Fark Rye For Many Whores: Meanwhile, in the sidebar

300 call hotline in gynecologist recording probe

Fifty-four-year-old Dr. Nikita Levy was found dead in his Towson home on Monday.



Nikita?

zedster: In Germany they need both the license plate and a picture of the driver to give an automated ticket. The computer automatically blurs out the passengers as a privacy matter. Some genius has a British Audi in Germany and thus the driver gets blurred out instead of the passenger. So the German police got a bunch of picture like the following:

[cache.gizmodo.com image 410x231]

What's crazy is that given access to the full-sized originals, they could almost certainly have restored the driver's face, especially if they had access to the algorithm that did the pathetic "blur".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Paul_Neil
http://www.andrewt.net/blog/undo-the-twirl/

Whichever idiot made the "privacy" software should be fired. If you want privacy, you replace that section of the image with a solid color. (And make damned sure your file type doesn't provide for undo, cached thumbnails, etc. that might contain the original, uncensored image.)

penthesilea: Shadow Blasko: L.D. Ablo: There are better ways to challenge speed cameras:

[www.thenewspaper.com image 190x145]

Good luck getting to Elmwood's. They bought the best.

[media2.wcpo.com image 320x240]

Use a lasso?  Fill water balloons with paint & chuck 'em?  Train a monkey to disable 'em?  Chain saw?

I've got it!  Hook it up to your truck and just drive away with it.

Scoped rifle?

Exceedingly long, tangentially-related CSB,

Because people are sharing their suspended license stories, I'll share mine.  On my 21st birthday, I had a date.  It was the first one I'd had in a while, so I was...  excited.  I got off work, showered, and went to pick up the lovely lass.  Now, my birthday is on the 1st of the month, and in all of the excitement I forgot to renew the plates on my car.  On my way, I was pulled over because the sticker on my car had expired.  I realized my error and admitted to my mistake, telling the officer my story and he went back to his car to run my information.  After what seemed to be an inordinately long time, the officer returned to my door and asked me to step out of the car.  I then started to get nervous.  He told me that in addition to my plates being expired, my license had been suspended because of unpaid parking tickets.  The previous year I'd moved in with my previous girlfriend and lived in a house where there was no parking anywhere nearby except on the street, which was a in a no parking zone from 3-7 AM, and was that way everywhere in a mile radius.  Every morning I woke up to a $7 ticket, which I would collect and pay at the end of the month.  Apparently I'd missed a few of them, and they suspended my license, which I would have known had I properly updated my address with the secretary of state.  Admittedly, I didn't.

I was threatened with being put in jail unless I paid a fine on-site.  $100, which I happened to have on me because I was going on my fancy date.  They also towed and impounded my car.  I had to call my date on my awesome mid-90s Nextel phone and tell her I'd have to walk to pick her up.  It was hilarious to her and we went out to have a nice time (with her driving) courtesy of my Discover card, which was problematic, because a lot of places didn't take Discover.  After the date, I got a bj and we agreed to meet again, but she didn't return my calls.  Can't say that I blame her, as I was as big a loser as I've ever been at that point in my life.  Anyway, over the next couple of weeks I filled out all of the paperwork and paid all of the fines and got my license reinstated and my car out of impound.

Fast-forward 6 years, and I'm now happily married to another woman, with a baby on the way.  The cops at work ask to speak to me privately and tell me that I have a warrant out for my arrest for failure to appear on a driving on a suspended license charge from 6 years ago.  They give me 2 hours to get things in order, but they're going to take me into custody.  So I have to get a lawyer, call my wife and tell her I'm going to jail, and turn myself into the cops.  I spent 4 hours in jail where I watched a woman get beaten up for annoying the jail cops by asking repeatedly at the top of her lungs why she what she was being charged with.  My heavily pregnant wife was eventually allowed to bail me out, and I had to pay a lawyer about a grand to get it all straightened out over the course of the following month.  That was really awesome.

Shadow Blasko: L.D. Ablo: There are better ways to challenge speed cameras:

[www.thenewspaper.com image 190x145]

Good luck getting to Elmwood's. They bought the best.

[media2.wcpo.com image 320x240]

Paintball practice.....

jaylectricity: snuff3r: Here's a far easier way to avoid the ticket and time you've wasted of the court system: Don't farking speed, and if you do and get caught out, cop it on the chin and stfu.

Or let's get real about the speed limits. Go five mph below the limit so that when your car accidentally goes a little faster you are still under the limit.

People assume that if the limit is 40 you should drive 40. That's just not true. The absolute limit is 40, you should drive at 35 and if you go down a hill and it creeps up to 39 you're still safe.

