Evidence in Norfolk Speeding Ticket Cases
If you have received a speeding ticket in Norfolk, Virginia you have the right to challenge that ticket and bring it to court. With this in mind, the following is information on the types of evidence law enforcement typically uses to catch those speeding and what types of defense can be used to disprove their case. To learn more about how to challenge a speeding ticket or what kind of defenses apply to your case, call today and schedule a free consultation with a Norfolk traffic lawyer.
How Can The Officer Prove They Were Recording The Speed Of My Vehicle?
Usually, the officer has specific equipment that is designed to record the driver’s speed. Along with this equipment, there is also paper work that will show that the equipment had been working properly and had been calibrated within a particular time frame that goes towards evidence to prove that the speed of the vehicle that they caught you at was accurate.
What Is The Weight Of Radar Speeding As Evidence In Court?
As long as the officer has a certificate of calibration to show that the equipment was properly functioning, and was calibrated, stationary radar and LiDAR are considered to be very, very accurate. Moving radar is slightly less accurate than stationary radar but it still is accurate enough to be strong evidence in court.
Radar Defenses
There are a few defenses but typically, it’s very difficult to have the radar gun reading not taken into strong consideration. The most common defense is attacking the officer’s testimony as to the recent calibration of the equipment. The officers are required to have the calibration certificate according to Virginia Code Section 46.2-882, which states that a certificate complies if:
- It is an original or true copy
- It shows when and by whom it was made
- The testing certified to was conducted within the six months prior to the date of the offense.
If these requirements are not met by the officer, then the calibration is considered to be unreliable, and a good attorney can then move to have the case dismissed because of it.
There are other issues with traffic instruments that may come up. Sometimes, if there is a lot of traffic on the road, the issue of locking on to the wrong object can come into play. This is especially common if the offer is using LiDAR. If there is any movement of the officer while he’s using the equipment when he uses it to detect the speed of the driver, the LiDAR can mistakenly result in a 10 to 20 foot difference in distance from the actual target which means that the result could, in theory, be from a different vehicle from the one the officer was charging. While this is a possibility, it’s difficult to prove and requires a very strong cross examination of the police officer.
Pacing
In Virginia speeding cases, pacing is when the officer drives behind the vehicle for a significant period of time enough to accurately match the speed of the targeted vehicle so that the officer can then look at his own speedometer to determine how fast the vehicle he’s tracking is going.
Pacing is admissible evidence of speeding in Norfolk and throughout Virginia. As long as the officer can show that his speedometer was also properly calibrated and that the pacing was adequately performed, then this evidence is not only admissible but considered to be very reliable.
Pacing Defenses
An issue with pacing is that it’s very hard to determine whether the officer was going at the same exact speed as the driver that he was targeting. It’s possible that the driver was going at a steady speed whereas the officer was closing in on him which would make the officer’s speed slightly faster than the targeted vehicle. This would mean that the speed that the officer believed the driver was going at was higher than it actually was. Sometimes a defense for pacing cases can be found when the officer’s vehicle’s speedometer turns out to be off.
