Out here in Sonoma County there is a very interesting legal battle going on right now over a speeding ticket. This case is getting national attention and it’s outcome could have a major effect on the future of speeding tickets across the nation.
It all started back on July 4th after 17-year-old Shaun Malone was pulled over on Lakeville Highway in Petaluma after motorcycle officer Steve Johnson used his radar gun to clock Malone’s 2000 Toyota Celica GTS going 62 mph in a 45 mph zone. Malone was given a $190.00 speeding ticket and sent on his way.
However Malone’s family contends that a GPS system they installed in the teen’s car to track his speed shows him driving 45 mph at virtually the exact same time and place where the officer said he was exceeding the speed limit.
Malone’s stepfather happened to be Roger Rude, a retired lieutenant of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department, who served for over 20 years as the area’s law enforcement media spokesperson. Over this time he was able to build up lots of relationships and influence among both law enforcement and the court systems in the area. Thus he knew exactly how to fight this speeding ticket and has decided to turn this case into an expensive legal battle involving local officials, lawyers, and satellite technology experts pitting the newer global positioning system technology installed in his son’s car against the time-tested police radar gun.
This is a rather unusual position for Rude, whose career was spent defending the law.
The citation issued to Malone by Officer Johnson noted that the violation occurred at 7:45 a.m. at Lakeville and South McDowell and that the teen was going 62 mph. The time and location are approximations. In his notes, Johnson noted a spot 400 feet west of South McDowell — but it’s unclear whether that is where he started tracking the car or where he pulled the trigger on the radar gun. Officers are supposed to visually track a vehicle before noting speed with radar, which is supposed to confirm those observations.
Malone’s GPS tracker, timed to record his location every ten seconds, reported that he was going a maximum of 45 mph at 7:43 a.m. The latitude and longitude coordinates placed the Celica about 300 feet west of South McDowell, a difference of 100 feet as noted in the officer’s written description of the encounter.
Lt. Rude said it would have been impossible for his stepson to accelerate or slow 17 mph to equal 62 mph over that short distance. In his affidavit, the former lawman offers several possibilities for the discrepancy in the two accounts, including that the radar gun’s calibration may have been off or that another vehicle may have been caught in the radar’s sights. He also suggests Johnson may have been in a hurry.
Carl Fors, president of Speed Measurement Laboratories Inc., a Fort Worth, Texas-based company that specializes in radar technology, trains police around the country in the use of radar. He said it is subject to both human and technical error. In one notable example, he said an officer he observed using radar clocked a rock going 72 mph. The error was caused by the heater fan blowing air inside the officer’s car. He said the CHP was forced to dismiss a case every few months because the calibrations on the radar gun were off. “I used to have situations where officers in part of the county would pull two or three cars over at once, and it would be difficult for them to sort out who did what to whom,” he said. Some law enforcement agencies now use laser speed detectors, which are more accurate and can reach longer distances. Fors said some models also can take photos to match the targeted vehicle.
Sgt. Tim Lyons, who oversees the traffic unit, said that Officer Johnson has been handling traffic cases for six years and is trained on how to use radar. “He knows how to work traffic and write speeding tickets. I would trust his judgment,” Lyons said. Lyons also questioned the GPS’s accuracy. “GPS can be hampered by cloud cover, power lines, tall trees — almost anything that blocks the signal from the satellites. And there’s nothing to say that the person using it hasn’t tampered with the device.” He also says that there may be more of a delay with GPS than there is with a police officer and his radar gun.
But so long as the sky is clear and the device is working properly, GPS trackers are accurate within 1 mph, said Rick Fry, chief information officer for Rocky Mountain Tracking Inc., a Colorado-based company that supplied Malone’s unit. He said the company’s system is the same the Air Force uses to fly drones. The case has been submitted to Commissioner Carla Bonilla, who will issue a ruling. Malone can appeal that decision.
The case has attracted national attention for potentially setting a precedent for using GPS to contest speeding tickets, which is becoming standard in vehicles as a mapping or tracking device.Legal experts say that this case will most likely be appealed to the State Court System within a few months and has the potential for eventually reaching the Supreme Court.
