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inaccurate speeding ticket
I was driving southbound on 75 a couple weeks ago, with my speedometer
reading around 72mph. suddenly a state trooper came flying over the
median (Pretty impressive, since it was flooded with a couple inches of
water at the time. ) She didn't turn on her lights though, so I just set
the cruise down to around 69, and waited for her to fly past me to pursue
whatever drug-crazed Nazi serial killer that might have prompted her
rather unorthodox U-turn. After a few miles, though, she pulled me over,
and gave me a ticket for 77. As this point, I figured that my speedo was
reading slow.
Then I started to think about it.. The tires I'm using are a lower
profile than stock. Without going into the math, my tires have a smaller
radius, meaning that for each rpm, the car goes a slightly shorter
distance than with the stock tires, meaning... the speedo should actually
be reading faster than the actual vehicle speed. I tried timing myself
through a one mile distance at an indicated 60mph. It took slightly more
than a minute, meaning... Surprise! I wasn't going 60!
So, basically, I got a ticket for 77 mph when I was going 70-71 mph, a
speed at which a cop would have to be really bored to even bother with a
warning.
So I was all set to go to trial, fight the system, protect truth and
justice, etc. then I realized a few things:
1 It was my word against the cop
2 The trial was 100 miles away
3 I'd lose more in wages for the day than the ticket was worth ($70)
4 I'd probably be found guilty anyway (See #1) and end up paying court
costs to add insult to injury.
So I ended up mailing a $70 donation to the Municipal court in Sydney,
Ohio.
My question is, could I have fought this and won?
--
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Dan Smead I am obviously using this computer
dsmead@bgnet.bgsu.edu for educational purposes only.
Bowling Green, OH ====================================================
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