Top telematics: Black box helps driver swerve speeding fine Motoring campaigner Neil Herron has beaten a mobile police speed trap rap by using the threat of revealing his own GPS-based telematics data in court. The incident took place in January 2014, when Herron was stopped by a police patrol who were using a Tele-traffic LTI 20:20 Ultralyte 1000 infrared laser gun. (PDF datasheet) …
Except that the positional information used to calculate your average speed between ticks would be wrong.
The GPS loggers don't read the speed from their sensors, unlike old style loggers that would record the speed directly from the wheels etc, instead the GPS system should take your two positional readings and work out the speed based on the time over that distance giving you a fairly accurate reading every second.
@Valerion
That'd only be possible if the telematics/gps device had a visible countdown to the next recorded measurement, you accelerated at a rate constant with your future deceleration, and you did all that knowingly in front of a camera van for the purposes of getting nicked. And it won't just be you, it'll be everyone the dodgyscope says was speeding who has telematics.
Not only is it unlikely, its so far beyond reasonable doubt that the SCP could claim Elvis was operating it with no further loss of credibility.
Having two objects move in unpredictable patterns at unknown speeds will always make it impossible for one object to accurately calculate the speed of the other when you're scaling up a distance travelled of a few inches during measurement to generate a speed in MPH. Its time all handheld or otherwise manouverable speed devices were decomissioned. Fix one to a tripod where the operator can't jiggle it, if you must, but lets at least be reasonable about the laws of physics.
back then maybe, but today with modern storage you can record every second or every sub second if needed. I set my Garmins (edge 1000 and forerunner 305) are set to record every second else my mtb segments & times are way off on strava and garmin connect, in fact smart recording setting and iPhones recording the same segments will show faster speeds, slightly shorter segments and less time. some of the gpx files for hours long recordings are just a few 10's of KB, whilst the units have GB & MB or storage.
I've also had a speeding case dropped by the prosecution in court after I appeared and provided evidence which contradicted their own, the details being:
Letter arrive announcing I'd been photographed travelling at 93mph in a 50mph zone. Bit strange I thought so I checked out the date and time and found I was still at work at the date and time given, some 40 miles away from the location where the photo was taken. My car was with me (I'm a wheelchair user and am the only person insured to drive the car so it stays with me).
Gathered evidence to prove this - shift rota, emails I'd sent to others around the time of the offence and most damningly an extract from the swipe card system used at work showing I was still in the building.
Turned up at court and presented this evidence. All the prosecution had was an extremely blurred photo of my car, showing the speed as 80mph and a different date and time. when this was pointed out (by the magistrate's adviser person) to the court the prosecution withdrew immediately and was given a talking to about wasting court time by the magistrate.
I was given a stern "you've been lucky this time" mention.
The point is, always challenge if you believe you're in the right. They are not all-powerful and are subject to errors, both human and technological.
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As others have said Herron is a director of the company that makes this GPS device. If you look back a few years his co-director Dr Philip Tann was caught speeding and he too had his case withdrawn by the CPS. Strangely enough both got caught on the same road in Sunderland, how strange is that?
It seems, on the reporting, that the evidence from the device was not tested by the courts or submitted to an independent expert so it could be examined.
I can see a large problem with using such a device in making a proper challenge to a speeding offence. The laser gun will measure the speed of the car in a fraction of a second. The GPS machine will not or is not likely to sample at this high sample rate so comparison is largely futile. Drivers who have been speeding and subsequently see the speed gun and police brake so a slow sample rate GPS averaged sped will always be lower than the speed gun reading.
Another issue is one of time synchronisation. While the Herron/Tann GPS log is on GPS time how many police laser speed guns will be connected to a GPS time source? In the Herron case it is an LTI20.20 Ultralyte 1000 so this will have its time set, if it was, by the police officer's watch. As such the time Herron was caught is only an estimate, unless of course he has a source inside the police that is passing the time to him. Only joking there folks.
So this case has been dropped probably because of a prosecution service mistake not because of the telematics device; maybe Mr Herron can enlighten us all on that...or will it ruin his advertorial?
So it's the same on both sides of the pond. I've found every time I'm prepared to fight a ticket, it's dropped. The cop is usually not interested in taking the time to testify. In other cases, it was a K55 radar unit, and when I ask for the daily calibration records, it's usually "uh, we left that in our other jacket. case dismissed"
I've been charged with running a toll booth, where the truck had the same tag number as my motorcycle - the photo was included with the mailed citation.
I was told "THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE" of course, and it was dropped when I presented all my evidence of vehicle registration, etc. I found out that the truck was from another state with a different numbering scheme.
Edit: I got the stern "you're lucky" from the judge and I responded with "No, your Honor, I just don't run toll booths... I'm not that poor." and gave the gimlet stare right back.
I've also been told if I fight a ticket the cop would add more offenses (which is "illegal duress against due process" as he's trying to keep me from showing up in court) so not only did I get my speeding ticket dropped, he got a black mark on his record.
It's bad in Iowa, it's the only state where state law on radar and laser says they NEVER have to calibrate their equipment, and equipment calibration cannot be used as a defense. Luckily, I have not heard of cases here where the equipment is hugely out of calibration like this.
Pennsylvania, some state senator got pissed about getting caught in a speed trap a few years ago, and made it illegal for ANYONE but the State Patrol to run radar or laser (including the local police!) They can technically use "Vascar", this ghetto rig where they are supposed to either use two landmarks or put dots on the road, measure the distance, hit a "start" and "stop" button as the car passes the dots, and get a speed. It's apparently labor-intensive enough compared to aiming the radar gun and pulling the trigger that they don't bother.
The city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa was told their cameras were illegal and basically said "fuck you, w'ere leaving them up anyway." Unbelievable. The city officials were apparently quite shocked when people started demanding refunds on their ilegally-collected fees. Of course, Gatso operates these, you actually get a "request for payment" from Gatso (which you're not obligated to ever pay, since you didn't order goods or services from this company... and if they report it to a credit agency, you can tell the credit agency the same and they are legally obligated to remove the negative item from your report) instead of a ticket from the city (where there are actual legal penalties for non-payment.)
"As others have said Herron is a director of the company that makes this GPS device. If you look back a few years his co-director Dr Philip Tann was caught speeding and he too had his case withdrawn by the CPS. Strangely enough both got caught on the same road in Sunderland, how strange is that?"
Not strange at all. Given the comments on this model of laser speed gun being known to give improper readings, they probably were both improperly photographed, and were just two of the few with evidence to refute these false speeding claims.
When they catch you with one of their lasers, they basically threaten to throw the book at you unless you plead guilty. It's "pay up, or your driving life will turn to shit in hours and you'll wish you'd never been born". There's no hint whatsoever that the box does anything like what they claim it does. I'm pleased that this man challenged them, but I'm surprised they didn't a) take his car apart looking for faults and b) do him for DCA as well when he did. That was what was going to happen to me, I was told.
Back in the early days of the laser speed-gun, my now retired mate in the Met tried one of them to see how useful it was. Duly dispatched to K Divisions streets, he came back to the station and presented the Sergeant his findings. The best one was Mr O Tree. On explaining that the oak tree was travelling at 40 mph, the Sarge decided it was either the machine or my mate that was defective. Guess which one it was.
The device (for those of cynical nature - ie all of you reading this)
R
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