That kind of thinking leads to drivers watching their speedometer instead of watching the road and consequently getting into MORE accidents. But at least they're not speeding, right?

snuff3r: Shadow Blasko: No non-corrupt cop is going to pull you over for 27 in a 25 unless you're begging for it. The system was not designed for "yes you were speeding, no you were not" binary enforcement. Taking the humans out of the loop has made it crazy.

But it is that binary. People seem to think it's not and that's where you start hearing bleating from the sidelines about "cameras are nothing more than revenue machines, screwing us all over", etc. Just as it's binary that a cop can exercise discretion - will book you, won't book you. 0 or 1.

Legislation gives authority to bureaucrats to create a clear line in the sand. That line is in the form of a speed limit. Many systems exist that allow the bureaucrat to create this limit - road condition testing, fatality statistics, etc etc etc. Once that line is created the only choice that exists is whether you cross that line or not. There's no leeway outside of that. The cameras are nothing more than a tool to catch you as you cross that line.Cameras exist, will always exist and will always pick people up for crossing that line.

That aside, I'm not arguing that cameras can be wrong or don't have problems. No system is perfect. The story you've linked is a prime example of where the system has been questioned and a question of error was backed up with evidence.

Personally, i farking hate cameras. I can't see how 1-2 kph over the limit is worth the efforts of a ticket, but meh. As someone who spends 99% of road time on a sportsbike i often test the boundaries. And when get caught ill take it like a man.

A bit off topic, but something I read in your profile made me curious. Not meaning to be nasty, but there's really no other way to ask this.

1) "I'm a militant atheist"

2) "I am a parent who's lost a child, Hannah. I love her and miss her everyday. She was a redhead just like her father and her big brother. I'm thinking of you always, baby girl.

Er..... who are you talking to? She's gone. Nothing's there (per your first point). Do you also talk to dust on the ground?

zedster: In Germany they need both the license plate and a picture of the driver to give an automated ticket. The computer automatically blurs out the passengers as a privacy matter. Some genius has a British Audi in Germany and thus the driver gets blurred out instead of the passenger. So the German police got a bunch of picture like the following:

An in-law of mine got a automated ticket from Germany mailed to his home in the US a few years ago for going too slow on the Autobahn... he hasn't lived in (or visited) Germany in over 20 years.

This whole speed camera business isn't going to get any better; it's only going to get much, much worse as technology and camera resolution improves, now that municipalities have a taste of the enormous profits that screwing over the little people on an industrial scale brings. Remember when only blacks were treated this way? Bend over, middle class, it's going to get worse. The first big step will be when cities start owning their systems, instead of paying an Australian company to set up on their land, and then being forced to pay back everything when they get cracked down; by having their own, they'll maximize profits.

Speed laws will keep getting more draconian and disconnected from reality while revenue cameras will start popping up in more places. Traffic courts have already been as thin-stretched as possible and only held once a week in an out of the way location for decades, that sure won't change.

With modern safety standards, we could have the equivalent safety of 1960 vehicles while we all drove 100 mph, despite increased congestion, if we paid attention. (Remember, the greatest generation drove 75-85 back before the oil embargo, not the 55 the boomers were forced down to.) We inherited most of our farked up speed laws and insurance policies from the national 55 limit, not from anything scientific, when the only important metric is reckless driving.

/Same thing applies to driving while texting or chatting - it usually leads to reckless driving, so why do we need another law?

Great Janitor: I can see in a straight line in both directions. The light is red. Now, if I can tell that there are no cars in sight, I as the driver should have the right to say "fark this red light, no one is coming." and drive on through. However, the law says that I am not able to make that decision and if a camera is on that traffic light, then I am to be fined and the reasoning of "No one was coming." isn't allowed.

And when you combine that with the lights that will stay red for 2-3 minutes (for all directions) despite no one coming either way, including a left turn interlude when no one's turning, is it any wonder why so much road rage and red running occurs? Too bad all the traffic engineers got laid off with the Great Recession, but the ones that were there before barely gave a damn and tended to just make all timings identical 24/7 365 days a year, even when sensors and radars were available.

Then you have the opposite, when someone on a side street turns right and somehow sets off the light despite already having turned and gone, making the main street idle for a while.

/I run 'em at night, fark it, central Fresno has the worst light timings I've ever seen.

When am given the position of Exalted Leader and Grand Poobah, every municipal leader that ever approved a traffic light camera or speeding camera will be drug from their homes and their lifeless bodies will be left hanging from the devices as a reminder to any that would follow.

Totally serious. You can tell I mean it because I said 'totally'.

