Quote:Someone told me that an officer has to calibrate their radar gun every 24 hrs, which may apply with the speedometer as well.
The only ones they have to calibrate are the shoulder mounted ones that officers use for out of car speed "traps". The dashboard ones need to be calibrated but only as required by state law (I think every 6 months). You can ask for, although the officer will probably already provide to the court evidence of, calibration of the speedometer. Yet I think they services the vehicles every 6 months anyways. If he wasn't wearing his hat you could say that the officer wasn't in complete uniform. That actually happend to a few cases I know about. The judge let the person off because the officer didn't wear his hat. Lol.
Quote:It was a county cop and it feels like the reason he pulled me over was purely because I passed him. Its not against the law to pass a cop, he even wrote it on the ticket as a remark. "Passed patrol car" but that excuse has no pull with the courts because I was speeding.
You are correct that passing patrol car isn't illegal. Yet the officer did that to remind HIM of who you were. State police pull over a lot of people, shoot any officer pulls over a lot of people. Court times can be anytime from a day to a week away. That means a lot more stops and incident in between. It's like asking a fast food worker about a specific order a week ago. That note makes it easier for them to remember. Although it's best not to tell the officer if you're going to fight it or not, or give the presence of you will likely fight it. Cause if they feel you will, they will make scrupulous (he he great word) notes of the back of their carbon copy. If the officer doesn't have a dashboard cam (state officers don't) then he can't use that to refresh his memory. So if he can't remember the details, you'll probably win.
Quote:Maybe the judge will realize that the 2mph difference does not add any more danger to myself and the vehicles around me. Aren't speeding tickets for 5mph or less very rare?
I highly doubt the judge will throw out your ticket because you were 2 MPH over the speed limit. That judge you will see is handling all cases of those fighting speeding tickets that day and he can be in a good mood...or a bad mood. Usually the judge will carry the penalty because he doesn't want to be known by the officers as throwing out their tickets (which looks bad for officers when their COs look at their record). This is all part of a theory called the courtroom workgroup that is pretty interesting but doesn't help you too much right there.
It's true that speeding tickets for 5 MPH are rare. Usually the policy is 6 over and with state on I-94 and most of the time on 131 it's 80-90 MPH (80 if it's a slow day). Yet you have to think...the speed LIMIT...is the LIMIT of what SPEED you can legally drive. Therefore even if you were over 0.00000001 MPH you'd still be driving illegally. I just think the cop had a superiority complex and didn't like you passing him as a person of authority that "you must respect".
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(Ya got $40,000 education!!!)