"Pacing" is really heresay, no real hard evidence. If he were pacing you, then he should get a ticket too. He just admitted his own guilt. Infact, in order to pace you, he would have had to approach you at a much higher speed in the first place (be doing over 80mph himself). The 70 mph would have been judged by his speedo and who can say it is accurate anyways. It is simply his word against yours. But 99% of the time, the Judge will take his word for it just because of $$$.

 

This was commented on in post #50 and answered in posts #51 through #57, DonJames.....Where've you been?.....

Courts use "reasonableness" when asking and answering questions like this.....And "reasonable" decisions are dictated by the knowledge that you have to speed to catch up to a person who is speeding......

The "speedos" are regularly tested by certified calibration (the cars are "garaged" every 3000 miles).......And the "reasonableness" discretion factor from the court might give a + or - error factor in a "speedo" of 5mph......So that if I "paced" a speeder in a 55-zone going 75..........a "minus" factor of 5mph still means that the speeder was going at least 15 over the limit.......

You can say it ain't right, or whatever.....I'm just speaking from personal knowledge and having had to sit on the stand when a "pace" ticket is challenged by an attorney....I've won every time.......

 

If you get a photo radar speeding ticket in my town and you have the local radio station's bumper sticker clearly visable in the photo - you send it in to the radio station and they will pay the fine for you !!!
Sweet deal

 

LEO speech? I wasn't a LEO in the military... I was Infantry in the military.. Kinda wondering where you came up with me being an MP..

Hmmm


You are just something else you know that... Your not even worth giving an answer to.. Its alright.. I'll remember this little bit when your begging a few days down the road for a "Friend" to help you get something.. Then again you must be a mute who doesn't socialize seeing as your first to badger because I have friends in high places.. Or your one of those who grew up in a social class that didn't bring friends in high places to you.. Either way your a waste of my time and my opinions.. So if you have a problem with the way I run my life.. Then leave your bull**** at the door and go elsewhere.. Because frankly myself or anyone else here doesn't really care to hear what you say.


Nope.. Buddy who saw the cop come out of a side street was not a LEO..

----


And just to clear up any confusion here.. I'll do what I have to.. If you don't like it.. Then so be it.. But sadly in Texas, we don't take kindly to unfair judgement and this my friends is unfair judgement.. If your afraid to fight in your own state, then thats your business.. But ask any true Texan.. You don't sit back and let the law take you, you take the law..

 

<TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width="100%">right, you were an 11B...from our PM's, thought you were doing some MP work while back in the states...or you at least had a lot of friends in LEO.

Roger. sorry about that.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

Damn guys......Sorry this thread went downhill like this......I just tried to put in a few comments based on my own experiences as a cop......and what I said earlier, Storm, still applies....Hope it goes well with you, and yes.....do what YOU feel best.....Hell, that's what I tell people that get tickets from me.......send in the check, or show up and plead guilty, or show up and DON'T plead guilty (with or without a lawyer), or take the 4-hr class and get a PJC and keep the points off of their driving record. And for the member that lauded the radar cameras.....They don't get those choices....They just get a letter and payment envelope in the mail saying they were speeding and to just pay the fine (no contact with the law.....no recourse if innocent)....And THEY are set up to generate revenue....nothing more......Police departments don't get money for the tickets THEY write....That goes to the courts and the schools......

I was an MP once upon a time.....Guys that are in the military now usually get a break from me....Unless what they did was so egregious that I HAVE to take action.....Cut a guy a break about a month ago......Just got back from the Middle East......On leave.....Marrying his fiancee (who was in the car)......well, THAT soldier did NOT end up eating a citation and court judgment, and I wished him well and thanked him for joining up after 9-11 (he joined in 2002)........

In the end...yes....it's your own responsibility what happened.....but I believe that you already know this, and you were merely asking for advice on "fight" or "don't fight".......

Good Luck to you, Storm....

 

Storm,
I am a big believer that people must take responsibility for their actions. If this Cop did indeed profile you and pull you over without due cause or evidence then it should be dealt with. If you go to court and win you can throw it back at the police department and if this guy is indeed a bad Cop as you say then this ***** should have a history stacking up against him and something can be done. Go through the back channels I guarantee this guy will find you in the future again and attempt to take a bigger swipe out of you. Besides that way just contributes to a broken system, as it becomes an accepted practice.

 

Ok.... since nobody but Storm knows the answer to this question... the cop may have had a good idea of how fast he was going, maybe have even paced it to a "t". But, either way, Storm if you were speeding you were speeding. If you weren't you weren't. All I gots to say is that it ain't gonna be me having to stand before God one day and give an account of this one!!!!! This thread has really outlived its usefulness and now is really dumb... I say close it.... this isn't between anyone but Storm and the cop and the judge. None of our business... nor should it be. It is a nice way to get an idea of what people think about the law though. I have one ticket... a DUI... I damn deserved it too, just like anyone else who breaks the law... even if only 1 mph over the limit. Speeding is speeding. Laws were not meant to be broken, but to govern a body of people. I respect the law and the brave men and women who risk their lives every day keeping those laws in tact. This speeding thing is really a minute point.... we really should be worried about all the thefts of SD trucks, and how this summer that number is going to sky rocket... just watch, we haven't seen anything yet!!

