The Eyes Have It: No Need for Radar Gun in Ohio-Police can Visually Estimate Speed

[RamboLiberal]

Imagine a highway trooper pulling you over in the middle of your summer travel and declaring that you were speeding. How's he know for sure? Because he says so; at least, in Ohio.

The state's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the trained eyeballs of police officers are enough to hand out speeding tickets. A radar gun is unnecessary.

Some Ohio drivers were stunned. One woman called it "crazy," adding that "just the radar gun itself is disputable."

The 5-1 ruling comes in a case involving motorist Mark Jenney, who was given a speeding ticket nearly two years ago by a policeman in Copley, Ohio. The officer said his radar had clocked Jenney traveling 82 mph in a 60-mph zone.

He also said that with his 13 years experience as a traffic cop and certification in speed estimation by the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy, even without the radar, he visually guessed Jenney's speed was at least 79 mph.

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/Media/ohio-cops-radar-gun-ticket-drivers/story?id=10815868

Oh wonderful. I'm in PA not that far from Ohio and we already consider Ohio a speed trap hell.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Don't drive a red car! nt

[OhioChick]

2. Wonderful....

Another gem of a law from Ohio. :eyes:

Thanks for posting. I'll have to pass it around here.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. The Twilight Zone looks pretty sane by comparison

How can we all have gotten so far from sanity so fast?

And why doesn't anybody care?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Because they never gave out speeding tickets before they invented radar guns.

I don't think it's unreasonable to tell that a person is speeding if they're going 22 mph over the limit.

[zipplewrath]

8. Pacing

Prior to the guns, cops used to have to do what was known as "pacing". Basically following you and use their own speedometer to judge your speed. For a long time after guns, CHP used to still used that method. Airplanes will measure your speed based upon land marks (usually white markers painted on the road). There was a time that the Pennsylvania Turnpike would write you a ticket if you went between two toll booths too soon. All in all police has used some measurement estimation method. I'm not sure how "visual speed estimation" works, but it better include SOME metric of reasonable accuracy.

[provis99]

13. and what if they're going 5 mph over the limit?

According to the cop's "estimation"?

[proudohioan]

5. Ohio is a speed trap hell.....

Up until I moved to Ohio in 2005, I had not gotten a speeding ticket in 19 years!

Since moving here, I have gotten 2 of them.

IMO, this was a real bone-head decision by Ohio's Supreme Court,

[EnviroBat]

6. Ohio is quickly becoming a fascist police state.

I fucking hate it here.

[Blue Diadem]

7. That many miles over the limit is pretty easy to tell but I still think

radar should be required.

I don't like taking an officer's word for it. Too many quotas out there.

[zipplewrath]

9. Some metric

mile markers, dashed yellow lines, following along, SOMETHING needs to be presented as "evidence".

[Forkboy]

10. I've gotten out of every ticket that was based on estimates.

Even though one of them was correct. :evilgrin:

[madinmaryland]

14. You're lucky you didn't get caught by Belicheck. He would have had

you video taped!!

:P

[Soylent Brice]

11. i'm FUCKED. n/t

[mod mom]

12. Cop doesn't like your bumpersticker-wham slapped w a ticket. UFB!