Business owner beats speeding tickets by turning town's traffic enforcement camera technology against them
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:46 PM on 22nd April 2011
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ent-camera-technology-them.html#ixzz1KHk2tFdf
A Maryland business owner has successfully discredited the camera equipment used by traffic enforcers – ironically by using their own technology against them to prove errors in the system.
Will Foreman, the owner of Eastover Auto Supply in Oxon Hill, Maryland, has managed to prove reasonable doubt five times before three separate judges, by bringing photos snapped on the highway of his company’s vehicles into court and proving that there is no way they were travelling over the speed limit.
But how did he do it?
Foreman took a close look at the photos snapped on Maryland’s Indian Head Highway by Optotraffic. The company’s devices first use sensors to detect vehicles traveling at least 12 miles over the imposed speed limit, and then snap two time-stamped image of the vehicle 50 feet down the road, at 0.363 second intervals.
The allegedly speeding motorist is then sent the pictures and a $40 ticket.
After superimposing the two photographs into one image - using the vehicle’s length as a frame of reference - Foreman was able to calculate the vehicle’s speed, given the distance and the elapsed time of the shots, and was able to prove that the vehicles were not in fact speeding.
‘I’ve never seen this before…You’ve produced an elegant defence and I’m sufficiently doubtful,’ Judge Mark T. O’Brien said in court before throwing the tickets out.
--snip-- Remainder of article and photos at link above
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:46 PM on 22nd April 2011
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ent-camera-technology-them.html#ixzz1KHk2tFdf
A Maryland business owner has successfully discredited the camera equipment used by traffic enforcers – ironically by using their own technology against them to prove errors in the system.
Will Foreman, the owner of Eastover Auto Supply in Oxon Hill, Maryland, has managed to prove reasonable doubt five times before three separate judges, by bringing photos snapped on the highway of his company’s vehicles into court and proving that there is no way they were travelling over the speed limit.
But how did he do it?
Foreman took a close look at the photos snapped on Maryland’s Indian Head Highway by Optotraffic. The company’s devices first use sensors to detect vehicles traveling at least 12 miles over the imposed speed limit, and then snap two time-stamped image of the vehicle 50 feet down the road, at 0.363 second intervals.
The allegedly speeding motorist is then sent the pictures and a $40 ticket.
After superimposing the two photographs into one image - using the vehicle’s length as a frame of reference - Foreman was able to calculate the vehicle’s speed, given the distance and the elapsed time of the shots, and was able to prove that the vehicles were not in fact speeding.
‘I’ve never seen this before…You’ve produced an elegant defence and I’m sufficiently doubtful,’ Judge Mark T. O’Brien said in court before throwing the tickets out.
--snip-- Remainder of article and photos at link above
However, some cities are doing away with the practice because of all the legal issues.