GPS Tracking Device Beats Radar Gun in Court 702
MojoKid writes "According to a release issued by Rocky Mountain Tracking, an 18-year old man, Shaun Malone, was able to
successfully contest a speeding ticket in court using the data from a GPS device installed in his car. This wasn't just any old make-a-left-turn-100-feet-ahead-onto-Maple-Street GPS; this was a vehicle-tracking GPS device — the kind used by trucking fleets — or in this case, overprotective parents. The device was installed in Malone's car by his parents, and the press release makes no mention if the teenager knew that the device was installed in his vehicle at the time."
Re:How he did it (Score:5, Informative)
If only.
GPS device gets time from GPS satellite, not user.
Re:So... what was wrong with the gun? (Score:5, Informative)
5th amendment doesn't protect you there. It only prevents you from incriminating yourself - it doesn't prevent evidence from your GPS being used. Especially if you introduce evidence from your GPS unit as a defense.
Re:Damn you, technology! (Score:4, Informative)
For those who don't understand the joke in the parent post, see Little Britain [youtube.com]
Re:You can never trust the client - Already done (Score:5, Informative)
Come to think of it, that's a great idea for OS or FSF - create code for popular GPS devices, and then produce the code for audit when you go to court contesting a ticket, while asking that the cops produce the code off of their device!!
A variation of this has been done in a number of DUI/DWI cases. A number of defendants have demanded [google.com] that the source for the breathalyzer be made available for review by the defense.
In the cases I'm aware of, the manufacturer has refused to release the source as their agreement/license with the relevant law enforcement agency does not provide for this.
I believe the outcomes have ranged, but in general this has been a successful defense.
Not always (Score:5, Informative)
Only if the drivers allow themselves to be tracked at all times and allow the data to be uploaded to a location where the insurance company can monitor the data at their own whim and fancy. You are right though - I know Progressive gives discounts for kids who have GPS trackers in their vehicles.
Re:So... what was wrong with the gun? (Score:3, Informative)
If the radar gun was indeed a Doppler radar device, then that's as close to a measurement of instantaneous speed as one can define. It doesn't need two distance measurements at different times; it needs a frequency shift over several (I'm guessing 50 - 100 for any sort of resolution) cycles of the wave. Since the period of the radar is likely something on the order of 0.05 ns, a Doppler radar gun may make its velocity determination with measuring only 1 - 10 ns, with great accuracy. That's instantaneous enough for Gov't work.
Instantaneous speed is very important. No one cares if your average speed for an hour before an accident was 55 mph; they care if your instantaneous speed when you hit a pylon or another car was 120 mph.
Re:So... what was wrong with the gun? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm no fan of the cops, but measuring at an angle to the direction of travel decreases the speed as perceived by the radar gun.
Laser (Score:2, Informative)
Another potential problem (Score:5, Informative)
Is new guns and their "pop" mode. Basically it is an ultrafast start and shutdown mode for the gun. The reason is, of course, RADAR detectors. They've gotten quite good. They don't necessarily need the gun to be on and transmitting to pick it up. When the gun is in standby (with it's electronics operating but not transmitting a beam) they can still be picked up. Same sort of way RADAR counterdetectors work. Even though the detector itself isn't trying to emit anything, it does anyhow (as does any superheterodyne device).
Ok, great, however you might pause to wonder about the ability to electronics operating in the 30GHz range to quickly come on and stabilise and, well, you'd be right. Guns in "pop" mode aren't accurate. In part due to the fast start, in part due to less data points, they can produce unreliable readings. The gun manufacturers say that pop mode isn't to be used as a final speed measurement, but that doesn't stop police forces from doing so anyhow.
Or it could be even more simple: The gun wasn't calibrated. Like any precision device, they need periodic recalibration. Had this been allowed to happen, it is entirely possible the gun was producing inaccurate readings.
It is a good idea for all drivers to take a little time to educate themselves about various speed measurement technologies and such. While I'd say the majority of police departments use their equipment right and the tickets are legit, they aren't always. If you get nailed with a bogus ticket, you don't necessarily need GPS to fight it. Tell the department you want the calibration records for the gun in question, find out if it was in pop mode, etc, etc. If they screwed up, let the judge know and they'll most likely drop the ticket.
Re:By Neruos (Score:4, Informative)
To this date, no hard factual science has proven that speed cameras have saved lives or reduces accidents.