Hoisted by their own retard!

the cost of the cameras, never outweighs the cost of the judge, police officers, and the fines

any municipality that uses speed cameras, or red light cameras, is slowly circling the drain for revenue and don't even know it

Just Another OC Homeless Guy: snuff3r: Shadow Blasko: No non-corrupt cop is going to pull you over for 27 in a 25 unless you're begging for it. The system was not designed for "yes you were speeding, no you were not" binary enforcement. Taking the humans out of the loop has made it crazy.

But it is that binary. People seem to think it's not and that's where you start hearing bleating from the sidelines about "cameras are nothing more than revenue machines, screwing us all over", etc. Just as it's binary that a cop can exercise discretion - will book you, won't book you. 0 or 1.

Legislation gives authority to bureaucrats to create a clear line in the sand. That line is in the form of a speed limit. Many systems exist that allow the bureaucrat to create this limit - road condition testing, fatality statistics, etc etc etc. Once that line is created the only choice that exists is whether you cross that line or not. There's no leeway outside of that. The cameras are nothing more than a tool to catch you as you cross that line.Cameras exist, will always exist and will always pick people up for crossing that line.

That aside, I'm not arguing that cameras can be wrong or don't have problems. No system is perfect. The story you've linked is a prime example of where the system has been questioned and a question of error was backed up with evidence.

Personally, i farking hate cameras. I can't see how 1-2 kph over the limit is worth the efforts of a ticket, but meh. As someone who spends 99% of road time on a sportsbike i often test the boundaries. And when get caught ill take it like a man.

A bit off topic, but something I read in your profile made me curious. Not meaning to be nasty, but there's really no other way to ask this.

1) "I'm a militant atheist"

2) "I am a parent who's lost a child, Hannah. I love her and miss her everyday. She was a redhead just like her father and her big brother. I'm thinking of you always, baby girl.

Er..... who are you talking to? She's gone. Nothing's there (per your first point). Do you also talk to dust on the ground?

That was a seriously retarded point. "Thinking of you" doesn't translate to - "I believe in Jesus angels". You are a moron.

ecmoRandomNumbers: Got one in Phoenix and didn't bother going to court. Checked online after my court date.

Charges dismissed without prejudice.


without prejudice means you can still be charged.

foxyshadis: Great Janitor: I can see in a straight line in both directions. The light is red. Now, if I can tell that there are no cars in sight, I as the driver should have the right to say "fark this red light, no one is coming." and drive on through. However, the law says that I am not able to make that decision and if a camera is on that traffic light, then I am to be fined and the reasoning of "No one was coming." isn't allowed.

And when you combine that with the lights that will stay red for 2-3 minutes (for all directions) despite no one coming either way, including a left turn interlude when no one's turning, is it any wonder why so much road rage and red running occurs? Too bad all the traffic engineers got laid off with the Great Recession, but the ones that were there before barely gave a damn and tended to just make all timings identical 24/7 365 days a year, even when sensors and radars were available.

Then you have the opposite, when someone on a side street turns right and somehow sets off the light despite already having turned and gone, making the main street idle for a while.

/I run 'em at night, fark it, central Fresno has the worst light timings I've ever seen.

A few of the stop lights around here in Minnesota flash red after a certain time of day and they basically become stop sign intersections at night. So far it seems to be the smart way to go about things.

snuff3r: Legislation gives authority to bureaucrats to create a clear line in the sand. That line is in the form of a speed limit.

I say cameras should blanket the roads.

Then we will be safe.

Skr: foxyshadis: Great Janitor: I can see in a straight line in both directions. The light is red. Now, if I can tell that there are no cars in sight, I as the driver should have the right to say "fark this red light, no one is coming." and drive on through. However, the law says that I am not able to make that decision and if a camera is on that traffic light, then I am to be fined and the reasoning of "No one was coming." isn't allowed.

And when you combine that with the lights that will stay red for 2-3 minutes (for all directions) despite no one coming either way, including a left turn interlude when no one's turning, is it any wonder why so much road rage and red running occurs? Too bad all the traffic engineers got laid off with the Great Recession, but the ones that were there before barely gave a damn and tended to just make all timings identical 24/7 365 days a year, even when sensors and radars were available.

Then you have the opposite, when someone on a side street turns right and somehow sets off the light despite already having turned and gone, making the main street idle for a while.

/I run 'em at night, fark it, central Fresno has the worst light timings I've ever seen.

A few of the stop lights around here in Minnesota flash red after a certain time of day and they basically become stop sign intersections at night. So far it seems to be the smart way to go about things.

After years of wondering why they didn't do that, I traveled to Europe, where most cities seem to do just that. (In fact, they'll just use flashing yellow, not even making you stop as long as you slow and look around.) I came back more convinced than every that US traffic laws are mostly based on superstition and a willingness to tolerate distracted driving.

snuff3r: Here's a far easier way to avoid the ticket and time you've wasted of the court system: Don't farking speed, and if you do and get caught out, cop it on the chin and stfu.