In the United States, this is the first record of this GPS technology being used to this extent to fight a speeding ticket. If Malone wins this case, it may mean that GPS devices can be used in future cases to contest speeding tickets in court. The ruling in the case could have a major effect on the future of traffic control across the nation.
Click here to see an AP News Video on this case.
I also wonder what type of effect this could have on the Automobile Insurance industry. One day Auto Insurance companies could install GPS systems in cars and be able to track your driving habits. They will we able to judge who the good drivers and bad drivers are based on a variety of different criteria. Thus your true driving habits could influence your auto insurance rates.
In Maldive we are fully depend on GPS where 90% of our land is sea. Almost all vehicle in sea have GPS.
There are way more boats in the maldives than actual cars, right? I was in the maldives in 1991 before this technology came out, so I am sure alot has changed since then. Do they have boat police in the maldives that pull over boaters for speeding too close to land?
WOW! that was a useful contribution idiot. (hypocritical I know)
Cool stuff, I just Stumbled it! Hope brings you loads of traffic. hehe
Whatever you did with that StumbleUpon site has already brought the site 752 hits! You will have to share this secret with me.
OK…Let’s say the GPS wins. So we all run out and get the needed model, we use it, and it saves us 3 times…whatever. Can an argument be made by government that ‘Well, if this thing can work for you…why don’t we just have it work for us send us a signal every time you speed in a given zone.’
Just a thought
John J - That’s exactly what I was thinking! If he wins this case, many more people are going to start using GPS systems to get out of tickets. Then some brilliant company will make a multi-million dollar contract with TomTom or something and they will begin to issue tickets automatically from our GPS speeds.
One day we’ll all be getting tickets in the mail every time we go 5 miles over the speed limit thanks to this case.
I highly doubt it. GPS units are expensive… the average person is NOT going to buy one solely to get out of a ticket. You have an extremely paranoid “big brother”act. Remember the limitations of traffic cameras on speeding and carpool lanes… you’ll never see remote GPS ticketing. Trust me on that one.
Actually, speed at any one given second is rather hard to obtain by a GPS. The GPS is giving an AVERAGE speed based on feet traveled per second but can be off on your actual position by 10 or more feet at times. Thus isn’t appropriate for calculating speed in court, not to mention it’s reported in 10 second intervals. LASER radar is, however, incredibly accurate in both spotting and speed calculation, and is very easy to use by someone who is used to aiming things. The case wont get far, they should have just asked for a reduced ticket or withheld adjudication.
So, your saying in this 10 seconds that this kid would have sped up 17 MPH and slowed back down to 45MPH? why? besides he is also contesting that the distance traveled was not a distance where he could reach those speeds. they just need to give it up. cops are people too and make mistakes just like any other person.
I agree 10 seconds is plenty of time to accelerate up to 62 mph and then back down to 45 mph. If cars can run the quarter mile in 10 seconds flat, they certainly can do a 45-to-62-to-45.
Come On! Were only talking a difference of 17 mph on an already moving car. It only takes 2-3 seconds top to increase your speed by 17 mph and you can lower it just as fast. Right?
James: especially whey you see a traffic officer parked on the side of the road. lol I don’t think people realize that they always tend to hit the brake immediately upon spotting the cop then look at their speed when they feel safe, giving them the inaccurate reading.
So, your saying he saw the cop, slammed the gas, and and as soon as he knew he had been spotted, he braked. God don’t be so stupid! Cops point at anything they want and use the speed however they wat. They’re all crooks, and should be disbanded.
For him to average 45mph he would have to accelerate to 62 then decelerate to 28 if he was accelerating and decelerating at the same rate. If he was to just accelerate to 62 then back to 45 this would place his average speed well above 45. This makes it a lot less likely that he was able to reach 62 mph in those 10 seconds IF the gps data is correct.
See, this is why we need to teach arithmetic in schools again. At 45 mph, you’re traveling about 66 feet per second. Yeah, cars can speed up and slow down, but no car can go 45 to 62 to 45 in 100 feet.