Yeah, I've noticed that the Brits found no use at all for their systems - it's not like tracking down the speeders in central London has saved lives. I guess that the Lancet was just not hard or factual enough a source...http://www.thelancet.com/newlancet
Re:You can never trust the client ... (Score:3, Informative)
Shaving 20 mph off the logged speed would never fool anyone. With a small amount of logged data you'd have positions, time and speed. If your speed is reported at 50 meters per second, the position better be different by 50 meters each second. So besides fudging the speed you'd have to fudge the time ( or positions ) as well. Your time as reported in the logged positions would have to run slow in additon to the bugus speed. If that were true, your log would not show you in the position the cop knew you were in at the time of the ticket.
Of course you could retroactively edit the entire log, but doing it in real time would ne tough.
Re:How he did it (Score:5, Informative)
If your GPS time was off by even one second, your position would be off by about 300km -- give or take depending on satellite geometry -- there's no way to separate the two.
Sure there is. The GPS clock system is independent of our common business-day clock. GPS does not incorporate time zones, does not incorporate daylight savings time adjustments, does not incorporate leap years or leap days or leap seconds or anything else. It is not tied to any earth time system. The GPS network simply counts its own seconds, independent of our earthly wall-clock time conventions.
The GPS unit likely has an independent clock circuit so that you can have a clock even when you are not receiving any GPS signals. And if it is running off of satellite time, it would have to have some stored translation factor to convert the satellite time to an earth-clock time, to account for time zones and daylight savings time and other adjustments, and to account for the fact that the satellite time *does* drift out of sync with official earth time systems. In fact due to leap seconds and whatnot, GPS time has drifted 14 seconds out of sync with GMT / UTC Coordinated Universal Time.
The fact that it was even physically possible for him to manually set the clock proves that the satellite time was not being directly displayed on the clock, that there is either an independent internal clock and/or some stored translation factor to convert the GPS network's internal clock system into whatever "common local time" you want displayed on the user-clock. None of this would would be used in the GPS position calculations.
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Old news? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How he did it (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Damn you, technology! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:So... what was wrong with the gun? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Overprotective? (Score:2, Informative)
Which you are well within your rights to do if you purchase the car for your children. The best thing you can do is limit the power of the car they can drive, a heavy car may seem safer (a common fallacy, SUV's are rarely safer than light sedans for passengers, drivers or other motorists.) but light cars suffer less damage simply due to the fact that there is less power in terms of kilowatts in the engine, heavier cars require heavier more powerful engines to achieve the same speeds thus creating more kinetic energy in an impact. It's worse for light cars with heavy engines, I cringe when I see an 18 or 20 yr old in a Nissan Skyline or MR2 Spyder, if you put a Toyota Yaris into a wall the engine block and crumple zones will limit injury, if you put Skyline into a wall, you compress the car into an artillery shell go through the wall in the same manner as one.
And to think I'm only 25, Today the Australian government seems to be making it harder and harder for young people to drive such as the recent stupid law prohibiting P plate (rules for the first two years of driving) from driving between 12 AM and 6 AM, it's laws like this that are making P platers take the P plates off their car just so they can drive after midnight. Personally I'd rather they limit the power of cars that a P plater can buy and drive which in addition to being semi-enforceable will actually decrease the fatalities in accidents for young drivers.
Re:Another take (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Heh, heh, heh. (Score:3, Informative)
..and surely wouldn't take advice from this crowd at slashdot for raising children..
You seem to be suggesting that because i read slashdot (ie, part of the slashdot crowd) that i dont have good parenting advice.
As an uber geek and father of three children, I find that statement both arrogant and ignorant.
YMMV
Re:Damn you, technology! (Score:5, Informative)
As in, more than one light, and based on which ones were lit, the driver's speed is indicated.
For example:
1 light = 10 mph.
2 lights = 30 mph
8 lights = 100mph
If that still doesn't make sense, then you're just too retarded to understand.
Re:By Neruos (Score:3, Informative)
Considering that The Lancet recently got caught with their hand in the cookie jar making up bogus statistics about the number of war dead in Iraq at the behest of George Soros, I too have a hard time accepting anything said in The Lancet (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7b2_1199991668) as factual. They really have pooped in their own nest when it comes to integrity.
