Darrel Toepfer wrote in news:RV9jf.38652$Y82.27551
@bignews4.bellsouth.net:

Skywise wrote:

BTW, in case anyone is curious...one accident (infamous opposing
left turn, no injuries) and one ticket (which in hindsight I could
have talked myself out of, I suspected the officer did not radar
me like he claimed, and I didn't ask to see the reading on the gun,
but I didn't know at the time that if they radar you and they can't
show you the reading, they can't give you a ticket)

They just show you a reading, showed it to the last poor soul they
ripped off as well...

Possible for other situations, but not mine.

The officer claimed to have been sitting at a particular street
corner yet I suspected he had just paced me. I had passed a
motorcycle cop about a mile back that was doing someone else
over. It just didn't click quick enough for my inexperienced
young mind that this guy was probably the same cop and that he
didn't radar me. If I'd had enough foresight to ask, he wouldn't
have been able to show me any reading at all.

Later, on my return trip I checked out the area. Turned out the
corner he claimed to be sitting on was one I specifically
remembered looking at because of the nice houses, and I didn't
recall seeing any motorcycle officer pointing a radar gun at me.

Now for the fun part. I noticed that the distance from the
corner to where I came to a stop seemed awfully short. Turned
out to be only about 2700 feet. So I did some calculations to
see how fast the officer would have had to accelerate and to
what speed in order to catch up to me going the alleged 68 mph
and then for me to pull over in only 2700 feet. I seem to
recall he would have had to get well over 100 and back down to
0 in that short distance.

I tried arguing this to the judge, trying to show the officer
could not have in fact been there to radar me. His response
was "I happen to know for a fact that police bikes can go that
fast." Silly me, I should have said something like "what's your
evidence?"

Looking back on it now it's all so silly, but I learned several
things. Cops lie and judges lie. Yes, I was in fact speeding,
but the point is how I was caught was not the truth. Also, I
learned that one cannot defend themselves without first paying
the penalty of your alleged crime (guilty until proven innocent).
That is, you have to pay the fine BEFORE you're allowed to
dispute the ticket. Hey, I was just a young lad when this
happened, naive and full of optimism. Now I'm older, smarter,
and pessimistic.

Since then I've had a few other encounters with police officers
and in every case have successfully argued myself out of any
ticket. In all those cases I wasn't speeding. Sheesh, I actually
had one cop argue with me about calibration of speedometers! His
logic was flawed and I caught him with it. I later checked my
speedometer just for S&G and it reads 1.5% high.

It's been well over 5 years now since I've had any such problems.
Even though my driving style on the bike could technically earn
me several tickets, I've just not been pulled over. I guess
that's a good thing as I'd hate to have to argue that my driving
style is a direct result of the need for me to keep my skin alive
with all the nuts on the road. In a choice between my safety and
obeying the law, my safety wins every time. I really hope I never
have to argue this. I have a short temper when it comes to idiots.

And in a lame attempt to put this on topic, I sometimes liken
riding a motorcyle in LA as combat flying at zero agl, you're
out of ammo, and the other guy is a kamikaze!

Sheesh! You should have seen what happened to me on the 22 fwy
the other night! I really have to wonder about the statistics
that GA is slightly less safe than riding a motorcycle.

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Quake "predictions": http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
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