Legends abound about police radar guns picking up mailboxes going 50 miles per hour. But does that really happen? It might, if the officer using the gun isn’t properly trained on signal interference.

“I can point a radar detector directly at my air conditioner in my car and get a reading” from the fan, said Kevin Morrison, a public-safety product specialist with Decatur Electronics, the country’s oldest maker of radar guns.

“Weather can cut down on the radar’s range because rain obscures some of the radar signal,” Morrison said. As a result, you probably won’t encounter many speed traps in a downpour.

As mentioned, seemingly inanimate objects, such as your car’s fan, can screw up the machine, too.

But police are (or should be) trained to watch out for such problems. The easiest way to check for interference is by listening to the high-pitched whistling sound the radar gun makes, Morrison said. If the sound, known as an “audio Doppler tone,” rises and falls smoothly, there’s no interference. “If it’s broken and raspy, it’s not a clear return. It’s not a good signal coming in,” he said. The officer should be able to testify in court about the clarity of the gun’s sound.

But how does he or she know that you’re the one speeding, as opposed to the car in front of you or next to you? Morrison said this is another reason why the officer must see you speeding, as the gun, even when pointed in your direction, may be registering someone else’s speed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ohio appeals court throws out unproven lidar speed gun evidence.

An appellate court on Monday ruled that key evidence used in Ohio speed traps was not admissible. With millions in local government revenue at stake, the Ohio Court of Appeals for the Ninth District found the accuracy of laser-based speed guns (lidar) to be unproven. The decision could inspire challenges to laser tickets throughout the state.

The present case began when Ohio State Trooper Dennis Matulin hid along the median of Interstate 71 with an LTI 20-20 laser speed gun waiting for the device to indicate that someone had exceeded the speed limit. Matulin charged that when Donald Miko’s semi truck passed his location, the lidar gun displayed a reading of 67 MPH. The limit for trucks on the road is 55 and for cars 65.

At trial in the Medina County Municipal Court, Miko objected that the trooper’s LTI 20-20 had never been proved reliable in an Ohio court of law. The prosecutor merely asserted the contrary. The magistrate quickly agreed, saying, “Yes, the court had done so by prior judgment entry.” The court imposed a $100 fine and two points against Miko’s commercial driving license. Appellate Judge Clair E. Dickinson scolded the lower court for violating the rule that a county court must publish, or report, a “judgment entry” used for the purpose of taking judicial notice.

“Nobody has brought a reported decision of the Medina Municipal Court considering the accuracy of the LTI 20-20 device to this court’s attention,” Judge Clair E. Dickinson wrote. “The trial court, therefore, was not authorized to take judicial notice of the scientific accuracy of the LTI 20-20 laser device by Rule 201(B)(1) of the Ohio Rules of Evidence.”

Dickinson went on to point out that the unreported case which the Medina court cited to convict Miko did not include any required testimony from expert witnesses. As a result, the court overturned Miko’s conviction.

Read the rest of this entry »

Speeders beware. You may soon be on your neighbor’s radar.

As was previously discussed in this post, cops are issuing radar guns to the public to help monitor speeders. What next?

The St. Joseph Police Department will begin loaning radar guns to residents worried about the lead-foots in their neighborhood.

The new program, which is currently seeking sponsors, was prompted by the limited number of officers available to catch speeders and to get residents to take more ownership in their neighborhood.

Speeding complaints top the list of traffic concerns police receive, said Sgt. Bill McCammon, Traffic Unit supervisor.

“We don’t have the manpower to go out and dedicate the time needed to reduce speeding,” Mr. McCammon said. “This is a way to try to get residents more involved in taking care of their own problem, with our assistance, of course.”

Volunteers will run radar from their own cars as part of a two-person team in residential neighborhoods.

One person will clock any vehicle traveling more than 10 mph over the speed limit, and the other person will write down the license plate and type of vehicle.

Later, if police find the license plate and vehicle description match, a warning letter will be sent to the car’s registered owner.

“It just informs them that their vehicle was observed speeding in this neighborhood, on this date, and reminding them they have to watch their speed, especially because it’s a residential area,” Mr. McCammon said.

Since 2003, a similar community policing program has been in place in Shawnee, Kan.

Shawnee Police Department Lt. Doug Orbin said neighborhood speed watchers have helped police target speed traps to true problem areas

Read the rest of this entry »

Volunteers armed with radar guns will soon hit the streets of Oshkosh in a major campaign to crack down against speeders.

At school zones across the city, signs are already posted to warn drivers of a Citizen Speed Patrol, which consists of teachers and parents. Wednesday night the program was expanding outside of school zones to target whole neighborhoods.

“The speeding in front of our house — and we have a speed bump! — it’s just gotten out of hand,” said Paul Weinkauf, a Speed Patrol volunteer. “The police department is so busy, they can’t be watching our streets all the time.”

On Jackson Street, about eight volunteers practiced using a radar gun for the first time. “Hopefully they will slow down,” Weinkauf said. Almost immediately some drivers were hitting the brakes.

Volunteers expect to start patrolling in May. About 30 neighborhoods will be targeted, and drivers clocked going too fast will receive a written warning in their mail.

“What will happen is, they will complete a radar log, the radar log will be turned in to us, we will in turn run the plates, and then following, after we run the plates, send out a courtesy letter just asking people to please slow down, you were clocked at so many miles an hour,” Sergeant Steve Sagmeister, Oshkosh Police Department, said.

These aren’t citizen-run speed traps. By being visible, volunteers hope to send a clear message to drivers.

“I think it will help a lot,” Speed Patrol volunteer Angie Marciniak said. “It will give them a warning before they speed down the street again, in other areas.”

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania police admit they violated the law in issuing 650 lidar-based speeding tickets.

A pair of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania motorcycle police are under fire for breaking state law to issue 650 speeding tickets between October 1, 2007 and April 10, 2008. The officers hid on Route 65 near the West End Bridge and used lidar, a prohibited laser-based speed estimation device. Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper admitted that the actions of his officers, who he declined to identify, violated the law.

“The officers were questioned on how many citations they have written and basically that’s when it hit our screen that officers were illegally utilizing equipment,” Harper said at a press conference yesterday. “It wasn’t authorized…. We apologize to all the public for the inconvenience, and lidar will no longer be utilized.”

KDKA-TV uncovered the fraud after being contacted by Jeff Grasha, a motorist who had received an illegal citation. Grasha said it was obvious the system was being used to raise money, not increase safety.

That was the reasoning of the state legislature forty years ago when it prohibited municipalities from using radar as a means of generating revenue (75 Pa.C.S. Section 3368). Although state police are allowed to use radar, no law enforcement agency in Pennsylvania has authorization to issue a citation with lidar. Repeated attempts to repeal the ban have failed despite pressure from insurance industry groups like AAA that support local radar and lidar use because it would lead to an increase in surcharges on automobile insurance policies.

In this case, the Pittsburgh officers were supposed to say that were “testing” lidar “along with” approved speed estimation devices. These include VASCAR — a sophisticated version of a stop watch — ESP, Accutrak and Enradd.

“It was a miscommunication between basically a supervisor and the officers,” Chief Harper said. “Out of the 24 officers, two officers misunderstood that this was only to be a test.”

Refunds will be issued and insurance companies may, on request, drop license points assessed as a result of the tickets.

Source: (KDKA-TV (PA), 4/15/2008)