Ohio Supreme Court Rules Officers Can Just Guess How Fast You’re Going
In what has to be one of the biggest violations of common sense and burden of proof in motoring news this year, the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that officers can “visually estimate” how fast a person is driving… and give them a ticket for it.
Thanks Ohio Supreme Court for giving cops the green light to make up speeding tickets.
Supreme Court Justice Maureen O’Connor said “Rational triers of fact could find a police officer’s testimony regarding his unaided visual estimation of a vehicle’s speed, when supported by evidence that the officer is trained, certified by (the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy) or a similar organization, and experienced in making such estimations, sufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant’s speed. Independent verification of the vehicle’s speed is not necessary to support a conviction for speeding.”
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?
Source: Columbus Dispatch
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Wow… just wow… I am glad I don’t live in that state.
The state troopers in Colorado have their eyes “calibrated” by being tested and they can “guess” and give you a ticket without using radar. I suspect that is true in most if not all states.
In NSW Australia, part of the evidence in a radar checked speeding case has been the officers estimation of speed BEFORE the radar confirms it. It has been law here for 40 years, and does work well. I had 20 years on Highway Patrol here and I could estimate any cars speed within 5 kph (3mph)every time, any speed zone. Some of the US Highway Patrol officers I have met are just as accurate.
More like Mal function. And cops never lie, right?
I’m an ex cop and in NY state you have to first estimate and then use radar – if your estimation was more than 5mph off, you can’t pull them over regardless what the radar says. it is tough, and the Aussie who said he’s right all the time within 3% is FULL OF SHIT. It’s tough and is should be required… radar is NOT ERROR FREE and of course, as you all know, neither is a human being’s guess.
It is utterly absurd that this is the case in Ohio but in times of trouble, governments need to collect money from its slaves, uh I mean citizens, and that means taxes, fees, and you guessed: FINES… so, pay up, drive safe and you may still pay up, then pay more just for the hell of it.
STAY OUT OF OHIO… and if this is legitimately true in Colorado too… STAY OUT!
PS: I’m an ex-cop because I got tired of working with assholes – they lie, this is NOT a good idea to give them free leash on writing unproven speeding tickets.
U are sooooooo full of sh*t!!!!!!
Good trolling dood. I almost thought you were real.
Really Mal – within 5 km’s hey… so 68 in a 60 zone could be 73 or it could be 63 – you mean +/- 5 kms. So 10km’s… and if every km’s over is a killer (stupidest tag line ever) i think we should just let the technology do the working hey… instead of a corrupt policeforce bent on making money / and climbing the ladder.
You are an idiot
dear Mal,
with all due respect, the accuracy of the police in their call of a speeder & their speed is not in question. anyone who’s been driving a length of time can spot a speeder and guesstimate speed with some accuracy. it’s not hard to do. HOWEVER, by taking away the burden of proof of the state, this leaves the general population, us “civilians”** (as the coppers call us now) open to any and all abuse. ALMOST every organization on earth is corrupt! cops especially so in the US! and if you were in the USA, you -coming from the highway patrol – would spot the corruption in the forces a mile away. it’s a very sad thing to witness. I am not the only one who sees this happen, just as I say:
a cop, or a superior of the cop, decides they don’t like someone, and oh, I have this badge -I can go after them! I can follow that person, catch them ‘speeding’ and give them a ticket! I can bring them to their knees by financially because their their insurance will double, then they cannot afford to drive, then they cannot drive to their job, and whoa! they’ll have to find a job on a bus route that is less stable and wages are a fraction of the money, and THESE CIVILIANS HAVE NO RECOURSE.
THIS IS AWFUL, AND THIS IS HAPPENING HERE AND NOW!
Eric, you nailed it! there’s no defending the judge that did this.
(btw, **civilian** is a military term applied to the general population, cops are still technically civilians as they are not military. but the militarization of the cops are another subject, and please notice they are not the “men in blue” they wear black now. hmmm -google alex jones)
you, sir, are an idiot. you are the reason i hate the police. you are the reason the world hates police. when you say you can predict the speed within 5 kph, it still doesnt matter to me. when tickets are based on the exact mph (or in your case kph) a person is traveling, then how the hell does an “estimate” count??!! i dont want to pay for a ticket when you cannot prove without a doubt i was speeding. i dont care if you have the eyes of superman, there needs to be hard proof that i was speeding.
