If you’ve been pulled over for speeding, you were caught in one of three ways: pace; speed measuring device; or aircraft. The reason for the stop is going to dictate in a lot of ways the defenses that are appropriate in your case. For example, the way you attack a speeding ticket given through pace is going to be different than the way you attack a speeding ticket given through a speed measuring device.

Before I get there, though, it might be helpful to describe what a pace ticket even is. It isn’t too difficult a concept, but if you’ve never heard it before you wouldn’t have any reason to know what it is. Pace is the really really short way of saying the cop was following you and as you were both driving he tried to match your speed and then looked down to see what he was going to determine how fast you were going. Makes sense right?

Wrong. Pacing is flawed for many many different reasons, the first of which is the inherent unreliability of speedometers. You might not know this, but your speedometer, though made to look and relied upon as a very accurate measuring tool of speed, is actually not really great at it. It is okay at being in the general vicinity of your speed most of the time, but it can’t produce the kind of measure that is required to be presented in court.

Because of this the easiest way for a Seattle traffic attorney to attack a pace speed ticket is to move to have the officer’s statement suppressed for lack of foundation. The theory is that the evidence isn’t reliable enough to hear in court, it hasn’t been proven to be scientifically accurate, so it shouldn’t come into evidence.

This will win if you don’t have any help with the speedometer, but cops have gotten smart and begun trying to calibrate the speedometer with a radar gun at some point before the car is used to pace. There are also problems with this, however. To find those out, talk to your Seattle traffic lawyer. He’ll point you in the right direction.

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Last Modified : February 3rd, 2010 Filed under : Legal Navigate : Previous post / Next post