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In my experience they will phrase it as “Do you know how fast you were going?” or “Do you know what the speed limit is?”, worded in such a way that ANY answer i

In my experience they will phrase it as “Do you know how fast you were going?” or “Do you know what the speed limit is?”, worded in such a way that ANY answer is incriminating.

adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
the least wrong answer is likely "I believe so".
dekhn 3y ago
Can you explain what happens if you answer those? Does that affect the outcome? Is a cop that pulls you over for what looks like a traffic violation trying to get you to make an incriminating statement (I have no idea, I'm just asking. No agenda)? In the few situations where I was pulled over for speeding, I asked the cop to show me the reading and also whether the device was calibrated in the past few years, and they've always obliged (after answering "I know how fast I was going" and "I think the speed limit is...". If they have a calibrated device and they show me the reading, I'm not really sure how my answers to those questions affects the decision tree. What you want to do is avoid creating an unnecessary confrontation by acting adversarial.
- adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
  answering that you know how fast you were going, combined with data suggesting you were speeding yields the conclusion that you were intentionally breaking the law.
  - dekhn 3y ago
    Yes, and? Sorry to be obtuse, but I'm just trying to understand the decision tree here. Of course if I'm speeding I know I'm breaking the law. Does denying that somehow get me out of a ticket? Look at the base rate of speeding. When I drive on 101 in the bay area in clear traffic, I'm doing around 65 (the limit)-75 in the right lane and the majority of people are passing me on the left (or tailgating me because they want me to go faster or drafting or whatever it is that causes people to drive too close behind me when I drive near the speed limit). From what I can tell, unless a cop is actively trying to be punitive, they typically don't stop a car simply because it's going up to about 15MPH over the freeway limit.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      I have personally successfully argued in front of a traffic court judge that I could not be aware of the speed limit since the sign was obscured, and it resulted in not having to pay the ticket. I am sure I would not have been successful if I admitted guilt in front of the officer who pulled me over, or participated in his various gotcha games.
      - dekhn 3y ago
        Did the cop show up to your court date? Did they provide any information to the judge? Did you truly not know the speed of the road you were on, and was that because the sign was obstructed, or is that the argument you made in court? It seems like in this situation I could have honestly answered "no, I did not know the speed limit". I mean, where I said I'd know the speed limit above, if it was truly obscured, I think I would be playing it safe and judge things on what the road looked like, whether there was a school there, and the weather and other ambient conditions.
        ryandrake 3y ago
        Yea, the cop showed up, presented his evidence, I argued that absent a posted limit I was following the state's default limit for that type of road, and brought a photograph of the nearest speed limit sign obscured by a tree branch as evidence that I could not have known the posted (lower) limit. Judge found it convincing. I noticed that the branch was trimmed two weeks later. I did not answer any of the officer's questions during the stop, but did identify myself and hand him all the documents he requested. I figured I wasn't going to avoid the ticket using my mouth, so I saved it for the judge.
        dekhn 3y ago
        OK, fair enough. You acted in good faith during the court date and chose not to answer questions or get adversarial with the cop during the stop. And you were technically correct, with evidence, which is best kind of correct. How did you proceed past the initial questions, IE how did you refuse to answer in a polite way (I'm curious because there is a whole genre of youtube videos of cops stopping people and the driver getting in an adversarial situation by refusing to talk). Also, just out of curiosity, what was the default limit for that type of road, and what was the posted speed limit? Are we talking "driving 35 in a 25 zone". Any other contextual information, like weather conditions, nearby school, recently changed limit, etc? The cops that park at the school near me usually don't stop people unless they are driving 45+ in our 25 zone.
- GrinningFool 3y ago
  > , I asked the cop to show me the reading This might not be as significant as you think. My understanding is that many models allow them to set that number directly. If I recall correctly, the source for this was "A Speeder's Guide to Avoiding Tickets", written by a former state trooper. I don't know if it's factually accurate, but the advice in that book has generally been solid.
  - dekhn 3y ago
    I don't know if that's accurate either. In any case, his reading corresponded the speed I was going (within the margin of error for a speedometer, which can be large), and it was calibrated, so I signed the citation and paid the fine. Again, if cops are actually going around setting values to get citations, there are larger systemic problems. Also, many vehicles have GPS and other datalogging showing actual speeds, so if the cop is faking the numbers, that's going to start showing up in court.