Whoa, put the kool-aid down for a minute.

I recently just got a parking ticket in the mail.  Funny thing - I ALWAYS pay for parking and thank god I pay for it with a credit card - so I pull up my credit card statement online and sure enough, on the date in question, I paid for an hours worth.   Sent in the statement information proving that I paid, gave them the last 4 digits of my card and 3 days later they e-mail me back saying "Sorry, the ticket has been cancelled".

Now - let's consider that if they can make a mistake with one service they can make mistakes with another. Never assume your guilty because they told you so - take the time to examine the particulars and seek out legal counsel - cops are experts in their field - you are not - find one and get an opinion and if THEY say pay the ticket, then by all means - go ahead and do just that.

Great Janitor: My biggest problem with red light cameras and speed cameras is that an outside corporation is getting a commission from all the tickets.  There has already been a great deal of evidence pointing to the sad fact that red light cameras have been calibrated to ticket drivers that were not in any danger of running red lights.  I personally feel that all speed and red light cameras should be taken down and we return to the days where only cops, not machines, could give you tickets.

My biggest problem with things like traffic lights, speed limits that are seen as absolute limits (like in school zones), and even having to stop for a school bus when it's loading or unloading is that those things are designed to remove complete trust in the driver to make the right choice.  For example, I come to a traffic light at a four way intersection.  It's 10:35 am on a Wednesday.  Most people are at work or in school.  I can see in a straight line in both directions.  The light is red.  Now, if I can tell that there are no cars in sight, I as the driver should have the right to say "fark this red light, no one is coming."  and drive on through. However, the law says that I am not able to make that decision and if a camera is on that traffic light, then I am to be fined and the reasoning of "No one was coming." isn't allowed.

Same with school buses.  Where I live there are two apartment complexes side by side.  Across the street is an empty field.  More than once I have been caught behind two school buses. The first will stop, pick up kids.  Once it's done, the second school bus will drive up 15 feet to where the first one was, and pick up kids.  So I'm stuck behind two school buses picking up kids and I can't drive around them, even though all the kids being picked up live in the apartment complex on the side of the road with the school bus and with the other side of the road being an empty field, no kids are going to come running out of that field and across the street.  But, still, as the driver of a car, I am forbidden from using logic to determine that no kids are in danger if I drive around those two school buses.  And let's look at the school zones.  Where I live the school zones activate an hour before school lets out and lasts up to an hour after school lets out.  Now, as a driver I should be able to say "School let's out a 3:30, it's 2:59, no kids are in danger." and continue at the non-school zone speed.  However, the law is written to prevent me from allowing to make that choice.  Instead if I do that I get a rather large ticket for running a school zone.

I would love to see the lawmakers review our traffic code and put some of the trust back to the drivers instead of a blanket "You must do this all the time no matter what" approach, which is what we have now.  And making automated ticketing machines illegal would be a good step to that trust.

/end rant

Trust is taken away from drivers because people continue to make poor decisions while driving their 1500 pound machines. While I agree that I like to think I could make a judgement call to treat a red light as a stop sign at 3am when there are great lines of sight in all directions, I also understand that many people should not be allowed to make that judgement. Laws are written for the lowest common denominator.

Tachypnea: Great Janitor: My biggest problem with red light cameras and speed cameras is that an outside corporation is getting a commission from all the tickets.  There has already been a great deal of evidence pointing to the sad fact that red light cameras have been calibrated to ticket drivers that were not in any danger of running red lights.  I personally feel that all speed and red light cameras should be taken down and we return to the days where only cops, not machines, could give you tickets.

My biggest problem with things like traffic lights, speed limits that are seen as absolute limits (like in school zones), and even having to stop for a school bus when it's loading or unloading is that those things are designed to remove complete trust in the driver to make the right choice.  For example, I come to a traffic light at a four way intersection.  It's 10:35 am on a Wednesday.  Most people are at work or in school.  I can see in a straight line in both directions.  The light is red.  Now, if I can tell that there are no cars in sight, I as the driver should have the right to say "fark this red light, no one is coming."  and drive on through. However, the law says that I am not able to make that decision and if a camera is on that traffic light, then I am to be fined and the reasoning of "No one was coming." isn't allowed.

Same with school buses.  Where I live there are two apartment complexes side by side.  Across the street is an empty field.  More than once I have been caught behind two school buses. The first will stop, pick up kids.  Once it's done, the second school bus will drive up 15 feet to where the first one was, and pick up kids.  So I'm stuck behind two school buses picking up kids and I can't drive around them, even though all the kids being picked up live in the apartment complex on the side of the road with the school bus and with the other side of the road being an empty field, no kids are going to come running out of that field and across the stre ...