It doesn’t matter if you can guess the speed correctly 100% of the time. There needs to be some sort of proof. Otherwise – why can’t an accountant guess their companies expenses every year? Even if they are 100% correct in their guesses they have to provide proof (paper work).
Uh, in most states traffic offenses are what are called “strict liability” offenses anyway, meaning they don’t require “beyond a reasonable doubt” proof. Most of them do not even require intent. This is not a significant deviation from existing case law. Way to over-dramatize.
Well lets talk about defacto law after you have been abused at the hands of the law and do not have the money to by your defense but at the same time you gross too much to have one appointed to you. how does that work gross 35k for the year and net 8k after they take out child support and taxes. oh by the way 2 years later they decided that they were taking out too much but no refund. seems to me that you scholars are well protected from the laws you folks think of and call ok. just like the senators are sheilded from obamancare they do not have to participate in it compplements of legal scholars. you people should never be allowd to take a scholarship from any Corparate orginization. its proof that you folks just rubber stamp whatever the Corps want.
wow, just wow man. we need scholars so people are actually intelligent, learn to spell and have coherent arguments.
Supreme Court Justice Maureen O’Connor should be impeached out of her seat on the court. What a bunch of bulls*it…I’m really just speechless….
What this really means is that an officer’s first hand observations are enough to get to a jury. In the real world it means (and the SC knew this when they decided this) that nobody in their right mind is going to contest a speeding violation to a jury and therefore it’s easier to allow (for the sake of economics) officers to “say” they “saw” the alleged offender driving over the speed limit and therefore lessen the burden on the state to prove that a motorist has exceeded the speed limit. It’s not surprising, it’s simply another example of an activist conservative court imposing its police-state mentality on any who “dare” to cross Ohio state lines.
“CONSERVATIVE” court? You must be smoking something and it isn’t store bought cigarettes!. These laws that limit personal freedom are leftist (statist) type laws just like seat belt laws and smoking bans. Although some conservatives are not libertarian leaning; this is usually the exception.
Do your research instead of these knee jerk responses. 6 of the 7 Ohio Supreme justices are Republicans.
Conservatives tend to favor a police state (where laws are strict and you better not break them or else)
Liberals tend to favor a nanny state (where laws are strict for your own good, and if you break them you are just hurting yourself)
So yes, in this case, the court acted conservatively.
Conservatives tend to favor less governmental interference (where a man isn’t forced by a corrupt government to pay exorbitant fines for crimes there is no proof he committed, not to mention the complete load of crap that is ‘court fees’). In this case the court acted like morons.
I recently was involved in an “accident.” I barely bumped a woman who was PARKED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD AT THE BASE OF A STEEP HILL IN A BLIND SPOT IN A 45 ZONE, TALKING TO HER FRIEND IN ANOTHER CAR PARKED IN FRONT OF HER. There was no damage done to her vehicle, but she called the cops anyways, and I was fined $140 for “failure to maintain a line of sight.” You know, that line of sight most people maintain THROUGH the ground. As you might imagine, I was pretty pissed. The cop, who I thought at the time was being a friendly guy, suggested that I go to my court hearing rather than send the payment in so I can plead no contest to avoid liability and possibly lower my fine. Having never been ticketed before, I think “Cool! Thanks, man!”
So I go into court, wait three hours through all the other cases, and finally get my three minutes of time before the judge. I briefly explain the situation, he seems amenable, and he reduces my fine to $55. Plus court fees. I’m thinking, “Yeah! $85 off, that’s awesome!” But when I go to the desk to pay up, I find out that ‘court fees’ total up to $97!!! Almost a hundred bucks for TWO MEN, a judge and a cop, to LISTEN to me for THREE MINUTES! I wasted my whole afternoon in order to PAY MORE THAN THE COST OF THE ORIGINAL TICKET! What if he hadn’t reduced my fine? I’d have to pay $97 more than the original ticket for doing what the officer told me to?! What a load of shit!
