Moving police cars and speed detectors

I got a speeding ticket today. Briefly, as I was traveling down the street one way, I noticed a police car (following very closely behind another car) traveling toward me in the opposite direction. As soon as I spotted him, I hit the brake, but it was too late–he’d already seen me. So, I got a ticket for going what the officer claimed was 51 in a 35 mph zone. My question—does his radar detector correct for the speed that HE was traveling at? Is this function built in to their radar guns? (I live in upstate NY.) I ask because I’m very surprised at the speed he cited me at…I thought I might have been traveling a little over 40 mph, but I have a hard time believing I was really going 51.

Also, I’ve broken a perfectly clean record of 5+ years in the past 4 months—all in this same area near where I live. First, a ticket for not wearing my seat belt (as I pulled out of a parking lot), then a speeding ticket two months ago (I’m still dealing with an attorney on that one–it looks like we may finally get it reduced to “failure to obey an officer” ), and now another ticket today, despite my very real obsession with trying to obey the limits (hey, we all mess up sometimes). Because I haven’t yet finalized the deal to reduce my first speeding ticket, I’m wondering if I should go with a different lawyer right now for the new ticket, or tell the first one about this one too? {and if it matters–The first court was the village court, this one is the town court, but the same city in both}.

I swear, I’m doing my best to be a perfect driver.
Any advice?

Advice? Sure. Don’t slam on the brakes the minute you see a police car. Some of them like to watch for that “front end dip” and they’ll pull you over when they see it. To them, that’s evidence that you know you’re doing something wrong.

In the future, when you see a police car, just take your foot off the gas and coast a bit. It doesn’t look nearly as suspicious, and you slow down in a much safer fashion.

Yeah, I always wondered whether radars detect relative speed, really…

Yes, police cars equipped with mobile radar are able to automatically take into account the speed of the police car itself. The more common handheld radar gun needs to be used when stationary.

Several years back I was cruising along with a police car following about 100 yards behind me. Periodically my radar detector would go off as he activated his radar. It took a few times until I realized it wasn’t me he was zapping - it was going off each time another car came past us in the opposite direction.

Eric

There are other methos of speed calculation out there besides radar. In PA, VASCAR is popular-essentially it’s an electronic stopwatch, started when you pass a fixed point, and stopped when you pass another. The distance between the two being known, the computer does the math.

Although it most likely won’t be acceptable as a defense, you may wish to see if your speedometer is off. Get on the Thruway, or any other open road which has mile markers. Maintain 60 MPH, and note the time on your watch when passing a milepost. If your speedo is correct, you should pass the next milemarker in one minute. Significantly less time, and your speedo is reading low, hence the tickets.

The fixed guns that Florida troopers use bounce two lasers, one off the ground and onto your car, and one directly onto your car. The direct one measures your speed relative to the police car, and the ground one measures the police car’s speed and direction relative to the ground.

I’d be pretty sure the same technology is available to all cops.

I second the “don’t slam on the brakes” advice, and follow up with “travel in the farthest lane to the right that you can safely cruise in”. Of course, try to keep from passing on the wrong side, but if you’re on an empty highway you’ll attract less attention in the slow lane than the inside lane.

There are also plenty of small town cops who routinely cheat on ticket-writing to make revenue for the town.

With VASCAR, the cop simply hits “start” and “stop” at the right interval and he/she can make any particular number appear on the display. You could learn to do it in 5 miinutes.

With radar/lidar it’s harder for the cop to manipulate the results, but there’s nothing which forces him/her to write the correct number on the ticket. The radar displays 47, but 51 gets written on the ticket. Who’s to know?

Near where I live we have several very small towns whose entire budget is made up of mostly bogus speeding tickets. But the state isn’t eager to crack down on the cities because they’d just create a fiscal crisis they’d then be forced to pay for.

So the newspapers keep doing muck-raking investigations, and the mayor and cops (all 3 of them in the department) deny everything, and the tickets keep happening.

Just a thought.