Way off on the weight.

snuff3r: But it is that binary. People seem to think it's not and that's where you start hearing bleating from the sidelines about "cameras are nothing more than revenue machines, screwing us all over", etc. Just as it's binary that a cop can exercise discretion - will book you, won't book you. 0 or 1.

Its not binary. The camera has no discretion and the cop does. If you were breaking the law the camera gives you a ticket. 100% of the time. With a cop they get to decide if that ticket is really justified. I suppose it is binary, but one of those has two operations and that makes it allot more than "on/off". 

Just because you broke the law doesnt mean you deserve to be punished. Discretion discretion discretion.

The judge is there to judge. This judge sounded great!
  Shadow Blasko: I contested it, the officer rescheduled twice on the hearing, and on the third reschedule I was out of town, so I just went ahead and went into the clerks office and paid the ticket on the due date.

CSB: my sister contested a ticket for distracted driveing when she was in highschool -- her friend backed into her and when the cops came one of my sisters idiot friends told the cop my sis wasn't paying attention. She went to court and fought it and the judge agreed the evidence was pretty clear. Now for the CSB in the CSB: The case before her was a 50 year old farmer from a community just north of us. He had been charged with public urination. The cops had caught him peeing behind the bar after last call. He was just this little old farmer.  Well the judge took one look at him, apologized, told him it was being thrown out and that he could leave. The judge then turned to the two cops (new to the RCMP i think) and told them if they ever brought anyone into his courtroom on something so petty he would make sure they found their way to the most podunk reserve he could. He called it an 'emarassment' to the law. They turned pretty red in the face. CSB done.

I know its not speeding but its the same idea -- the courts are not there to make people feel like children who must be watched and chastised.

mikefinch: Shadow Blasko: I contested it, the officer rescheduled twice on the hearing, and on the third reschedule I was out of town, so I just went ahead and went into the clerks office and paid the ticket on the due date.

Whups -- i meant to put something in there...

Where i come from allot of people contest speeding tickets because if the cop doesn't show its automatically tossed out. You just have to show up. If the cop is there you just plead guilty and pay. Rescheduling would waste so many peoples time and money. The cop and the judge and court recorder together likely make more in half an hour than your ticket is even worth.

I love how many people thought they could argue the calibration aspect. I guarantee they have an SOP for keeping those up to par. I would show up just to ask the judge whether he thought it was worth the courts time.

jaylectricity: DON.MAC: jaylectricity: snuff3r: Here's a far easier way to avoid the ticket and time you've wasted of the court system: Don't farking speed, and if you do and get caught out, cop it on the chin and stfu.

Or let's get real about the speed limits. Go five mph below the limit so that when your car accidentally goes a little faster you are still under the limit.

People assume that if the limit is 40 you should drive 40. That's just not true. The absolute limit is 40, you should drive at 35 and if you go down a hill and it creeps up to 39 you're still safe.

Be careful about what you ask for.  Victoria Australia has a 3% tolerance and now has the best speed limit compliance in the world.  The increased congestion and tail gaiting has wiped out all the advantages of fewer people on the roads and safer cars.

I don't see the problem.

Let's say you're going down a road and the limit is 45 mph. Nowadays cops will forgive you if you're going 49. Some will forgive you if you're going 52.

Let's just raise the speed limit to 53 and enforce it at absolute strictness. If you are going 54 you are going to jail.

Unreasonable burden of speedometer accuracy.  This is not a realistic idea.
Plus, as others have said, it takes drivers' attention away from the situation on the road, which largely defeats the purpose of having a speed limit in the first place.

I will say this about TFA:  Marylanders have it easy on the speed camera thing:  $40 no matter how fast you were going, and no points on your license.  It doesn't get much more lenient than that.  PG county IS a farking police state, and MD state troopers can be fairly aggressive and unprofessional, but in the areas around Baltimore the cops tend to be pretty cool about speeding.  I know, because I rarely went anywhere at under 100mph when I lived there.

mikefinch: Its not binary. The camera has no discretion and the cop does. If you were breaking the law the camera gives you a ticket. 100% of the time. With a cop they get to decide if that ticket is really justified. I suppose it is binary, but one of those has two operations and that makes it allot more than "on/off". 

Just because you broke the law doesnt mean you deserve to be punished. Discretion discretion discretion.