 

the theft of SD's will drop due to the rise in gas prices

 

That's why it's good to own a gasser in times like these!!! Theives stay away from my V-10 because they couldn't even drive it half a mile before needing to fill up again... they know they would be caught by me... on foot.... Theives target diesel pickups from what I've read/seen/heard because of the better mileage and ruggedness thereof. There has been another scandal plaguing Alabama as of late... and that is licence plate theft. People are stealing licence plates and putting them on their own car then going to gas stations and driving off after filling up... yeah, supposedly it's a big to do from the illegal immigrant sector here in Birmingham... have caught MANY of them stealing plates and using them for this purpose... so guys, protect your plates!!

 

EXACTLY!!! And the Judge knows this. This is why it is next to impossible to win a case against a cop. Here in America it is not about right or wrong, its about the allmighty dollar!

One example. In the March 2006 Popular Mechanics (PM) magazine there was an article on the stoplight cameras. It would take a picture of your car license when you run a red light. PM stated it was interesting that in a certain town (Maryland) the stoplights that did not have the camera had a 4 second yellow light, stoplights that had the cameras had a 2 second yellow light. They stated that wrecks at camera occupied stoplights have 140% more wrecks then non-camera stoplights, due to the fact that people are slamming on their brakes to avoid getting a ticket and thus being rear-ended. PM stated that this was done all because of increasing revenue for the city, which is all that really matters, obviously. Sadly enough, after a few revenue donations a driver makes, his insurance donations increases as well.

 

Well, then is it not easy to just not run a yellow light? Or are we always such a hurry to get everywhere... a law is a law!! I find myself rushing to get nowhere fast from time to time... but maybe we should just obey the law. If the government made the fines for running a red light $5000 a pop, it may not be fair... but it's the LAW, and we have to obey it no matter how much we hate it... there can be NO special allowances or favoritism... what's illegal for one person MUST be illegal for the next. Sometimes you just gotta step up to the plate and say... ok yeah, I screwed up. I recently was in Germantown, TN for business.... got held up at a LOnnngggggg red light for 4 minutes... it didn't change, so I straight up ran it... didn't change even after I went through the intersection. It was at 6:30 AM and no one was around or in sight.... Yeah, well... I received a $50 ticket through the mail... it didn't matter that the light didn't change for me, with no one around!! I still ran the light, I deserved every bit of that $50 fine. So, I sucked it up... got pissed for a minute, then blamed myself and sent the $50 check to the Germantown PD. Blah!

 

Worst ticket I have ever had was for doing 118 mph on I 5 in Tacoma in 1984 on a kawasaki gpz1100 they chased me for at least a mile before i knew they were there.
626.00 towed my bike and talked alot about tossing me in jail. if I had done that now i would be in jail. it cost me the 626.00 and 125.00 to get the bike out of impound.
I'm thinking i'm to old for that now

 

In my town they do profile. I have perfect prove of it. My truck does not look like some 20 year old would have. Too much money they say. Now my buddies car, yes it does, its a contour with some rims and some other stuff that makes it LOOK fast, and his front window is tinted 35%. I have 5% limo tint on my windows, they are black on the outside, haha you cant see me. I have a license plate cover which makes it hard to see the plate. My truck is over height and is much louder than my buddies contour. Basically its got enough stuff done, its a rollling ticket on wheels. Now the point to all of this is, he has gotten pulled over way more than i have, and the funnier part is i have gotten pulled over one time in that town, and it was for over height and tint. Showed the prescrip(sensative eyes to light, i actually do need it), and instead of being an jerk mabout it, he had me get out and explained why my truck was too tall, and gave me suggestions on how to PREVENT getting pulled over again for it. No ticket, and the cop i belive was doing his job. My buddy gets pulled over, pulling out of a gas station not even a half a block after he leaves, its 3:30am and the cop stated he was speeding. Now it is pshyically impossible for that car to have been going that fast by the time he got pulled over, only a funny car could have done it. My buddy says how was a speeding its not even far enough to get up to the speed limit? The cop then goes "you want to be a smartA## about it give me that ticket" goes back and writes a careless driving. Now note this story is about how he was speeding on a particular road. He goes to court to fight it and the story changed from road to parking lot. He wasnt speeding at all the point is, it looked like a kids car that goes fast, he gets wheeled. Another sad part of the truth is, if cars are on a back road after 9pm they get pulled over, reason they dont need one now. I thought it was wierd, I live down a dirt road, and i take mostly dirt to get to my house from the town. Never gotten pulled over, i have even been followed by a police officer, never pulled me over. Have I seen cops pulling over POS cars with alot of stickers in the back window, YES. Once again profiling. The state police that around here are a different story, they are like hawks. You can't slip by them doing anything wrong. I just roll down the windows when i pass by them, prevents the thing with the tint from even happening. I do speed from time to time, i got a radar detector that works, but if im in the city, i will NOT speed, only on the interstate like everyone else does.

Back to the ticket problem. I always take my tickets to court, 4 times to be exact, and all four times either dismissed or dropped to a lesser charge. One time i took a lawyer, because i got a reckless driving, and if i did not get out of that somehow, i would have had no liceance for awhile. Got it knocked down to careless and i had to go to the defence driving school(slept through the whole thing and still passed it lol). I must say, first ticket at the age of 25 thats awesome! F-250onfire, lighten up a bit man.

 

This one has had its fill guys. It'd make a decent topic in the Gen. Discussion or Club FTE sections, I'm sure.

Closed at request of OP.