b7spectra
EMS Dispatcher
All my Gwinnettians should be happy to know that Gwinnett and all localaties no longer have use of Radar or Laser to get you for speeding!
Police start year without radar guns
Police start year without radar guns
Speeding in Gwinnett County
- Thread starter b7spectra
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What happened?
GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. -- Police in Gwinnett County and six of its cities can no longer use radar guns to check your speed. Police in those jurisdictions said they will not let speeders off the hook, instead they will rely on more traditional methods to catch you in the act.
Major Don Woodruff said drivers won't get a free pass.
"Anybody can stand on their front porch and watch traffic go by," said Woodruff. "If they live in a 25 miles per hour zone and somebody's going 40 mph, they can pretty much guess that."
Woodruf said experienced officers can estimate your speed within one or two miles per hour.
In the meantime, Georgia State Patrol will still be able to use radar guns in Gwinnett County.
Officials said there is no timeline for when an agreement will be reached.
The cities and the county are having some legal dispute and the county wont renew their licenses or something to that effect. Speeding fines are such a small part of all these agencies budget its not a big deal....they will just spend more time on other offenses.
Major Don Woodruff said drivers won't get a free pass.
"Anybody can stand on their front porch and watch traffic go by," said Woodruff. "If they live in a 25 miles per hour zone and somebody's going 40 mph, they can pretty much guess that."
Woodruf said experienced officers can estimate your speed within one or two miles per hour.
In the meantime, Georgia State Patrol will still be able to use radar guns in Gwinnett County.
Officials said there is no timeline for when an agreement will be reached.
The cities and the county are having some legal dispute and the county wont renew their licenses or something to that effect. Speeding fines are such a small part of all these agencies budget its not a big deal....they will just spend more time on other offenses.
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Ha! I don't know what you're allowing for law in Georgia, but up here in Washington, officers can use their perception as a guide, but they have to have a radar/lidar reading or it's not a good stop.
GSP closed their POST in Gwinnett a long time age....about the only time they even venture into Gwinnett is on 85 or 985.
All an officer has to do is pace you for 4/10ths of a mile under GA law, or just write you for too fast for conditions or failure to maintain lane....its easy to write a speeder for something.
All an officer has to do is pace you for 4/10ths of a mile under GA law, or just write you for too fast for conditions or failure to maintain lane....its easy to write a speeder for something.
N8IAA
Member
Mostly 85 and 985, but they do frequent GA 20 and on occaison, PIB in the north end of the county. Lots of DMV enforcers on GA 20 too.
Larry
Uhm sorry but what you just wrote is illegal and will get a post certification pulled faster than you can write what post stands for!
DMV only deals with commercial vehicles and HOV lanes. They don't care about "you". Their enforcement scope on non commercial is very limited
N8IAA
Member
Pacing isn't legal at all anymore. Any judge that accepts that argument in their courtroom can look forward to a judicial review, followed by either heavy sanctions or removal from the bench.
Any agency that uses pacing can look forward to their certifications being pulled, and a comfy ride on the proverbial bench.
Any agency that uses pacing can look forward to their certifications being pulled, and a comfy ride on the proverbial bench.
Pacing is absolutely admissible in GA, its solid case law in GA. see DARAS v. THE STATE.A91A1604.(201 Ga. App. 512)(411 SE2d 367)
The court clearly states "The speed of appellant's vehicle, as ascertained by pacing, was relevant."
Whisnant v. State, 178 Ga. App. 742, 743 (1)(344 SE2d 536) As a general rule, Georgia law favors the admission of any relevant evidence no matter how slight its probative value" ....in Daras the court used this to admit pacing.
HOWEVER...some departments prohibit by internal policy their officers from pacing...although this still doesn't make it illegal.
If you wish to prove me wrong please post OCGA or CURRENT and RELEVANT case law to the contrary.
What certifications? You dont need a certification to pace.
GSP teaches pacing to this very day, as does every single regional police academy in GA.
Judges cant be removed or sanctioned for a ruling. The GA Judicial Qualifications Commission can only investigate a judge for violation of one of 7 cannons of conduct.....your scenario doesn't apply. They also cannot reverse a courts decision, EVER....only a higher court can do so.
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MTS2000des
5B2_BEE00 Czar
ProCopper7005 WIN...
newbie trolls...FAIL
newbie trolls...FAIL
I'm not a troll, I'm a person with a legitimate disagreement with what's being said, and I should be able to disagree or make ascertions without having to worry that someone who isn't even in the conversation deciding to take things to namecalling.
Nothing I said warrants that behavior.
MTS2000des
5B2_BEE00 Czar
Was your named mentioned? or is this a case of "the hit dog hollers"
And I wasn't aware this was a "closed discussion", but since you piped up, ProCopper hit the nail on the head and cited GEORGIA case law supporting the fact that pacing IS indeed legal in GEORGIA contrary to your claim it was not. Do you have anything to counter I'd love to hear it?
No, I didn't say you couldn't interject, but was name calling really necessary?
And this is definitely not "hit dog hollers" sir, seeing as the comments made by your friend were directed at me, it would only make sense that your follow up of name calling would also be directed at me.
