On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 14:29:17 -0800, Paul Johnson wrote:

Vinnie S. wrote:

No they don't. The speed limits signs or laws do not say 55 or 65, +/-
10%.

That is nothing more than the descretion of the cop that tickets you.

Go read ORS chapter 810 sometime. It's up on leg.state.or.us. It does work
that way in Oregon. And as said before, save for a few miles of interstate
or a few well-travelled blocks of narrow secondary streets, Oregon has
never had speed limits. Posted speeds, yes, in which you're allowed to
drive faster if conditions warrant (on a clear, sunny day with dry pavement
and light traffic with a posted speed of 70, a cop pulling you over for
doing 85 will have a hard time getting a conviction in court unless it was
a LIMIT 70 and not a SPEED 70 sign and the cops know this).

Oregon and Washington both give 10% margins for differences in speedometer
calibration because very rarely are speedometers spot on. You could easily
be doing 59 with your speedometer reading 55. The speedometer in my 1995.5
Kia Sportage reads 62 when it's doing 60, my roommate's 2000 Ford Ranger
reads 57 at 60 MPH. If you got a ticket for doing 1 MPH over the speed
limit, and you didn't fight it in court, you're a moron, here's your sign.


Paul,

I don't know about Oregon, but I know NJ. I have never heard of such a thing.
And I have been to traffic court on at least 3 occasions. On one occasion, some
motorist used the calibration defense. They about laughed him out of the court,
and said they would bring in the cop with the certs. He ended up pleaing to a
lower moving violation qwith no points. Believe it or not, they actually plea
bargain here for traffic court. They want the dollar amount fine, and ill lower
the violation so it doesn't kill you for insurance.

As far as my personal experience, I was given a ticket around 1991 for 59 in a
55. I pleaded guilty to a reduce "driving too slow", which carried the same
fine, but no points. The other carried 2 points. So you manual is of no use to
me or motorists in NJ.

And the only reason I fought 3 tickets, was because I was told you can get the
points knocked down in court. The officers will actually tell you that. But if
you just pay it, you get the points.

I did go to trial one of those 3 times (bargained the other 2), and beat a
ticket for rolling stop. A cop was at a stop trap where many motorists were
rolling thru it. He gave about 150 tickets over a course of a weekend. I fought
mine, because he missed my stop. He had 2 motorists pulled over and was on foot
getting their documents, and he looked at the corner, I had already stopped and
was moving, and he waved me over. I was nonetheless not cooperative. The DA
wanted to bargain that too, but the fine was like $180. I said i was going to
fight it, and he basically laughed. He said it was a sure fire loss. At the
trial, which was about 20 minutes long, the officer needed to look at the ticket
to read what car I was driving. And he said he pulled me over with his car after
rolling thru a stop. I got him on him not remembering my carwithout reading the
ticket, and that he was on foot with 2 other vehicles, and did not pull me over
with his car. The judge ruled in my favor, but he didn't rule on it that night,
to give me the satifaction in court. Instead, he sent his not guilty decision by
mail, 2 days later. I never did go back to the prosecutor and show him the
letter.

So like I said, It's mostly at the descretion of the cop. And FYI, you can be
going 56 in a 55, and if he wants to stop you and say you were doing 75 in a 55,
even though you did 56, there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

Vinnie S.