Today, I was driving almost in speed limit at Raymond Boulevard, Newark, NJ but as soon as I came to Lock St., I saw a police car and stopped. He took my NJ-DL, and Insurance and gave me 4 points ticket with fine by saying that “On radar camera, your car hit at one point 46 mph.” May be, it was not at all speed of 46 mph or may be only at ONE POINT (second) it might have become while changing lane or someone may be was behind for me to keep distance etc. I can’t tell when exactly or where at Raymond Boulevard it might be 46 mph as I do not think that I was speeding at all. It is a bias case but hard to prove. Either I pay fine and get NJ-DL points or appeal NOT GUILTY but How? I do not have any points on my license at this time except this new ticket from today. It is hard to accept 4 points on NJDL, pay fine and/or pay attorney’s fee. What to do?
I would contest this ticket since you were only going one mile over the speed limit, it would be hard to prove… the radar guns have a +/- 5 mph degree of error. You don’t need an attorney to contest the ticket, just send it back not guilty and see what happens. They might drop it without even setting a court date.
I realize I don’t have all of the facts necessary to deduce what actually took place, but it is not so far fetched to believe that he took a drag pass on the street, or was running late and trying to cut a few seconds here and there. Cops can be wrong, but usually in cases like this they aren’t likely to just say you were going 15 over for no reason because if they were caught doing so they would loose their jobs. The kid has more incentive to lie to his cop father as to whether or not he was speeding, I mean, why were they keeping tabs on his speeds to begin with? BTW: the pic above is very misleading, a radar beam is not some wide beam that bounces off dull never washed truck trailers thus giving a reading of the car driving the other away. For that you need an actual mirror. Most radars used today (unless you live in Hillbillytown, USA are basically like a laser pointer. If the officer didn’t take a longer than 3 second sampling of his speed, then yes, he could have made a mistake on the kids speed. This isn’t very likely though since just as care is taken in making sure an arrest is done correctly to obtain a positive verdict, the same is done in almost every traffic stop. I know how I drove when I was this kids age, and if I had a Celica GTS I probably would have been worse, I’m sorry, but like the judge will probably do, I have to err on the side of the officer.
Hell, I’ve sped up 40MPH in half that time. Why is that so unrealistic? Do you actually drive a car? Some people speed everywhere, especially in neighborhoods they live in or are familiar with, and often run or “California stop” at stop signs. I pick Laser over GPS any day. The cops are highly trained and the devices are calibrated regularly to prevent this sort of thing.
It is all a matter of physics. While he might have an average velocity (or speed) of 45mph from point A to point B, he could have an instantaneous velocity at some point in between point A and B much higher than the average velocity.
‘Well, if this thing can work for you…why don’t we just have it work for us send us a signal every time you speed in a given zone.’ This is about to happen in The UK with insurance companies trying to base rates based on how good a driver you are using GPS technologies, only a matter of time before “Big Brother” controls your vehicle for you.
It’s not like the government knows which transponder belongs to who. You don’t register your transponder’s code with the DMV. wtf. Idiot.
its the DVLA not the DMV. wtf. idiot. and yes in the uk some cars are registered with them and if you go say, on a motorway, it won’t go over 70. around town, it won’t let the car go over 30. people volunteer to have these things put in their car.
TRUCKERS have been equiped with gps units for years and their records have been used many times before to successfully fight and win bogus speeding charges from the Barney Fife’s of this country!
Just another story of “the man” out to get us. Does anyone remember when police were respected? I agree that this day and age it is hard to find that officer. Over all we have become highly respectful of our technologies rather than our officers, much less our neighbors.
oh jesus, dude… STFU. Go back to the 9/11 conspiracy forums.
Rob’s right. Do you know any police who you personally respect? thought not. 40, 50 years ago the local policeman was a pillar of society. nowadays everyone hates them because we are constantly being persecuted on minor offences, going 1 mph too fast gets you a £60 fine and 3 points which puts your insurance up and reduces your chances of getting a job.
I’m curious to who will win.
I doubt they’ll ever start issuing speeding tickets from GPS. If the current technology is any indication, you’ll be getting a ticket for driving too fast on a road that doesn’t exist yet while heading in the wrong direction.
one day the police won’t even need to be there because they will be using GPS to track your speed and whenever you speed they will get a print out at the police station and send you a ticket in the mail.
that will really suck.
only if you’re too stupid to work out how to disable the system.
i hope this guy wins the case and gets ooutm of his speeding ticket.
or slows down and starts driving more responsibly, and god forbid has to go to traffic court and get out of it anyways.
