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Comment by giarc | Hacker News Reader

I knew a Justice of the Peace and asked him about the radar gun calibration tactic. He said that it's bogus and in his 40 year career had never seen it work.

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I have received dozens of speed camera tickets (a "work zone" trap that was active even when the work zone was de-posted, 100% of them were thrown out) and the cal info for the radar was included with the ticket, probably to save everyone time for trying to argue up that alley.

Winning in traffic court is like winning forced arbitration. There is no neutral jury, you have judge that is being payed by the same government who benefits from the fines. Speed traps are illegal in California yet i still see cops hiding in alleys or shooting lidar off overpasses. It’s worse in small cities where city cops sit at the transition of highway speeds to city speeds and catch inattentive drivers.

Judges aren't particularly motivated by fines. Unlike police officer, they don't get a cut or a bonus for collecting fines.

That’s what they say about forced arbitration. They are still appointed or hired by the municipal or county government. It beneficial for these governments to hire judges who will benefit them just like forced arbitration and companies.

You have a position of power in a system. A position that gives you a good salary, power over your fellow citizens, recognition and social status. You're probably going to identify yourself with the system, and thus, some level of bias pro-system is very, very likely.

Judges that process traffic tickets don’t really have any of those things.

Can confirm, I tried it, didn't work at all. The courts aren't stupid.

I'd argue that this means they are stupid. If the machines weren't properly calibrated then they can't be relied on to be accurate.

It turns out that radar guns are pretty accurate and don't really lose much calibration over time. They simply don't see widespread problems with misbehaving radar guns.

So when the court hears someone complaining about calibration or whatever, >99% of the time it's just trying to weasel out of a ticket on some technicality, and the person was legitimately speeding. The court would have to be stupid to fall for this ploy. Remember, the standard for traffic court violations is not "beyond a reasonable doubt", it's simple preponderance of evidence.

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