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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 y

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!

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!