@Tim it should matter because state supreme courts also set case law precedent.
@ The writer of this article; Thanks for letting me just throw out the entirety of what you’ve said here. The easiest thing to do when you researched this was to provide any information about the case like xxx vs ohio ect.. so that we the reader could also vet what it is your saying. EG: i would like to see how the question was framed for the court and not just have your information spooned to me.
Total TYRANNY!!!!! this country is going to sh it.
There is an old legal maxim that goes “testis unus testis nullus” – a single witness is no witness (or sometimes “testis unus testes nullus” a single witness and your case has no ‘testicals’). It used to be considered that the radar gun and the officer were corroborating witnesses – that either alone was insufficient to issue the ticket. But now the state of Ohio has determined that the single witness is adequate – the officer is automatically right and the suspect is guilty unless he can prove innocence. The really sad thing is that the errors of one state are often propagated through eager adoption by other states. This blot on our legal system won’t stop in the backwards, reactionary state of Ohio. The stench will propagate.
This is fine if it has been proven that officers can guess accurately estimate speed. What I fear the reality of the situation would be is that police officers are not objective. For one thing they have quotas to keep and it might be the end of the month when I’m driving by. Also, police (like anyone) are tempted to be products of their environment and might see much of the world out there as talk-back delinquents. If I can trust police, then this is fine. For my peace of mine, I would now buy a car that has a black box in it that records speed and time. Then when a policeman (woman) approachs me, I can hold up my cell phone and ask then to what time it is. Yes, unfortunately, I all of sudden feel like I have to protect myself.
“This is fine if it has been proven that officers can guess accurately estimate speed. ”
Dude did you just make this up? There is no way research could prove that officers can guess speed accurately? People think differently based on background, up bringing, environment, stress, etc at any given moment. Any research that states what you wrote above is full of it.
To think someone could issue a ticket, yes, I could!!!!!! The reason being I DO THE SPEED LIMIT. I believe the speed limit is the speed limit for a reason. So if I am traveling down the road and someone either passes me or passes as goes left of center passing me like I am sitting still, yes, I can tell he is speeding, and I have had this happen to me more than once. Especially in the Champayne county area, rural area. Being honest LONDON OHIO, Alot of folks think because it is country road a speed limit does no longer rule the road. SORRY! That is just not the fact, so if the speed limit is 55, go 55, if it says 35 go 35, it does not say, no other cars out here on the open road so you can now go 75! Speeding is speeding, ticket time!!!! Alot of bad accident’s has happen because of foolish people!!!!
Hey Kathy… Didn’t you understand the Article??? The police will be pulling YOU over cause they THINK you were speeding! Even if you tell them you weren’t (like they are going to BELIEVE you), you will get the ticket! Yah.. people speed…but the ones who obey the law are going to get Ticketed!
One problem Kathy, is that the police and cops are hypocrites. I travel a lot of miles a year on all kinds of roads and witness cops speeding zipping in and out of traffic and obviously not on a call as I see them then parked at a burger joint, in their driveway or at the donut house. I’ve seen them flip on the lights to get through traffic to turn them off after getting through.
I work with the fire dept, have a sister (her name is also Kathy- an investigator now) who did patrol and she drove 75-85 on the IH all the time. I asked her what happens when she gets stopped for speeding- she said she just waves her badge and goes on. I know other officers who have never gotten a speeding ticket- I guess you know why by now.
I don’t mind being held accountable for speeding, but not by a hypocrite who thinks the law is not written for them. If you want to preach “do the speed limit” how about practicing that yourselves officers?
Police states…?…yes- it’s here, and the “Oath to uphold the constitution” is just words with no meaning anymore. If the law enforcement officers start acting like “Peace Officers, things may change, but it is getting to be “US” against “Them”, because an officer won’t tolerate you lying to them, but it’s OK if they lie to you! Hypocrites are the saddest and most disgusting people.
Hey Walt, talk about a hypocrite….who is the first person you will call when you get hit or get into a car accident or get robbed?? You don’t realize that police officers put their lives on the line every day when they are out there. They don’t make up the laws, it’s all the idiots out there that constantly break them, so they have to enforce them even more. Every job has their a-holes but for some reason police officers always get a bad rap. You have no idea what they see everyday, until you can stand in their footsteps for a day…..put a lid on it until you know what you are talking about. Imagine what this world would be like if we didn’t have police officers to keep the laws enforced.
