How To Avoid Speeding Tickets
By: Dan Metz, Chicago Scene

Part I:
In the first part of the Series How to Avoid Speeding Tickets, we’ll discuss radar,
it’s use and misuse, and some of the technical details associated with it. In later
installments, we’ll go into how you find it, avoid it, and fight tickets issued through
the use of it.

Radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging) was originally developed for military
applications early in WWII. It works by sending out a radio signal of a known
frequency (X-band=10.525 gigahertz, K-band=24.150 gigahertz) and measuring
the Doppler shift of the return signal, or echo. The radar Doppler shift is analogous
to the change in pitch, or frequency, we all hear when a train passes. The radar
gun beams out a radio signal on one of the assigned frequencies, measures the
Doppler shift, converts the shift to a speed and reads out the speed to the
operator. Because speed measurement depends on both transmission and
reflection, anything that interferes with either of these signal characteristics
can and does affect the speed reading.

It is commonly believed that a radar gun returns the speed of the fastest vehicle
in a group of vehicles, but that isn’t true. Actually, the gun displays the strongest
reflection, not the reflection of the fastest object(car, truck, etc.). Also, what is
included in the group is critical. The signal beam width of a typical radar gun is
about 12-24 degrees, depending on the gun. At a distance of 300 yards or so,
the width of a beam typically covers all four lanes and the median of a freeway,
thus including every vehicle in any of those lanes in the group! Ouch!

Typical radar errors include Batching Error, Cosine Error, Electrical Interference,
3rd-order Harmonics, EMF, Mechanical and RF Interference, Scanning Error, and
Target Shifting. Because of these errors, it is estimated that 60-70% of all radar
speeding citations are issued in error! The error is particularly likely if the driver
is driving an exotic flashy sports car-like a Porsche!

Radar comes in two flavors: continuous, which is easy to detect and instant-on,
which is the most deadly kind and very difficult to detect. Ironically, the safest
time to speed (from a ticket perspective) is the most dangerous time (from a
driving perspective): when there are lots of cars around you, making target
identification hard.

If you are stopped, however, none of this matters, The real issues are (a) how
to avoid being stoped, (B) convincing the Officer to not issue a citation to you if
you are stopped and (C) defeating the (probably erroneous) citation in court if
you are unlucky enough to have received it.

Part II
In the second part of our series on Driving Safely While Avoiding Speeding Tickets,
we look at the events surrounding a stoppage.

I you have a good radar detector and are practicing fast defensive driving (there
will be book references on this at the end of the Series), this event is never
supposed to occur. But it may, either because your Porsche was (rightly or not)
singled out of a group of cars.

The first thing to understand if you are stopped, your first objective is to convince
the Officer that you are not a danger to him. This is best accomplished by keeping
both hands in plain sight and not getting out of your car. Have your driving license,
car registration and insurance card handy too, as these will most certainly be
requested for examination by the Officer.

The most likely First Question you’ll be asked is something like “Do you know why
I stopped you?” or “Do you know how fast you were going?” This question has but
a single objective: to convict you of a crime by causing you to confess to it.
Remember: everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
It is vital that you not admit to having committed a traffic offense! Your best
answer here is something like “No” or “The speed limit”