Can anyone recommend a book or other publication that will help me establish the width of a “typical” beam on a radar gun? I’m gonna test the cop’s grasp of trigonometry but I need a “learned treatise” or some other type of evidence (with appropriate foundation) to establish the basic premise of my argument.
I need this for my backup in case I can’t get my hands on the owners manual and technical whitepaper for the device. I should have seen this coming, but the radar company won’t release the owners manual to me without a subpoena and I’m afraid the judge won’t want to give me a subpoena. (I’m going in this afternoon to talk to her, but…) I should have known that the company would be in bed with the cops and not want to give up any of that kind of information without a fight. But too late for that now.
And in case you’re curious or might know something about it, the radar gun is a “Trooper” model made by “Kustom Signals, Inc.” The company is based in Kansas somewhere.
I’ve got most of my technical stuff packed away in boxes somewheres, but I’ll shoot an e-mail to a colleague to see if I can obtain the answer. I hope you don’t need it today.
IIRC, an X-band’s spread might be along the lines of 320’ at 1000’ distance, and a K-band somewhat less than that.
Golly, no I can’t. But I’d suggest you lean in the general direction of the FCC. Since a RADAR gun is a broadcast device, I’m sure there must be publicly available guidelines & regulations that give you the specs you seek.
For those of you who are curious, a set of training slides for the Basic RADAR Operator Training Course NHTSA program is available from my old employer. The file is a 4Mb slide show available from UNF-IPTM.
Well, that’s my recommendation, of course. But I’m acting on the belief that it may have been a citation issued based on less than stellar evidence. I’ve never written a bad ticket, and I don’t think anyone else should, either.
To beat a speeding ticket in the USA, you need, including radar ones, Beat That Ticket. My library has two copies of it & its a small library so must be just about everywhere.
Get an extension. When that date comes up, get another extension, etc…pretty soon the cop won’t remember anything
Also, they can only use radar if a Speed Zone Survey was done on that street. If the Survey says its safe at 500mph & its a 25mph street, then, you can go 500 mph & get your ticket dropped.
handy-
what’s this about a “Speed Zone Survey?” I have never heard of that. What state do you live in, or is this a federal thing? And where can I find more info about it, or where can I get a copy of the survey? I can not imagine something that could get so many people off the hook actually applies nationwide. My brother is a PO and he has never heard of this.
Handy is referring to a California thing (Dude!). Try the Nolo press, they have got a good book on traffic court, but the info is mainly CA. There is a nice section on Radar, tho.
Just get there really early and hope your case comes up before the cop gets there. Worked for me and I was doing 110 in a 55. I ended up with a $20.00 fine.
Nope - the trial date has already been reset once and I will need to provide a valid reason why it should be reset again. BUT being delayed by the RADAR company should be one, especially when the prosecutor insisted that I be required to get that information on my own.
I still need to take a few pictures of the scene just for the sake of having evidence, but the bulk of my case is complete.
I know that the beam on the RADAR device is 15 degrees. Given the distance from which the cop is gonna testify he made the reading, the beam width would have been at least 65 feet on either side of my car. That’s wide enough to include traffic on the freeway to my left (remember, I’m on the frontage road).
This is what I’m going to testify, but I can’t just walk in and say “15 degrees”. I’m learning lots of lawyer words and one of those is “foundation”. I need foundation for that particular evidence and that’s why I started this particular thread.
Most likely, I think I’m going to just go the judge next week and explain the situation and hopefully just get a subpoena. We’ll see.
Raza - if you can give me the name of the publication where you got that information, I might be able to just go with that instead…
Sure, right here:
'From www.speedtrap.com: “I have some additional information on the use of radar in California. To use radar, the enforced
facility (road, highway, etc) must have a valid Speed Zone Survey, as your other correspondent noted. What he did not say,
though, was the posted speed limit must be in accordance with the speed limit indicated by the survey. In other words, if the
survey recommends a speed limit of 40 MPH, and the local jurisdiction posts “30 MPH” signs, any ticket written should be
thrownout of court, irrespective of the transgressor’s speed, since the police would be enforcing a speed limit not legally
set…There are a couple of other things I failed to mention about Speed Zone Surveys in California.
They are public documents, and cannot legally be kept from you. Some jurisdictions don’t want to give them out, but be
persistent, and you will be rewarded.”
“‘How do you know I’m mad’ said Alice.
'You must be, ’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’”