I think that the cheesecake will prove that all the dogs are lonely and wanting to be free from the tacos that guard the stapler. Just my 2 cents
that is literally worth 2 cents. being in scotland, we use £s, so unfortunately that is worthless.
We won’t have GPS’s tattling on us. We don’t have to incriminate ourselves, and the police cannot search or seize evidence without due process.
Besides, GPS’s are receivers, not transmitters.
i like the way you think jojo, smarter than the rest of these tools in here.
Sorry, was just reading the comments and had to re-read
JoJo’s twice to make sure i was not retarded, turns out i am not you are JoJo.
Back to the matter at hand - most generic GPS units just report their position and the time to some sort of processor, continuously. my GPS logs record a 4 dimension position (3d + time) about every 1.5 seconds.
A GPS reports velocity more accurately than it reports position because the errors are averaged out. His GPS may report velocity every 10 seconds, but it is the average of the positions it has recorded during those 10 seconds. He would have had to accelerate to 62, get caught on radar, skid to a near stop until that 10-second window closed, then accellerate back to 45. While this may be POSSIBLE, this wasn’t observed by the officer, who simply reported his speed. Had he observed such behavior, a reckless driving charge should have been tacked on as well.
The point accuracy of a gps might be 10 feet, but the circular error is typically the same vector on each point recorded. i.e. if the first point is 10-feet off to the north, the second point is also usually 10 feet off to the north. In any event, the possible error between any two points is a constant. The maximum error between any two points (A and B, A and C… A and Z) is +/- 20 feet. The percentage of error decreases as distance between indicated points increases - the speed between A and Z is much more accurate than between A and B.
What this means is that the gps typically records a track parallel to the actual track. Since all the points are skewed approximately the same distance, instantaneous velocity can be calculated with a high degree of precision.
GPS is FAR more accurate than a radar or laser gun. A strong reflection from the top of the wheel hubs, for instance, can (and does) report a velocity twice the actual velocity. Birds have been captured on speed cameras.
While certain phenomena can affect a GPS’s accuracy temporarily, the data recorded at that time is distinctive as it doesn’t resemble a line, but is sporadic and discontinuous. Contrast this with a a radar or laser gun, which cannot tell you how much it might have been in error at any given time. Any error in velocity is recorded as fact, without providing any information as to how inaccurate the reading may be at any given moment.
Funny how the kid and his parents created this sh**storm when I’ve seen plenty of people get out of speeding tickets simply by taking the ticket into court. That means the cop has to show up to give his/her testimony, but usually doesn’t show due to being busy, and the driver wins by default and the ticket is thrown away.
Next thing we’ll see is people going to court, debating the concept of speed limits because speed can either be relative or absolute, and the law never mentioned whether speed limits are referring to absolute or relative speed. And if it’s relative speed, the law never mentioned what the speed is relative to.
cops ALWAYS show up to court. It’s rare they don’t. Trust me on that. He can go to traffic school and get out of it though, at least get out of the DMV and insurance hit.
It’s relative to being parked moron, and the speed limit.
GPS has far too many errors. First, it is dependent on how many sattilites it is tracking to even get a good fix. Then, this one, only took readings every 10 seconds. That alone should tell you that it is averaging the slow turn into the normal speed. There is a reason you can’t just up and take any GPS and go fly a plan with it for your naviation.
In NH, there is a standing attitude that attacking the calibration will be ignored. A Radar licensed amateur radio enthusiast (not common) presented the concept of ‘Reasonable Doubt’. His discussion touched on points of checking the exact same radar gun position before the car went through and after the car went through. Point being that radar is also being used for property surveillance devices, door openers at stores, etc.. The possibility of the radar gun receiving the OTHER signal is not ZERO possibility, it is REASONABLE that the radar gun caught something else. Next, the radar gun could be interpreting incorrectly based on what it sees - did the radar gun actually clock the speed of the leaves on the tree? The before and after test solves that as well, but no officer does these tests. Radar is a cone signal, not like a laser, the above article discusses the possibility the radar gun received a signal from a different vehicle. think of more ways to establish several areas of reasonable doubt. Then slam the judge with the conclusion that there IS a reasonable doubt the radar was actually reporting the vehicle speed. The courts are based on reasonable doubt.