Exactly.  Hence the old, "Listen, I could give you a speeding ticket for 66 in a 45, which would be a $250 fine, plus 6 points on your license, and a jump in your insurance premium, but instead here's a $50 ticket for "Failure to obey a traffic control device".  Do us both a favor, and just pay the $50.  I'll be annoyed if you make me come to court."

Enforcement of safety laws shouldn't be binary, because the definition of safe/unsafe behavior isn't binary.  That's just common sense.

mikefinch: Where i come from allot of people contest speeding tickets because if the cop doesn't show its automatically tossed out. You just have to show up. If the cop is there you just plead guilty and pay. Rescheduling would waste so many peoples time and money. The cop and the judge and court recorder together likely make more in half an hour than your ticket is even worth.

This happened to me on one of the very few times I've ever stopped for a cop on my sport bike.  I could have easily gotten away, but I wasn't being a hooligan or anything, just in a little bit of a rush, so I figured I'd pull over and let the guy feel like he was in control.  I thought he'd appreciate it, since most of the riders in the area would have just twisted the throttle and flipped him off.  Dude writes me over $1000 in tickets, including reckless driving.  I was doing maybe 85 in a 65.

Court date was the day before Thanksgiving.  No show by the cop on about 6 cases, including mine, all of which were an excessive number of tickets written for a single infraction.  The judge was seriously pissed that the trooper wasted his time, and told the entire courtroom so.

Karne
A bit off topic, but something I read in your profile made me curious. Not meaning to be nasty, but there's really no other way to ask this.

1) "I'm a militant atheist"

2) "I am a parent who's lost a child, Hannah. I love her and miss her everyday. She was a redhead just like her father and her big brother. I'm thinking of you always, baby girl.

Er..... who are you talking to? She's gone. Nothing's there (per your first point). Do you also talk to dust on the ground?

That was a seriously retarded point. "Thinking of you" doesn't translate to - "I believe in Jesus angels". You are a moron.

Actually, I think Guy has a point. it says "thinking of you" - that is directed at the person that doesn't exist,  if it said "thinking of her," that would be logically consistent.  But rather than have an intelligent discussion, let's just call people retards and morons.

Driving in rural Tennessee several years ago. 4 lane split highway separated by a ditch and one side was closed for construction. I'm doing what I believe is 1 mph under the posted limit, but got pulled over for going 9 over. Sunny weather, dry pavement, no posted speed signs, no construction AT ALL on my side and clear traffic. Thought it was going to be easier than it was to have it dropped....When I got to court, there were about 25 other people there for the same thing and this dirty cop was a money making machine for those who didn't challenge it. The judge offered to drop the fees for those who plead guilty, but no way was I going to plead guilty for nothing more than driving 54MPH on a HIGHWAY without reduced speed signs and NO FARKING TRAFFIC.

So I stood there and let the judge chew me out. "You should have known It was a construction zone and slowed down." I tried to explain, just to be heard but he kept up the front.

 It was late on a warm summer day with NO CONSTRUCTION and NO TRAFFIC.  Just some dumbass cop hiding off the road and writing tickets as fast as he could. My ticket was still thrown out, but I had to drive 3 hours round trip for it...

/CSB off

Heh. The speed limit on the highway I use to drive home from offshore is 75 mph. I have never ONCE been stopped and I usually average between 100 and 105 kph!!!

/heh!!!!

MayoSlather: Only authoritarian douche bags support automated enforcement of the law. The world will have some danger in it and endlessly monitoring citizens isn't going to change that, but what it will do is make people hate government and is a slippery slope to a less free society.

But if the law isn't blind and automatic how will we ensure people will blindly and automatically follow it?

I for one love feeling like a child.

 Z-clipped: This happened to me on one of the very few times I've ever stopped for a cop on my sport bike. I could have easily gotten away... Dude writes me over $1000 in tickets, including reckless driving. I was doing maybe 85 in a 65.

So did you learn a lesson? Was the lesson watch how you drive? Or was is that pulling over for cops is for rubes?

Z-clipped: Exactly. Hence the old, "Listen, I could give you a speeding ticket for 66 in a 45, which would be a $250 fine, plus 6 points on your license, and a jump in your insurance premium, but instead here's a $50 ticket for "Failure to obey a traffic control device". Do us both a favor, and just pay the $50. I'll be annoyed if you make me come to court."

Thats called verbal judo and its super freaking gay. Imean, its smart and it makes sense but its taught by a cop and the book is written by a guy pretty full of himself.

The idea is that you make the person feel like your helping them out a bit. It defuses the tension and makes the person more compliant.  I had to take a course in it because i work alone all summer (like alone -- i get groceries and drinking water from a helicopter once a month) and someone on the job was murdered a few years back. The government went crazy instituting a "Crime Intervention Through Environmental Design" (CIPTED) policy. Part of that involved a two day course that is also taught to police regarding how to control situations verbally.