You’re full of CRAP because you don’t have to be speeding to get a speeding ticket! We were on a trip up north one day. My dad was driving. He was somewhat sickly at this time in his life, so he couldn’t drive like he used to because he couldn’t handle it when he drove faster than 70-75mph. In fact, he set the cruise control on the car at 70mph, the posted speed limit. We were on flat ground, but there was a semi-truck near us. I saw a state trooper in the median & remembered thinking that my dad should’ve slowed down (just in case). And sure enough, the cop pulls out, pulls behind us & pulls us over. Tells my dad that he clocked him w/the radar at 80+ mph. My dad was furious because: 1. He never got a traffic ticket, 2. He wasn’t speeding. That jackazz cop gave him a ticket anyway (you knew he would). So all this utopian ‘catch the guilty’ stuff is fantasy island hallucination. It’s all good, until YOU are the victim!
Most cars are perfectly safe travelling at much higher speeds than the posted limit. The limit has to be dropped to such slow speeds because most people, like Kathy, have slow reflexes, poorer comprehension, and even less awareness in their vehicles. For liability reasons, a huge cushion has to be maintained, even in inclement weather. That aside, speeders take their chances with tickets from radar and lasar speed guns which show factual proof. This decision now allows them to give you a ticket for speeding while you’re going the most honorable speed limit. Wouldn’t that suck.
I retired from the NYPD about two years ago. During my time there, I used to do speed enforcement from time to time. You should know that the radar or laser gun is only used to back up the officer’s initial estimate. Training for speed enforcement was four days long, two of those spent in a parking lot, judging the speed of a passing car over and over again. You had to be within 3 mph, 90% of the time to pass the training. I’ve also written summonses for speed without a radar gun and have had them hold up in court without a problem.
Let the “scumbag cop” comments begin!! I don’t mind. I’m retired.
@ Copabooey.
If you can pass by being accurate 90% of the time, and believe that’s good enough, then you are saying it’s okay to give upwards of 10% of your tickets to law abiding citizens through the personal incompetence of the police force.
Complete and utter nonsense. Until a given officer can be certified in his ability to be accurate 100% of the time, he’s not qualified to make such a judgement in a court of law. If a homicide detective’s hunches were right 90% of the time, would we just lock up anybody he had a hunch about? Of course not. The law allows protections to citizens for a reason, and this is a breach of those protections, plain and simple.
I was ticketed for speeding while sitting at a stop sign in Texas, once. The officer claimed he paced me with his car. When I argued about it in court the judge raised my fine, and said I could appeal. I told her this was a bad joke and a waste of my time. I checked on it. I had to post a several thousand dollar bond to appeal.
I paid the ticket and cursed the entire phony system.
I automatically hand traffic tickets to a lawyer, now. I haven’t paid a ticket in years. Even if I have to pay the lawyer more than the ticket (it usually isn’t), I refuse to pay into the corrupt system.
Well, they lie here about cars being tracked by plane anyways, so at least this way they won’t have to lie.
They lie knowing that most ticketed drivers won’t bother to fight in court because that’ll cost more than the ticket. And yes, I speak from experience where I had my cruise set at 65mph and was pulled over as I was slowing down on an exit ramp only to be told that three miles earlier I was clocked by a plane going 74 and accelerating to 77 to pass the car in front of me. Only, I didn’t accel, the car in front of me hit the brakes because he noticed the 11 HP cars lined up on the center barrier, so I changed lanes so I wouldn’t have to press the brake. I was shocked that I was cited when two SUV’s that blew past me got away free.
I talked to many people and found that judges here “take the word” of the officer over the driver. First ticket in over 20 years
Our HP has become just a money making group. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen an occupied broken-down car on the freeway with a highway patrol car driving right on buy and never going back.
Worse is how many “staties’ speed when they’re on their way to/from work. I see about 10 every week, wearing their uniform and driving personal cars doing more than 15mph faster than even a 45mph limit.