Re:Heh, heh, heh. (Score:1, Informative)
Your kids will be so mad at you for your continual monitoring that they'll rebel against all your decisions when they're teenagers. Some won't be a problem -- I was forbidden by my parents from walking round town after school (shopping etc), yet all the other kids were allowed (and I mean *all*). Sometimes I'd lie to my parents and say I was going to an after-school club, and instead walk round town. No big deal.
Some could be a problem: a while later, I walked round the dodgy part of town, alone. Why? Because I didn't have any real idea of the relative safety of the town centre and this dodgy part of town, both are simply "off limits". And, because I got a kick out of breaking my parents' stupid rules.
At sleepovers, which 14 year olds are drinking neat vodka and puking out of the window? Yep, the ones with the restrictive parents. The others? They're drunk, but if their parents find out they won't care, and won't be banned from future sleepovers, so they don't feel they have to "make the most of it".
Most of my friends are 18, we're going to a nightclub. Last time, my mum insisted on picking me up from outside the club at 1am, and I wasn't pleased when she did. My friends all stayed until 3am and got a taxi. This time: my parents don't know I'm at a nightclub. They think I'm staying the night at a friend's house. The friend's parents know, and will lie to my parents if they call.
Another friend, whose parents were very religiously-restrictive: they found his Warhammer and Magic The Gathering cards and decided both were ungodly. They threw them out. The next day at school, this friend has got everything he could out of the bin, stolen money from his parents to replace what they broke, and gives it all to a friend for safekeeping.
All these things are only problems because one kid's parents are much more restrictive than most parents. If all your children's friends also have GPS tracking and no freedom, then they probably won't see the big deal over it (well, they probably won't even see each other).
A study in the UK showed that children are becoming more restricted in what they can do, and allowed much less freedom than in the past, even though the dangers are comparable.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6720661.stm [bbc.co.uk]
"In 1970 the average nine-year-old girl would have been free to wander 840 metres from her front door. By 1997 it was 280 metres. Now the limit appears to have come down to the front doorstep"
(I can't find the page, but a study I read said the limit in 1950 was much bigger again.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6986544.stm [bbc.co.uk]
"Children's health is suffering because they are losing the chance to play outside, a group of experts has warned."
Incidentally, I'm now 21, I've finished university and I'm so sick of my parents *still* trying to control and interfere with what I do I'm considering cutting them off completely (by moving house and not telling them where I've gone).
FYI (Score:2, Informative)
In NJ and I'll assume most states, your car's onboard data can be downloaded w/o a warrant or need for consent. From what I remember, GM & Ford used to (and may still) maintain that the vehicle data is *their* property. On-Star etc already allow remote access to some(or more) of this data.
How long before your car gives you a ticket?
Re:So... what was wrong with the gun? (Score:2, Informative)
If the guy's causing a sonic boom, I suspect the ticket is going to stick. However, your high school physics grade would clearly never stand up in court.
Must be that new math (Score:2, Informative)
If you travel 100m at 100m/s and 100m at 50m/s, you have traveled 200m in 3s for an average speed of 66.67m/s, not 75m/s.
Re:mixed feelings about this (Score:5, Informative)
It is most certainly not mandatory. None of my cars have gps tracking, including our 2008 model CRV.
Re:mixed feelings about this (Score:1, Informative)
Since when? I live in Quebec, I don't have a GPS in MY car...
Re:mixed feelings about this (Score:1, Informative)
In Quebec vehicle tracking GPS systems have been mandatory for years. It's mostly because the government made a deal with the car insurance people so all cars had to have the device installed as an 'anti theft' measure. It's a good example of how little it takes to force those things on people.
Funny... I've lived here (in Quebec) all my life and I've never heard of the mandatory GPS thing... I'm going to have to get Wikipedia on your ass and ask for a citation for that
Re:mixed feelings about this (Score:4, Informative)
>In Quebec vehicle tracking GPS systems have been mandatory for years.
Hmmm, no.
Maybe for some classes of commercial vehicles, but we don't have one, my friends don't have one, nobody I know has one. Maybe check with someone who lives in Quebec before you spout inaccuracies.
Re:mixed feelings about this (Score:4, Informative)
Ergo, Minneapolis essentially legalized car theft. You just had to be licensed as a private towing company to do it.
Re:Horizonal Position (Score:4, Informative)