In my experience they will phrase it as “Do you know how fast you were going?” or “Do you know what the speed limit is?”, worded in such a way that ANY answer is incriminating.

adgjlsfhk1 3y ago

the least wrong answer is likely "I believe so".

dekhn 3y ago

Can you explain what happens if you answer those? Does that affect the outcome? Is a cop that pulls you over for what looks like a traffic violation trying to get you to make an incriminating statement (I have no idea, I'm just asking. No agenda)? In the few situations where I was pulled over for speeding, I asked the cop to show me the reading and also whether the device was calibrated in the past few years, and they've always obliged (after answering "I know how fast I was going" and "I think the speed limit is...". If they have a calibrated device and they show me the reading, I'm not really sure how my answers to those questions affects the decision tree. What you want to do is avoid creating an unnecessary confrontation by acting adversarial.

adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
answering that you know how fast you were going, combined with data suggesting you were speeding yields the conclusion that you were intentionally breaking the law.
- dekhn 3y ago
  Yes, and? Sorry to be obtuse, but I'm just trying to understand the decision tree here. Of course if I'm speeding I know I'm breaking the law. Does denying that somehow get me out of a ticket? Look at the base rate of speeding. When I drive on 101 in the bay area in clear traffic, I'm doing around 65 (the limit)-75 in the right lane and the majority of people are passing me on the left (or tailgating me because they want me to go faster or drafting or whatever it is that causes people to drive too close behind me when I drive near the speed limit). From what I can tell, unless a cop is actively trying to be punitive, they typically don't stop a car simply because it's going up to about 15MPH over the freeway limit.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    I have personally successfully argued in front of a traffic court judge that I could not be aware of the speed limit since the sign was obscured, and it resulted in not having to pay the ticket. I am sure I would not have been successful if I admitted guilt in front of the officer who pulled me over, or participated in his various gotcha games.
    - dekhn 3y ago
      Did the cop show up to your court date? Did they provide any information to the judge? Did you truly not know the speed of the road you were on, and was that because the sign was obstructed, or is that the argument you made in court? It seems like in this situation I could have honestly answered "no, I did not know the speed limit". I mean, where I said I'd know the speed limit above, if it was truly obscured, I think I would be playing it safe and judge things on what the road looked like, whether there was a school there, and the weather and other ambient conditions.
      - ryandrake 3y ago
        Yea, the cop showed up, presented his evidence, I argued that absent a posted limit I was following the state's default limit for that type of road, and brought a photograph of the nearest speed limit sign obscured by a tree branch as evidence that I could not have known the posted (lower) limit. Judge found it convincing. I noticed that the branch was trimmed two weeks later. I did not answer any of the officer's questions during the stop, but did identify myself and hand him all the documents he requested. I figured I wasn't going to avoid the ticket using my mouth, so I saved it for the judge.
        dekhn 3y ago
        OK, fair enough. You acted in good faith during the court date and chose not to answer questions or get adversarial with the cop during the stop. And you were technically correct, with evidence, which is best kind of correct. How did you proceed past the initial questions, IE how did you refuse to answer in a polite way (I'm curious because there is a whole genre of youtube videos of cops stopping people and the driver getting in an adversarial situation by refusing to talk). Also, just out of curiosity, what was the default limit for that type of road, and what was the posted speed limit? Are we talking "driving 35 in a 25 zone". Any other contextual information, like weather conditions, nearby school, recently changed limit, etc? The cops that park at the school near me usually don't stop people unless they are driving 45+ in our 25 zone.
GrinningFool 3y ago
> , I asked the cop to show me the reading This might not be as significant as you think. My understanding is that many models allow them to set that number directly. If I recall correctly, the source for this was "A Speeder's Guide to Avoiding Tickets", written by a former state trooper. I don't know if it's factually accurate, but the advice in that book has generally been solid.
- dekhn 3y ago
  I don't know if that's accurate either. In any case, his reading corresponded the speed I was going (within the margin of error for a speedometer, which can be large), and it was calibrated, so I signed the citation and paid the fine. Again, if cops are actually going around setting values to get citations, there are larger systemic problems. Also, many vehicles have GPS and other datalogging showing actual speeds, so if the cop is faking the numbers, that's going to start showing up in court.