Total “above the law” complex.
The last several speeding tickets I’ve had were completely faked by the police. At that time, my car was a damaged gutless wonder, with an acceleration of 0-60 sometime today, and a top speed of only 60, 55 if you didn’t want it shaking itself apart.
One of the tickets was for supposedly doing 50 in a 45, when I’d only been doing 35 and less, I’d just left a store a hundred feet back and around a corner. Like I said, the acceleration was horrible.
The other one was on the local highway, I’d been going 53-55 when the cop pulled me over and declared I’d been doing over 80. I laughed at him and told him that was impossible, my pile of junk would shake itself apart at anything over 55. He dropped the ticket speed to 70, and still gave me the ticket.
Of course, I’ve seen the cops here ignore car crashes less than 200 feet from them and fully visible. Not even calling an ambulance when there’s no movement from either car or passengers (both had fully tinted windows) for 15-20 minutes. He was too busy trying to nail a speeder, and besides, they weren’t completely blocking traffic.
No, I have a very low opinion of our local police, and they’ve earned it. There’s much more to their incompetence, but that’s not traffic related. (Hard to believe I’d miss the cops from San Antonio…)
This is a great blog/essay comment on another asinine attack on citizens right to due process and the rule of law ..
Add these ‘expert’ guesstimates to the unConstitutional road blocks and checkpoints dubiously stated for drunken driving reduction which in fact are for revenue generation .. and add the fact that citizens no longer have habeas corpus, and that cops have been told they can lie to ‘citizen’s’ to get evidence or to elicit incriminating responses; and that police have shield laws, a fierce union, and limited liability laws; and that we are repeatedly seeing an increase in officer’s use of excessive force and tampering with or inventing evidence …
I guess guesstimates would seem logical in that environment and don’t expect lawyers to object – those ‘officers of the court’ and their fellow guild members profit from the increase in ticket business …
I guess we need to find a way to be declared a corporation to avoid the increase in court and domestic police action .. mmm ?
Peace, Hugs, and Purrs,
Carolyn Rose Goyda
Missouri, USA
[email protected]
I once was driving through a park and going about 30 in the 25mph zone. When I park and then get out of my car a ranger comes up yelling at me for ‘driving way too fast’ and said he could ‘see my speed’. He demanded I leave the park immediately since it was going to close within the next half hour, calling me and my friends things along the lines of reckless kids. He insisted I was going over 35mph because he could ‘hear how loud my engine was’. I was driving a BMW 330i, which while being a bit loud is not exactly a muscle car.
If he had authority to give me a ticket I’m certain he would have.
Yep! Just another reason this state sucks!! I hear our politicians bemoaning that no one wants to stay here. . I mean DUHHHH! This is one of the many insane things about Ohio. . since I retired recently I’m soon gonna be outta here. .
Speeding tickets signify that one is operating in commerce. Ask the officer if he has taken his oath of office and if he is bonded. You have a right to travel freely. What is the contract between you and the officer. The questions that a cop asks you, all are geared to you accepting their offer.
” and experienced in making such estimations,” The court didn’t define experience. If the officer has done this once is that sufficient experience. And what of the cops mental stability, most, if not all, cops are bullies. So, if he’s having a bad day you may get nailed for doing 90 mph based on his “experience” and his foul mood. Supreme Court Justice Maureen O’Connor and the rest of the Yucatan grave robbers that make up the Ohio Supreme Court need to get their heads out of their anuses and come back down to earth.
FUCK OHIO AND THEIR GESTAPO. I DRIVE TRUCK FOR A LIVING AND WILL DETOUR ALL THE WAY AROUND OHIO. THEY HAVE ALWAYS HAD IT IN FOR TRANSPORTATION, BUT NOW THEY HAVE GONE BEYOND THE PALE.
You will all just go along with it. After awhile youll even stop thinking about it and demean anyone who does.
Go back to your trailers, your twinkies, and that piece of furniture that tells you what to think.
