Filed under: Etc., Government/Legal
Bad news, Buckeyes. The Ohio Supreme Court just ruled that a police officer needs nothing more than his or her informed guess on how fast a vehicle is traveling in order to issue a traffic citation. Yep. You can forget the radar gun, LIDAR or even the archaic pacing method. As of right now, officers can merely say that you're exceeding the posted speed limit and you'll be stuck with points on your license and a hefty fine to deal with. If that sounds more crooked than a Jersey car salesman, it gets better.
Turns out, officers have to go through very little training in order to properly gauge a vehicle's speed by eye. According to The Plain Dealer, visual assessment is only a portion of the five-hour course on traffic enforcement. Instructors bring recruits to various traffic situations and have them guess speeds. The instructor then checks the guesses against what the radar gun says and calculates the difference.
So let that be a fair warning to natives and passer-bys alike. Leave the cruise control on and don't bother trying to argue if you should happen to get cozy with one of Ohio's finest. It's their word against yours.
[Source: The Plain Dealer | Source Image: Noel Hendrickson, Getty]
Guessing cops allowed to give speeding tickets in Ohio originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/06/03/guessing-cops-allowed-to-give-speeding-tickets-in-ohio/Sent from James' iPhone
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