Created by lawyers to educate, advise, and help you fight your traffic ticket.
Speeding tickets are often the result of trying to keep up with a fast paced lifestyle. Speeding tickets can be very damaging and can result in as many as eleven points on a driving record. Our experience indicates that individuals who receive a speeding ticket generally fall into one of four categories:
In most cases, we will recommend a strategy that has nothing to do with which category our client feels is applicable. The rationale behind this is that the police officer who issued the traffic ticket will not change how he presents his case based on which category may apply. The officer believes that you were speeding and that the speeding was not justified (he wouldn't issue the ticket if he felt you were justified).
In some cases there may have been a justified reason for speeding that could not be properly communicated to the officer at the time of the incident. While we will discuss all possible defenses, we warn our clients to be very careful when presenting evidence of justification. A justification defense means “I was speeding, but…” If the court does not accept your justification for speeding, you will have essentially lost any chance for a successful defense.
In any speeding case, an officer must be prepared to offer certain evidence and set forth certain testimony to the court. Feifer & Greenberg attorneys are highly experienced and familiar with all the issues involved with a speeding ticket.
We are often asked about the technology used by the police to measure speed. The two our clients seem most interested in are radar and laser technology. These technologies are radically different from one another.
Radar guns aim an electromagnetic signal at a target vehicle and pick up the return signal reflected off the vehicle. The Doppler effect causes the frequency of the return signal to shift by an amount dependent on the relative speeds of the source of the original signal and the target. Speed radar devices measure the frequency of the reflected signal and compare it with the frequency of the original signal to determine the speed of the target vehicle. A radar beam varies in width comparative to its length-the further the radar's "zone" extends from the unit the wider it will be. Thus, there must be some evidence in a radar case that the radar was not inadvertently picking up any other moving objects that may also have been within the radar's "zone".
Laser devices, also known as LIDAR (light distance and ranging), use a time/distance calculation to measure speed. The devices aim a narrow band of light at the target vehicle and measure the time it takes to receive the reflected light. Because the speed of both the original light pulse and its reflection are traveling at the same speed (the speed of light), differences in the time it takes the transmitted light to strike the target vehicle and return can be used to calculate the speed of the vehicle. Unlike radar, lasers can pinpoint specific vehicles in heavy traffic.
While there are aspects of either technology that can produce false readings, as attorneys we have to be realistic about what arguments a judge is most likely to accept. There are many considerations here beyond how accurate these methods are when the machinery is working and is used properly. Officers must also set forth when units where tested, how they were tested, when they were trained to use/test the units, who trained them, etc. Our attorneys fully understand the differences between the cases we handle and we will use our expertise to decide whether to challenge the technology used and which arguments are most likely to result in a successful challenge.
For more information about laser speeding tickets and radar speeding tickets Call Us Now or click here for a Free Consultation.