This whining is useless
The Supreme Court does not have the last word; it is the Jury who makes the final decision. If these tickets are taken to court, and the officers judgment is used, then the jury can rule against a conviction. If the people of Ohio, or any state for that matter, refuse to exercise their right to Nullification, then they deserve the Police State they are allowing to be created. The People are always in charge, but only if they use their Rights. Vote out the criminals, stick in real representation, and vote against any law in court that does not match your knowledge of the Bill of Rights. We do not have to accept the laws created by the cretins.
But this assumes that most cops are not the lying scum that most people know they are.
In Minnesota, the police can estimate your speed and not be called on it as long as it’s a misdemeanor charge (the vast majority of speeding tickets). If it’s a felony case, the defense can subpoena the radar gun reading. Unfortunately, most speeding tickets don’t result in felony charges. Also, most speeding fines are just slightly lower than a lawyer’s minimum fee, so that you could win the case but would still lose even more money.
Here in canukistan its done more often than not. If you ask to see the evidence they just say “do you want to go to jail?” I did have one of the rcmp gang tell me he just can tell by looking at any vehicle how fast its going so he doesn’t bother with radar.
PIGS!!!!!
Just a little common sense here folks. In the first place how can anyone get a fair trial in any court that stands to make a commission off of your ignorance/ supposed guilt? The whole thing is rigged against you from the beginning and to think differently is stupid. The Constitution provides that in cases where the State is a party to the case it has to be brought in the US Supreme Court first i.e. original jurisdiction. These criminals that pretend to be your government have been robbing you for centuries. How about if I charge you with some crime/ infraction and drag you into my court where you for sure will lose and I will win your money or put you in jail until you pay up? Learn the definition of extortion!! What a scam they have going on!!
The elite have slowly and meticulously taken away a good portion of our constitutional rights. Our founding fathers gave us a remedy for this. It’s called Revolution. When enough people have finally had enough and wake up. We may see one unless we start voting in real patriots. Instead of all these corporate Owned and operated politicians we have now.
Our founding fathers were elitists as well.
This reminds me of when I was a young boy a Policeman on a bicycle chased and caught my Fater driving through a small town and Booked him for “Furious Driving”.
Remember several years back when ohio passed a law requiring you to carry id at all times, If you didn’t they could ARREST YOU. Pratically like 1912 germany, GIVE ME YOUR PAPERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is from Australia, having read the new laws [guesstimates] in Ohio i am convinced more than ever how dangerous it is to put women in positions of power.
If you can take a single action and use it as a representation of an entire gender’s effectiveness as policymakers, then what do you make of all the dumb decisions made by males?
Your driver’s license is your national pasport/ ID/ documentation. If you have the right to liberty why do you need the privilege to drive, hunt, fish, ad nauseum licenses/ permits? If you have the right to privacy/ right to remain silent how can you be forced to provide any information to anybody? How can we pretend to be free when all ten elements of communism (organized crime pretending to be government) are in full force and affect in this country and have been for some time? Wake up people; we have to be beyond trusting in government to solve our problems when they themselves legitimize organized crime.
When the institution is cost 100 or 1000 or more than the tickets written, things will change. It is all about the money.
Clog up the courts for every speeding ticket with a jury trial. The system will fix itself then.
Unfortunately that is not the fact. Here, in Michigan, they skip judge/hearing most of the time and send you directly to a District Attorney who just gives you a “deal” and makes you pay money to accept that deal. Then you are faced with choice, take another day off work (and lose money) and try to fight the ticket in front of a judge, or accept the rotten deal that says you are guilty and don’t get any points on your license. Last time I went to a scheduled “hearing” the judge wasn’t even in the court building that day, and DA was quickly writing “deals” to over 100 people (maybe more – I was there only an hour), who were all scheduled to come that day to see a judge.
Since there is no jail time for these offenses in all states, you aren’t allowed a jury.
Most traffic tickets are civil cases where they don’t even have to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt”, only by “preponderance of the evidence” which in most cases can simply be the officers testimony. If you don’t have something that is credible to negate what the officer says, you have no chance even if you are innocent. That’s the way it has been working for some time now and I hope between this and the “wiretapping” charges people are getting for recording police officers that you guys get active and vocal to do something about it.