Interesting but not mind blowing. Most of it revolves around finding subliminal ways to make the other person empathize with you. It works both ways -- you can work your way out of a ticket with a good excuse and a subtle suggestion that you would rather the over worked police officer not have to sit there filling out hours of paperwork.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_self_defense

snuff3r: Legislation gives authority to bureaucrats to create a clear line in the sand. That line is in the form of a speed limit. Many systems exist that allow the bureaucrat to create this limit - road condition testing, fatality statistics, etc etc etc.

Problem is that I've never met a speed limit that's properly maintained in strict accordance with the laws that originally established it. A personal favorite is "put a highly visible speed trap up within line of sight of the traffic study personnel/equipment" which results in a study speed that indicates that the limit is too high!

That said, I paid my farking tickets up until I was arrested for the crime of designated driving and put through the DUI sausagemaker despite being stone cold sober. From now on the rules are different - the system will have to argue its point every damned time, and make sure it's T's are crossed and i's dotted.

I once got a speeding ticket that wasn't even mine. Cop pulled me over and said he clocked me 5 miles back going 30 over the limit, only problem was I had just turned onto that road about a half a mile back. He didn't believe me and neither did the judge when I went to court. I even had a witness testify that I was at their house and the only way from there to where I was stopped was the road I told them I had turned off of.

Moral of the story, you don't get out of a speeding ticket. The whole system is fixed.

biyaaatci: That was really awesome.

Well the part about the BJ was pretty cool.

Paul Williams got his ticket on Good Luck Road in College Park and also lost his case

It is good luck for the speed camera manufacturer, not the driver.

Only two tickets in my life, both during a "Safety month" (after the city's budget was out and in trouble...imagine the coincidence).

Both were crap but in court, I wasn't prepared for the crap they did... they repeat the questions over and over, twist everything around, do not let you present any notes or details that you have, and thanks to spending a lot of my life being accused of crap I have a natural reflex to be nervous when accused of stuff that I didn't do.

Lost both times because the judge's belief was that my explanation had a flaw (according to them, thanks to the drilling and twisting of anything I said)... so I was pretty much guilty and had to prove that I was innocent... Going against the crown/prosecutor is one thing, but having the judge on their side instead of unbiased... people don't stand a chance.

The second one, what really messed with me was that the guy right before me had a near identical story... I felt that I was trying to use his story instead of my own and they (judge and crown) really made it feel like it.

Should have gone with a lawyer, but they cost more than the ticket does.

Funny thing... how over 25 years of driving no ticket... 2 in one month, and since then( this is many years ago now), nothing again...

Yeah I'm still pissed about it.

in belgium you pay more if you contest.

my wife was driving in sterrebeck. the road was about the equivalent of 40 mph. ahead of her was a sign saying 30 as she got deeper into the village. she wasn't even to the 30 sign and they pulled her and three other people over. All Americans (the American school is there). We all have Diplomatic or Staff license plates. All got tickets for the same amount over. My wife talked to the officers and pointed out that she hadn't even hit the sign yet for the lower limit and that the speed they marked her for was basically doing 40 in a 30. They said she could contest it in court.

I talked to a local I worked with at NATO and he laughed. He said that the commune/village just needed money. They system works like this. You can pay it thru a bank transfer or you can go to court. If you go to court, the fine will be the same but, you will pay for court costs and they will tell your insurance you were speeding. Fine or fine plus court costs and higher insurance.

He said that the only people who show up to pay are foreigners who don't understand the system.

mikefinch: So did you learn a lesson? Was the lesson watch how you drive? Or was is that pulling over for cops is for rubes?

I did, in fact.  The lesson I learned was, "either keep it at less than 10mph over the limit, or keep it over 130mph".  And I've lived by that rule ever since.

mikefinch: Thats called verbal judo and its super freaking gay.

I'm familiar with the concept.  Some times, yes, it's a dickhead cop that knows you were speeding but doesn't have any solid evidence trying to leverage you into accepting a ticket. (*see CSB below)  Other times, it's a decent cop who has you dead to rights giving you a bit of a break, rather than ruining your driving record.

But I was really just trying to illustrate that cops are given a lot of discretion about what to charge on a moving violation, if anything.  It allows them, at least ostensibly, to judge how much of danger you were actually presenting and apply an appropriate correction.  It leaves room for a lot of douchebaggery on their part, but as a citizen who doesn't trust cops in any situation for any reason, I'd still prefer it to robots, cameras, and brightline one-size-fits-all enforcement.

