Reply to "Speeding Defense?"

Peter I have no experience with cases involving laser, but you could easily win a case based on radar. Here's why....

ALL manufacturers of radar equipment specify that the police agency must run so many seconds of "history" on your speed in order to verify the readings were not erroneous. If you reduced your speed quick enough and the officer was unable to collect data for the time specified by the radar manufacturer, you have the ticket beat. If memory serves me, that time is normally around 20 to 30 seconds, but it varies a bit from manufacturer to manufacturer.

So you contact the police agency and find out what make and model of radar equipment they use. Bring the written instructions from the manufacturer to court, specifying data must be collected for a certain number of seconds. Present this to the judge. You then ask the arresting officer to present his history for your speed. Case closed, you win.

There are books and web sites that cover this in much more detail.

Here in California another method used to beat speeding tickets involves the "radar survey" for the road in question. The law stipulates that in order for the police to use radar, the road must be "surveyed" every so many months to insure that radar can be operated withour interference on that section of road. Governments being what they are, there is never enough budget to keep up with those road surveys, they are almost always out of date. So you pull the survey records for the road in question, bring a copy of the vehicle code specifying the road must be surveyed every so many months, and prove to the judge the road's survey is out of date, by law, they have no case against you. I have no idea if similar laws are in force in British Columbia.

Whatever you do, never ever admit to an officer how fast you were going, if asked just tell them you're not sure. They take notes and record your replies to their questions, and will use them against you in court.

George