I am in the middle of a fight to clear my name after being given a DUI for falling asleep in my car while my phone was charging and I have learned about so many horror stories of the courts in my research. It’s a shame and the reason you haven’t seen mass arrests at tailgating events and camp grounds for DUIs is because they know it’s ultimately wrong and it’s a stretch by any rational person to arrest somebody because they “could” do something…
Jury nullification. Most citizens are sick and disgusted with our outrageous police state govt comprised of treasonous criminals. I love jury duty. There will be NO CONVICTIONS for any petty offenses. I know a lawyer who is the top dog attorney for the local FOP and he will be the first to tell you privately there are a whole bunch of DIRTY COPS. Yet he defends them and gets them off of course.
Well then i suppose they can guess my information on my drivers license as well and my insurance company, and i know longer need to hand the information over??? Seriously WTF is going on in this state? every time we turn around we have some village idiot making laws or passing things that make no since what so ever!! is there anyone left in our state Government who has any intelligence left at all? I don’t think there is. nor will there be anytime soon! nothing but bags of shit to choose from at election time.
As if Ohio police officers were not big enough dick heads already, now they have the right to GUESS the speed? Wow. This will definitely turn out to be a bad thing. I guess if they need more money, this would be the way to go about it… >:-\
Well nothing is 100%. Not even the radar. I don’t believe the police should have the right to guess how fast I’m going, but I do believe they have a way of weening through BS. I mean, the cop won’t come up to your vehicle and just say, “I think you were going 90 in a 45″. No, they’ll most likely ask a series of questions in order to determine when you’re lying, telling the truth or just plain scared. Also I believe it’s a way to get speeders to slow down, if they think cops can pull them over with a guess. And I also believe it’s another probable cause that may lead to more arrests for larger violations. There are many times a warranted individual is taken to jail for driving with a tail-light out or expired plates.
But even though I have these beliefs as to why they gave officers this power, I am strongly against it and believe it’s pretty ridiculous. If this is the case, why not let a cop raid my house because he thinks I am selling drugs because there’s a lot of human traffic. now that it’s begun… where will it end?
Though there are a few with proper character, integrity, and honor; law informcement officers of all departments in all states and federal govt. are inherently cocky, abusive, condescending, hypocritical jerks that find it easy to perform their calloused show of power on any individual regardless of truth or individual rights. This is just another tool for them to continue this trend.
This will be turned over on appeal to U. S. Supreme Court. A similar case had already reached that high and ruling confirmed that cops are just human beings and NOT endowed with special powers of observation, I don’t give a damn what your training is. And here’s how you fight it–set up a video camera to record your speed. Get (falsely) pulled over for speeding but don’t let the cop see the camera. Get a ticket. Go to court and fight it. Make sure you file whatever paperwork is required to present evidence. If the cop’s robo-estimation is off by even a single digit, e.g., he says “51″ and you recorded “50″, then it proves they are fallible and thus not accurate. There’s your reasonable doubt.
ps–only a dickhead would try to pass a law that ridiculous.
I agree with your first statement that it would be reversed on a higher level, your second assumption doesn’t hold as much water because they usually don’t have to care about “reasonable doubt”. What they say you did only has to be 51% chance of being true…
“Preponderance of the evidence, also known as balance of probabilities is the standard required in most civil cases. The standard is met if the proposition is more likely to be true than not true. Effectively, the standard is satisfied if there is greater than 50 percent chance that the proposition is true.”
You snot nosed whiney femme wanna be’s, youd all give up toot sweet if they threatened to take your television and twinkies away. I wager that over 90% of the f holes commenting here are of limited education and really fat and out of shape. Your all mentally and physically repulsive not to mention the odor. Which of you is worth saving, which of you deserves anything but what you get? Which of you have ever done anything that risked your trailer and piece of shit car? C’mon, you inbreds dont need me to point out the obvious, just go look in the mirror (that thing you squeeze your puss filled faces on) and be honest with yourselves for once.
