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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

by 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.
  - adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
    How sure are you that you know the speed limit and how fast you were going? Your speedometer likely read a different value than the police officer's radar. If you tell them you were going faster than they measured you at, which value do you think is getting written down? Also, even though you were speeding and were pulled over, that doesn't guarantee that you actually got radared. It's entirely possible that you were pulled over for something completely different, but by answering that question, you have just admitted to something else.
    - dekhn 3y ago
      I can't be sure of the speed limit and how fast I am going, but having lived in this area I can typically tell the speed limit of any road. Highways are 65MPH, and streets are typically 15 (alley), 25 (residential streets with parking and school areas). In California, speed limits are not required to be posted in some situations, "prima facie", and knowing the mapping from road characteristic to speed limit is required to get a permit. For how fast I'm going, I'm usually checking my speed every 30 seconds or so, but can also tell how fast I'm going simply by looking, how hard I'm pressing the pedal (my car is in "Eco" mode, which means it's pretty pokey all around). I never drive more than about 15 miles above the speed limit (and then, only on a freeway where folks are driving fast enough that I don't feel safe driving slower, because people frequently come right up behind me and change lanes at the last second if I drive the speed limit on California highways). So I am not particularly worried about the cases you're describing (speeding like that is a misdemeanor, not a felony). I used to drive faster, but over time I concluded that driving slower has a wide range of benefits, both in accidents, as well as fuel consumption. It's not like driving 10MPH faster on the freeway is going to make a huge difference in your arrival time. I see a lot of armchair lawyers on places like Hacker News who confabulate all sorts of scenarios to justify their adversarial relationship with the police, other folks who assume all cops are racist/classist/whateverist, and other folks who just don't want to follow laws because they don't like authority. I really don't know what to say to folks like that. Collect telemetry and bring it to court, and good luck with that!
  - oceanplexian 3y ago
    It depends on where that ticket is going to lead. If that traffic stop leads to the cop finding something else in your car, and that leads to a crime, a simple question can make the difference between a legal or an illegal stop in a court of law. Since the best case scenario in a traffic stop is "don't get a ticket" and the worst case is "Be confined to a concrete cell with a serious criminal conviction for the rest of your life" I don't answer any questions whatsoever, no matter how trivial. Happens to innocent people all the time. Getting a $200 ticket you could have otherwise "talked your way out of" is a small price to pay to vs. the risk.
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.

by dekhn 3y ago

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.
- adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
  How sure are you that you know the speed limit and how fast you were going? Your speedometer likely read a different value than the police officer's radar. If you tell them you were going faster than they measured you at, which value do you think is getting written down? Also, even though you were speeding and were pulled over, that doesn't guarantee that you actually got radared. It's entirely possible that you were pulled over for something completely different, but by answering that question, you have just admitted to something else.
  - dekhn 3y ago
    I can't be sure of the speed limit and how fast I am going, but having lived in this area I can typically tell the speed limit of any road. Highways are 65MPH, and streets are typically 15 (alley), 25 (residential streets with parking and school areas). In California, speed limits are not required to be posted in some situations, "prima facie", and knowing the mapping from road characteristic to speed limit is required to get a permit. For how fast I'm going, I'm usually checking my speed every 30 seconds or so, but can also tell how fast I'm going simply by looking, how hard I'm pressing the pedal (my car is in "Eco" mode, which means it's pretty pokey all around). I never drive more than about 15 miles above the speed limit (and then, only on a freeway where folks are driving fast enough that I don't feel safe driving slower, because people frequently come right up behind me and change lanes at the last second if I drive the speed limit on California highways). So I am not particularly worried about the cases you're describing (speeding like that is a misdemeanor, not a felony). I used to drive faster, but over time I concluded that driving slower has a wide range of benefits, both in accidents, as well as fuel consumption. It's not like driving 10MPH faster on the freeway is going to make a huge difference in your arrival time. I see a lot of armchair lawyers on places like Hacker News who confabulate all sorts of scenarios to justify their adversarial relationship with the police, other folks who assume all cops are racist/classist/whateverist, and other folks who just don't want to follow laws because they don't like authority. I really don't know what to say to folks like that. Collect telemetry and bring it to court, and good luck with that!
- oceanplexian 3y ago
  It depends on where that ticket is going to lead. If that traffic stop leads to the cop finding something else in your car, and that leads to a crime, a simple question can make the difference between a legal or an illegal stop in a court of law. Since the best case scenario in a traffic stop is "don't get a ticket" and the worst case is "Be confined to a concrete cell with a serious criminal conviction for the rest of your life" I don't answer any questions whatsoever, no matter how trivial. Happens to innocent people all the time. Getting a $200 ticket you could have otherwise "talked your way out of" is a small price to pay to vs. the risk.

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.