CSB:

The one other time I was pulled over in MD (years before), my buddy and I were on a parts run for his shop, and we were hitting it a little on-and-off on a bigger stretch of highway, but not running flat-out.  A black unmarked SUV comes up and pulls him over, so I keep going.  As soon as the SUV is out of sight, I pin the throttle and run for the next exit just in case, and also because I want to wait for a call for help in case the stop is more than just a ticket.

Turns out, he was stopped by a federal agent patrolling the highway for smugglers.  The Fed had heard a local highway patrol on the radio about to stop us, and was trying to pull us over first, just to mess with the local cops.  Of course, I didn't know this, so I barrel down the next 3 miles or so at about 170mph, slow down, take the exit and start calmly looking for a place to stop so I can get my phone out.

Local cop comes tearing up behind me in another blacked out SUV, pulls me over, gun out and pointed at me, screaming "Why you runnin'? Felony evasion!", the whole deal.  Idiot was all pumped up because he thought he'd just run down a ZX10r.

I'm like, "I don't know what you're talking about, I had no idea you were behind me, but this bike will do 189... do you think I would have been doing 35 when you caught up if I was trying to run?"  He lectures me for about 20 minutes, calms down, and gives me a ticket for "improper lane change".  Meanwhile, the Fed let my friend go the minute the cop was out of sight.  I paid the ticket because it wasn't worth the time it would have taken to fight it.  But I got a chuckle out of watching this cop go from full-on DEFCON 1, down to realizing that he had basically nothing to charge me with.  I sort of judo-ed his judo, kept my mouth shut, and let him talk himself out of ruining my day.  It was worth the $45.

ReapTheChaos: I once got a speeding ticket that wasn't even mine. Cop pulled me over and said he clocked me 5 miles back going 30 over the limit, only problem was I had just turned onto that road about a half a mile back. He didn't believe me and neither did the judge when I went to court. I even had a witness testify that I was at their house and the only way from there to where I was stopped was the road I told them I had turned off of.

Moral of the story, you don't get out of a speeding ticket. The whole system is fixed.

A friend of mine once argued in court that because the officer with the radar gun was pointed toward oncoming traffic instead of perpendicular to it... get this... the Doppler effect made it seem like he was going faster than he really was.  He brought in a big hand-drawn visual aid, complete with train and bunchy sound waves.  Dumbass cop couldn't rebut the argument, and the judge bought it and let him off.  I couldn't farking believe it.

snuff3r: TFA: "The trial is weighted against you. If the police officer says it's calibrated properly, then that's enough preponderance of the evidence for the judge. He didn't show me any evidence it was calibrated correctly," says Williams."

No, the countless certification and testing procedures are weighted against you. Governments spend a LOT of money ensuring a super low error rate for speed cameras and they're tested regularly for compliance. The judge knows this. Unless you have evidence otherwise you're not going to win your case. If you were serious about thinking you had a chance to beat the ticket on these grounds then you would have done your research and put in a GIPA/FOI request for test/compliance data on the camera in question.

Here's a far easier way to avoid the ticket and time you've wasted of the court system: Don't farking speed, and if you do and get caught out, cop it on the chin and stfu.

Actually, I'd rather do it my way, thanks. It's always the "STOP BREAKING THE LAW ASSHOLE!" Liberals that fume when we have the audacity to question governmental interference, when it gets in the way of my money not getting to your bike lane/mass transit/give pandas boners/. Revenue stream.

Here's what you do. A lawyer. Every. Single. Time. You force the cop to be there or by federal law, without being able to face your accuser, you get it dropped. Leave the ego at home so the cop forgets you. I got. 91 in a 60 once, but I was silent and took his anger and insults on the chin...got it dropped a month later.

/8 tickets in 6 years, clean record.
//YOU stop breaking the law by causing road rage with your passive aggressive left lane driving.

But the justice system works," says King.

Oh, it works, but not in your favor.  Ever notice how easy it is to get speeding tickets reduced, but you still pay full court fees (even if you plead guilty by mail)?  Yeah.

Six tickets from Glenarden and New Carrollton were dismissed because no police officer showed up.

And in NY, they don't even need to anymore.

Tanukis_Parachute:

He said that the only people who show up to pay are foreigners who don't understand the system.

Here in the Philippines, they cut out the middle part. If the cops stop you, you hand them your license and two 500 peso bills (~$20 US).   They hand you back your license, and drive off.

Fade2black: A lawyer. Every. Single. Time.

Kind of a pricey tactic though, no?  Aren't you looking at $500-$1000 for a court appearance by a decent lawyer?

kendelrio: Heh. The speed limit on the highway I use to drive home from offshore is 75 mph. I have never ONCE been stopped and I usually average between 100 and 105 kph!!!

/heh!!!!

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