I've read what you posted, and while I agree it's case law, and makes an argument for pacing as evidence, it does NOT make it a viable option for prosecution, nor does it make it explicably legal.
It very carefully leaves the door open for the use of it, but sets it up for closure when a clever enough defense attorney gets a hold of it.
For example, pacing has to be based on science. If it's not, it can't be used as formal evidence, only heresay.
Since pacing would have to be science, those that use it, would have to be able to describe every step in scientific terms. How they begin a pacing sequence, how the evidence is collected, and how the integrity of the evidence is maintained.
With all due respect to your arguement, I highly doubt anywhere in the State of Georgia they are spending time in academy, or even in a traffic enforcement course, on the "science" behind pacing.
What we know as pacing, is based on mathematical formulas, and I know from my academy, and the academy experience of many others around the country, that there is no time spent learning these mathematical formulas.
Therefore, if an officer were to use the technique as their SOLE evidence, they would be at loss, with a case thrown out because they would not be able to explain in scientific terms how they reached their conclusion on speed of a vehicle.
Further, the case law you pointed out gives the defense just as much ammo. It points out that in order to conduct pacing, vehicle speedometers must be calibrated. And it makes clear in the case at hand that the vehicle was "known to be calibrated."
This would mean that police agencies would have to provide proof of calibration on every single vehicle in their fleet that is ever involved in the use of pacing.
Again, I admitted before I don't know what is done in Georgia, but I know from the places I've worked, we don't have that information to provide on demand, because aside from overwhelming fact that calibration does not regularly occur with agency vehicles, neither of the methods that are employed can actually be proven to create a "calibrated" speedometer.
I would be willing to bet that nearly 80% of all public safety agencies could not produce that information, including agencies in Georgia. Furthermore, ANSI, or the American National Standards Institute allows all car manufacturers to produce vehicles for sale and use on public roadways with speedometers that have an error factor of up to 20%, including police issued vehicles.
This link provides the location of the five documents that point this out. Unfortunately they are not free. If you want to purchase them to see for yourself, I fully support you in that venture:
ANSI Search Results
And let's consider the speedometer all it's own, before we even get into reading it or "pacing" it. Any type of altering of the vehicle can produce widely different results of what the speedometer reads.
This link explains what tires can do to the reading a speedometer provides:
HowStuffWorks "Speedometer Calibration"
So, in regards to your case law, I appreciate that you have produced something that at least references pacing and the legality it possesses, but this particular example is technical at best and has not met a full test of it's meaning, making it very "gray" at best.
My suggestion would be to look up what "Judicial Notice" is, and understand that while you have cited a case, this case doesn't meet that standard.
Now for the rest of your post, I didn't say anything about pacing "certifications." If that's what you thought I was saying, my apologies, that's not what I was speaking about.
What I was referencing was that if an agency had enough cases thrown out on bad evidence, they could be looking at their certification as a police agency revoked.
Again, that process may fall under a different procedure in Georgia, and if that's the case so be it, but I do know that any agency that has a consistent pattern of bad cases will receive intervention of some sort, and in most of the cases I've read about, it's been that the department was either taken over by state/county authorities, or their certification to hire and employ certified peace officers for the purposes of enforcement action is taken away. In either case, the agency as it once was, would be no longer.
If you want an example of what I am talking about, look over at the intervention by the State of New Jersey in Camden, NJ that took place in 2002. It wasn't over traffic enforcement, but it was over bad cases and a few other problems.
And if what you say about the Georgia judicial review board is true, then you have the potential for jurists to run rogue without regard for the laws they are to uphold.
Review boards are suppose to have the ability to censure a judge if they have proof or have found the judge has acted in bad faith, or has accepted bad case law repeatedly. This is a way to prevent further damage to the justice system they (the review board) are expected to protect.
Confuzzled
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Where did all this doubt about pacing come from? It's about the only accurate way to check speed. Radar, Vascar, Laser and just about anything else can be flawed. Pacing lets the officer observe not only speed, but the operators driving.
I've never heard anything, anywhere that outlaws pacing. In fact, I've seen many agencies require their officers to pace a car even after use of some electronic device to qualify the electronic readings. When they get to court, they have more to back it up.
I've never seen a cruiser that didn't have a certifed speedometer. Does it have to be calibtared periodically? Sure, just like radar units do.
By the way, although this method wouldn't hold up in court for an official vehicle, anybody can calibrate their own speedometer rather easily. Find a flat, straight stretch of road with posted mile markers. Driving at 60 MPH, you should pass the mile markers at 60 second intervals.
I've never heard anything, anywhere that outlaws pacing. In fact, I've seen many agencies require their officers to pace a car even after use of some electronic device to qualify the electronic readings. When they get to court, they have more to back it up.
I've never seen a cruiser that didn't have a certifed speedometer. Does it have to be calibtared periodically? Sure, just like radar units do.
By the way, although this method wouldn't hold up in court for an official vehicle, anybody can calibrate their own speedometer rather easily. Find a flat, straight stretch of road with posted mile markers. Driving at 60 MPH, you should pass the mile markers at 60 second intervals.
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