I’m an insurance agent for Washington state. Companies already have started to use GPS and NAV track to lower insurance rates. The Companies give out a discount while providing the service and technology for free.
A speeding ticket is a big deal actually. Just one can determine where you rate in your insurance score which can dramatically affect your premium for your insurance and can affect other lines of insurance you may have. I think it’s a great idea to have the ability to provide unbiased facts and evidence.
As a former insurance agent, I can honestly say that most insurance companies have no clue about a person’s driving record. The cost of actually checking every policyholder’s is astronomicaally in the millions of dollars yearly and with rising costs, most insurance companies have quit checking.
I have USAA insurance from being in the service and they didn’t increase my insurance rates even after getting two speeding tickets within the same month. How is that possible? It’s already been 8 months and still no increase.
Actually just about every car 1999 and on started putting gps systems in cars, no not the kind you get a screen and directions with but a built in tracker for the sake of the police if your car got stolen.
Its in Pen and Tellers bullshit show.
I’ve been carrying a GPS in my car for the past three years, for this exact reason!
I just think that the officer assumed that the teen was traveling faster than the speed limit regardless of his actual speeds because one: he was probably a pack leader, and two: he was driving a sports car. Of course assuming anything makes the obvious statement, but we’re talking cops here, they get paid to be ass holes, so either way it’s a lost cause.
“Never see GPS ticketing”? How naive! It wasn’t so long ago no one would have believed we would have automatic photo radar or have to undergo random searches when traveling.
“Big Brother” is here and he is getting stronger every day. All “for our own good” of course. Keep on dreaming, sheeple.
Not trying to step on any toes but the time of Andy Griffith show police is long gone. Although there are still cops wearing their uniforms for the right reason, there are more who see their badge as an opportunity to wield power, and those are rare if you lack a college degree.
The simplest explanation is almost always correct. Call me crazy but i find it a lot more likely that the officer made a mistake or tried to estimate the kids speed based on traffic making the assumption the kid would take the ticket.
The alternative is that the driver accelerated nearly 40% of his previous speed, conveniently in the exact place the cop radared him and then dropped to 28 mph to throw the cop off…all in ten seconds?
No sane judge or jury who would convict the kid…especially not with physical proof that he was traveling the speed limit both BEFORE and after the estimated radar time. If the police produce proof of the kids speed the equation changes and then your technology battle can start, but if they don’t this shouldn’t even be a case.
In most states the officers are required to show the radar gun displaying their accused speed to the driver on request, but nobody ever asks. Plenty of cops fudge a little and no one ever calls them on it…till now.
Every other time this bullshit happens it becomes the cops word against the drivers and therefore hopeless. You were luckily given the opportunity to put the long arm of the law slightly closer back to his fair place in society…use it.
just pay the damn ticket and stop being a little bitch about it.
Stumbled. Hope this case wins.
One day police won’t use radar or laser as a means of speed detection, it will all be done using GPS which will be able to focus on an area and determine the speed of the vehicles driving down the street.
So what was the outcome of this case or is the decision still pending? I need to know if I should buy a GPS to dispute future speeding tickets to put along side my radar detector.
I would say that the police radar gun if used correctly is more accurate than GPS which has the potential for some communication delays.
They now have a radar detector which uses GPS and references a database of known speed traps that people have reported. The detector will alert you when you approach the speed trap area regardless if it detects a radar or laser signal. This is really cool technology, because cops tend to shoot radar in the same places. I think that Escort makes this detector at www.escortradar.com. Check it out.
whats with the idiots who think they know how gps and lasers work? arguing one over the other? a laser gun in THEORY is 100% accurate but I have pointed one at a wall doing 4 mph, a white line on the road doing 26 and waving your hand in front of it can give any number. Plus there is NO ‘check’, a speed camera takes 2 photos with markers on the road so you can physically work out your speed. GPS as mentioned above is probably 95% accurate at any instant and approaches 100% accuracy the longer the distance. Laser guns have no ‘check’ its like a cop putting a parking ticket on your car when its parked legally. Your word against his.
they need to improve the radar/laser gun that the police use to measure a vehicle’s speed to keep up with technology so that it uses both a gun and satellite technology combined.