I don’t think most cops would intentionally lie. However, they could have a error in judgement trying to eyeball vehicle speed. Not a easy thing to do from any angle trained or not. Its a good idea to have some type of mechanical device to back up there claim. Its the only fair way to do it, since fines for speeding can be pretty heavy these days. Just like locks keep honest people honest. Radar guns or some other device should be used for that same purpose. If he says your speeding and the device backs him up. Its simple, you pay the ticket. One without the other, case dismissed. Any other way is not serving the community.
looks like we wont be traveling through ohio on the way to or from michigan every summer anymore.
im sure they are sick of visitors and their money anyhow.
they have residents to oppress, and travelers just get in the way.
I always have my little GPS logger. I bought it to keep mileage logs for my business but it keeps a log of my speed, too.
whats next, oh he looked like he was gonna rob the 7-11 so i pulled my gun on him
I received a ticket like this in Riverside, California by a Officer Betancour. As I passed him he was walking away from a car he had pulled over, the only thing in his hands was a clipboard. Shortly after I was pulled over for speeding. In court I asked for proof that I was speeding and the officer said that “records are not saved” and I received a guilty verdict with a $950 ticket and traffic school.
It is about to become illegal to videotape officers, something must be done before the police create a police state.
BOYCOTT OHIO!!
to start off blessings to all
i haven’t read most of the peoples opinion on hear and HONESTLY i don’t care..not to be rude or disrespectful…because i love the ideas that i’m sure you have to offer to this topic…but i write to you as bro’s and sis’.
So this LAW that has ALREADY been put into effect is going to give COPS the ability to pull you over because you LOOK like your speeding… REALLY?? WOWOW…because the cops in MY area i know for a FACT…WILL abuse it when martial law is put into effect…there is just things that are OBVIOUS to the ones who look…if you search for the LOVE and real REVELATION (not information) you WILL SEE…this WAR we are fighting isn’t one of SELFISH, MONEY HUNGRY, EVIL cops and their GOD given “earthly power” or even on a higher level as the top top TOP level of this BABYLON EMPIRE we call the USA…but hey what would you expect from a country that is building the Egyptian God Anubis in DENVER and BUDDHA in Cali..but took the B asic I nstructions B efore L eaving E arth out of the schools…bottom line brothers and sisters,…this world does NOT need some WORLDLY government leader to save us…we need knowledge of the WORD which brings the ultimate weapon FAITH in JESUS…everything that has happened and is happing…tooo many to mention… but just one that is going on ever sec i type these words is the oil spill i live that..like it isn’t planned…its all been planned…my friends my brothers don’t be scared be excited for the kingdom of God is coming and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven..those who read this believe….because you are witnessing as it is happening…
let the love of Jesus be with you and comfort you in this time Matt 6:25 do not worry friends have your eyes and hearts open…he is standing at your heart (conscience/gut feeling) and knocking if you except him HE will come in and change your life and save you from the hell that will come..this isn’t about the tool that the devil uses to separate Gods people RELIGION!!!!!! but about the KINGDOM of God coming down from HEAVEN and the CITIZEN of the GOVERNMENT of the KINGDOM will be allowed in and enjoy
John 14 2-4
Cops do a good job sometimes and actually earn there pay, but usually arrive on a crime scene “after the fact” of some one being robbed, mugged, murdered, raped etc. and don’t really “prevent” crime. I guess sitting on the side of the road for hours trying to catch red handed a speeder is a thrill they enjoy catching them in action. LOL. Yet how good do they feel sitting there half asleep while a “real” crime such as being robbed, murdered, raped is going on maybe a block away? Seems it’s just a money maker for them, instead of “real” crime prevention.
The only time cops prevent crime is when they are seen in an area (patrolling). Otherwise they are just cleanups after the fact and of little significance except to arrest anyone left behind at say..an accident.
Ohio must really suck! The citizens there should get more involved. Instead of complaining about this situation, start becoming pro-active with things like this. You say that cops are sitting there and come on the scene after the fact….you can’t predict a crime. So, why don’t your neighborhoods start the neighborhood watch programs. This gets your local police and neighbors invloved. This lessens any crime.
So if cops can guess on the job, does that mean I can guess too?
I know radar is not accurate, but neither is a human. I do guarantee that towards the end of the month, cops in Ohio will be making a lot of bad guesses (meaning they will lie) just to raise their quotas….
I don’t know about Ohio, but California does not have quotas. There are so many myths about police officers and their jobs it’s not even funny.