Anyone who has driven for a few years has probably experienced a friendly flash of high beams during a night-time drive. The gesture can mean many things. It could mean: “Put on your headlights, bonehead!” It can mean trouble ahead. Or more, commonly, it can mean: “Slow down, there’s a speed trap ahead!”

The debate about warning drivers of impending speeding doom heated up this week with the story of a Toronto-area man who fought the law. He won.

One Saturday morning last year, Brad Diamond flashed his high beams at oncoming traffic. It was a gesture to warn other drivers of a police speed trap. It ended up costing him $110.

Diamond thought something wasn’t right, and he did some research. Turns out there was no law on the books that makes it illegal to warn other drivers of a speed trap. Ontario isn’t the only place. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador have no laws that would make it illegal to flash the high beams as a courtesy.

Diamond fought the ticket in court, and police finally had to admit there was no formal law. Other drivers have taken their fight to the Supreme Court of Alberta. In the United States, the top court in Pennsylvania has dealt with the issue.

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A guy in colorado came across this sign on a city street. He was puzzled because the sign didn’t say what he was supposed to do to avoid the increased fine.

That sign is in Aurora, CO, which has what are termed safety zones to increase the level of penalties near certain schools and construction sites. If you get a speeding ticket in one of these zones, for example, you can be assessed the regular ticket charge plus an additional fine of at least $100.

Although it’s not shown in this photograph, an Aurora spokeswoman stated that, there are always signs nearby that indicate a school zone or construction area.

I guess this sign is similar to the signs in construction zones in Texas that state “Fine Double When Workers Present”. They just have to be present — not actually working.

A Sonoma County, Calif., judge has ruled a speeding case supported by an officer’s radar cannot be thrown out. The speeder’s GPS system allegedly recorded a speed contradictory to the radar reading, but the judge ruled radar more reliable.

Roger Rude, a retired Sonoma County sheriff’s lieutenant, brought the case to fight a ticket his stepson Shaun Malone received for going 62 mph in a 45 mph zone. Rude had installed a GPS system in the car to track his stepson’s speeds. Rude alleged Malone never was speeding based on the GPS tracker.

The court ruled against the GPS data, holding that radar data is more reliable.

JB Harper, Radar Systems Engineer for Decatur Electronics, the manufacturer of the radar that clocked Malone, said radar is a time-tested speed assessment tool.

“Decatur radar has been catching speeders for more than 50 years,” he said. “Radar reads a speed at the speed of light rather than calculating geographic and time differences between two separate readings as is done in a GPS system.”

Officials with the Petaluma Police Department, which issued the ticket, agreed. Petaluma Police Capt. Dave Sears said GPS is a valuable tool but is not as accurate for tracking speed as radar.

Maybe it’s true you can’t fight city hall or beat a speeding ticket in court.

But Ron Noonan is going to give it a try come March 7.

The 65-year old Sparta man, now retired, made his living as a certified photogrammetrist (the science of measuring by use of photographs), and he says the place where he got ticketed last December for driving 72 mph is just not fair and may not be legal.

That place is S. Jefferson Ave. and Highway 111 on the southern edge of Cookeville.

Three signs there within a distance of less than a tenth of a mile demand that drivers slow from 70 mph, to 65 mph, to 55, Noonan says.

“It’s a distance about equal to seven tractor trailer truck lengths,” says Noonan, who grew up in Pennsylvania and moved here in the 1970′s.

“I call it an entrapment, based on the placement of the signs. After a sign saying ‘Reduced Speed Ahead, immediately it’s 65 mph, then immediately 55 mph, then, boom, you get the radar. You don’t have time to slow down.”

Noonan says he was driving his 1993 Jeep Cherokee on cruise speed of 70 when Trooper Jonathan Reed ticketed him for 72 mph in the 55 mph zone. And he says there’s no way any driver can slow down enough to obey the signs as they are placed.

He’s pretty sure he will lose and have to pay that $150 ticket, but he vowed the day he got it to research the whole setup and fight the ticket in court anyway.

The first thing he did was to subpoena all the tickets that trooper has written in the same place for the past six months.