If there is a video of someone speeding online, is there a statute of limitations on getting a ticket from what is seen in that video?
I googled it and didn’t find a straight answer but I found that old thread so I’m asking here.
Assume the video clearly shows excessive speeding, like it shows the speedometer at 150mph or GPS saying 150mph and a speed limit sign saying 60, so there is little doubt they were speeding. Some cops might say that speed is reckless driving, so this applies to reckless driving or speeding tickets.
Also the driver was NOT ticketed at the time, so this is NOT asking what is the statute of limitations on a speeding TICKET. A lot of searches I did said that, like they got a ticket 10 years ago (or 20 years, etc) and wanted to know if they still had to pay it. YES, DUH, you were found guilty, you’re still guilty.
There’s a few different “what if” possibilities too…
what if… the video has a time stamp of 1 year ago (or 2 or 5 or 10) but the video was uploaded today, can the police track them down and give them a ticket for today’s date?
what if… the video has a time stamp of 1 year ago (or 2 or 5 or 10) **but the video was uploaded 1 year ago (or 2 years or 5 years, etc) **, can the police track them down and give them a ticket for today?
what if… the video has no time stamp **but the video was uploaded 1 year ago (or 2 years or 5 years, etc) **, can the police track them down and give them a ticket for today?
what if… the video has no time stamp but the video was uploaded today, can the police track them down and give them a ticket for today?
I’m assuming yes on 4, if the video has no time stamp and it’s uploaded today and the police see it today they can issue a ticket today if they identify the person that uploaded the video. They could even issue the ticket months later if the police saw the video and it took months to locate the driver.
But the other scenarios I’m hazy on, especially as more time passes and the video gets older.
In my opinion, law enforcement could never issue a ticket on these facts. A video is not admissible evidence without the proper foundation by a live witness. If you’ve ever seen a movie with someone speeding, you can imagine why. To start with, the person who uploaded the video may or may not have been the driver. The video may or may not have been created with special effects. The “time stamp” may or may not be accurate. I suppose it would be possible to do an extensive forensic evaluation of the evidence, but who is going to do that for a speeding ticket?
Law Enforcement would need to:
Positively identify the time and date of the violation.
Positively identify the location of the violation (Legal venue).
Positively identify the driver involved in the violation.
Positively identify the vehicle involved in the violation.
The above are not a tall order if the officer makes the stop close to the time of the violation.
Trying to gather all of the above based on a video would be very difficult. As an officer, I would hate to present that ticket to either a supervisor or a judge.
Video one is from Japan, where the laws are different.
Video two is a guy who was chased by police, so they had their own evidence of his speeding. The video simply helped them identify him and prove the case.
video three disproves my point. (although I wonder if they could convict without more)
Apparently police tracked him down and got him to admit to excessive speeding. I’m surprised police did that, I wouldn’t think police would come to your house or work to arrest someone over a video of speeding, I’ve known people that had warrants out for much more serious offensives and police did not show up at their work or home to arrest them.
The statute of limitations for anything will be different from state to state. Here in New Jersey the statute of limitations for most motor vehicle violations is 30 days.
All of those people who the cops are tracking down and arresting aren’t just getting speeding tickets though. They’re getting charged with reckless driving or other more serious crimes. (Although that’s with the caveat that in some states X MPH or X over the limit are per se reckless driving.)
Like Loach said it varies by state. It also probably depends on whether you’re in a state that treats simple traffic tickets as criminal or civil infractions. I’m not really sure if civil infractions routinely have a statute of limitations written in or not. They’re by definition exceedingly minor violations so the cops dredging up a years old one probably doesn’t come up very often.