Yesterday, I was traveling up the Northeast East Extension just below Scanton, PA. only a few cars and trucks on the road. Got the V1 cranked all the way up, just to be safe.....I come around a large bend doing 70 mph and there are 3 cops sittin' with lights on, one jumps out and points at me to pull it over....uggghhhh, Now I know the V1 hasn't made a peep the whole time so get this.....The officer tells me I was clocked doing 87 in a 65 !!! I say how was I clocked??? He says a plane!!! A frickin' plane Anybody ever try to fight a ticket like this in Pennsylvania? I'm installing an AWACS system next.

 

this is why the convertible was created.

seriously,

ouch ... bumber.

i dont think you can really fight those.

maybe human error? i dunno.

wtf is AWACS?

 

The plane measures your speed by looking at how fast your car gets from point A to point B by preset marks on the ground. There is no radar involved, just a simple mathematical formula. No radar detector will help you here. I don't see how you could fight it in court. Good luck!


Matt

 

i thought it involved a person and a stop watch basically.

 

You literally were "clocked".

They timed the time it took for you to travel between two marked points in the road. Simple math calculation determines your speed. It's commonly known as VASCAR.

Only detector that exists for that method of speed enforcement is your eyes. Always keep an eye on the sky,

 

Yeah, the person in the plane has the stop watch.

 

Just as Neablas and Y2Kvert4me it is done by time thats why they have the marking on the road spaced every 1/4 mile or so.

If the speed limit is 60mph then it should take you 15 second to do a 1/4 mile and thing faster you are speeding.

 

Here is my unfortunate "plane" story.

It was 1970 and I was a freshman in college (OK, so now you know how old I am). I was on I-70, east of Columbus, Ohio in the Ford Maverick I had borrowed from my brother. I am going way too fast, and I looked up and saw a plane. I told my brother, "Hey, look, I am keeping up with that plane!" Just over the next hill, there were the troopers! I was clocked at 94 in a 70. About 20 other people were already pulled over, we all had to follow the officer in a line to the local courthouse. When it was my turn, the judge looked down at me and said, "Boy, were you tryin to blow up that 6 cylinder?" I had to beg him to let me go. I think the ticket cost me $75, which was a whole lot of money for an 18 year old in 1970.

From that point on, I always glance up through my glass top to see if anyone is watching!

 

I'm sorta skeptical about this, who's to say that you are actually doing it, I mean, what is the proof? Is there a video in real time of you going past these 1/4 mile markers? I just hope i don't run into these guys on one of their bad days.....

 

I got caught a few years in NJ by a trooper in an unmarked car pacing me. It was a crown vic with tinted windows by the airport, I thought it was a livery car. No V1 will help you there as well. Pacing is when you get followed, they match your speed and use their speedo to determine if you are speeding. There is just something sneaky about that.

Good luck in fighting your ticket. If there is a human involved in the timing then there must be a statistical margin off error. If you are up on the news, then you may have herd about the 205 MPH speeding ticket in MN. They guy was caught by a plane. But people are saying that there was no way that the bike the kid had could do that speed, so there had to be some error involved.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/09/27...ing.ticket.ap/

 

Anyone hear about the guy that was clocked over 200mph on a motorcycle the same way? An airplane, a stopwatch, and 20/20 vision.

 

Same thing happened to me a while back, on I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson. There were about 6 trooper units, and I think I was the 12th car they waved over. The only defense is sharp eyes and a swivel neck. Of course a vert or Clear-top coupe helps out immensely.

I feel your pain.

 

In PHX years ago I lost in court on a VISUAL estimated speed. Seems the Officers were routinely "calibrated" against radar!!!

 

If you are paranoid about aircraft detection you could get one of these:

http://www.monroyaero.com/atd200.html

 

how you get out of that here in the great state of florida is, argue that since they dont calibrate their cars on a daily basis, there is the possibility that their car was out of wack while pacing you.

Because of this, the slight possibility .. they have to let you go. So i'm told by my traffic lawyer.

 

I got caught once that way. Came over a little hill and saw a bunch of squad cars/ Looked like something from Smokey and the Bandit. A trooper stepped out from the side of the road and pointed me over to the side. I had my radar detector on too. As he approached my car he just smiled and pointed to the sky. I now carry a Radio Shack scanner. I have found the radio frequency for the troopers and the planes/

You have to have more than one weapon in your arsenal. The scanner is just over $100 and works quite well. I have determined from listening to the scanner (a lot of fun by the way) how the Ohio State Patrol deploy their manpower. All is fair in love and war. I really do not exceed the posted speed limit when there are a lot of other cars around. That is not smart. I do not run in packs either. I exceed the posted out in the clear and on roads built for speed (Interstate). The Valentine I have is great and the Radio Shack scanner is a great addition. The use of planes or helicopters can be detected too. The LEO that use those tactics usually run in packs as they are catching a lot in a specific area. They have the highway marked with paint so they can not go just any place and do it. Learn where those spots are and be aware of them.

 

Airborne Warning and Control System. The USAF "spy in the sky." Used to identify and prioritze air and ground threats and vector attack assets (air and ground) to neutralize them (as in, kick the sh*t out of them). Looks like a frisbee mounted atop a 767.

 

You guys have never seen the big wide bars painted on the highway in the middle of nowhere? In Kansas and other states the paint airplanes on the pavement. Those are the marks that are used by the planes for distance references, they have a stopwatch too (or some other time measuring device) for an accurate speed calculation.

 

I thought it was illegal to have a scanner in your car if you were not a LEO, fireman, or some other emergency repsonse person?

I think though it may vary state to state.


http://www.afn.org/~afn09444/scanlaws/scanner5.html

 

With the large expense of a plane and pilot and the associated maintenance and operating costs, they really want to issue speeding tickets real bad to use planes to do it. Tickets most of the time are more about money than safety. The more tickets issued the more money, grants, and personnel can be justified. If it was really about safety, there would be more marked cars, more warning tickets, and more lectures about slowing down ( as in the old days). Now its all about how many tickets are issued and how much revenue is generated.