows your vehicle at the same speed you are traveling and checks the police car’s speedometer to see how fast you are going.
c. Radar. The officer points a radar gun at your car and it calculates your speed.
d. Laser. The officer points a laser gun at your car and it calculates your speed.
2. Why is the concept of hearsay important in challenging a speeding ticket?
Be aware of any hearsay in a speeding case in Municipal Court. In challenging your ticket, you will want to be aware of a key legal rule called “hearsay” that could help your case. The hearsay rule bars any testimony that quotes information from somebody other than the witness. This is sometimes called the “he said” rule because it forbids a witness from testifying to what somebody else said he saw. There is a huge catch to this hearsay rule. You must affirmatively object or the judge will allow the testimony.
Here are the most common scenarios in which a prosecutor is most likely to use hearsay evidence to prove a speed violation:
a. An officer testifies about what another driver told her about your behavior.
b. The officer who wrote your ticket testifies about what another officer told him.
c. Where two officers were in a patrol car, and one of them observed your driving. The officer who did not see your driving may not testify to what the other officer told him about your driving.
d. The prosecutor tries to introduce an absent officer’s police report or other written record into court in place of live testimony. If this should occur, then you should simply object on the basis that it is hearsay. If the officer is not present, then the written report is inadmissible hearsay testimony.
3. What is pacing?
Many speeding tickets are issued from the police officer following or “pacing” a suspected speeder and using his or her own speedometer to clock the suspect’s speed. With this technique, the officer must maintain a constant distance between her vehicle and the suspect’s car long enough to make a reasonably accurate estimate of its speed.
The road configuration where you were busted may help prove inadequate pacing. Hills, curves, traffic lights, and stop signs can all help you prove that an officer did not pace you long enough. For example, an officer following your vehicle a few hundred feet behind will often lose sight of it at a curve, not allowing enough distance to properly pace the vehicle. Similarly, if you were ticketed within 500 feet of starting up from a stop sign or light, the officer will not be able to prove that she paced your car for a reasonable distance.
4. How can pacing be inaccurate?
There are many ways that pacing results can be proven to be inaccurate. The farther back the officer, the less accurate the pace for an accurate “pace.” The officer must keep an equal distance between her car and your car for the entire time you are being paced. The officer’s speedometer reading, after all, means nothing if she is driving faster than you are in an attempt to catch up with you. That’s why an officer is trained to “bumper pace” your car by keeping a constant distance between her front bumper and your rear bumper. Pacing correctly requires both training and good depth perception. Moreover, pacing becomes more difficult the farther behind the officer is from your car. The most accurate pace occurs where the officer is right behind you. However, patrol officers like to remain some distance behind a suspect, to avoid alerting a driver who periodically glances at his rear view and side view mirrors.
Therefore, if you know an officer was close behind you for only a short distance, your best tactic in court is to try to show that the officer’s supposed “pacing” speed was really just a “catch up” speed. You will want to ask the officer the distance over which he tailed you. If he admits it was only a short distance, then it will help your case. Your goal is to use the speeds that the officer testified to for his car while he was pacing you to argue that he used his speed while closing in on you as you were driving under the speed limit…..click here to finish this article
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