Proving Speeding in Prince William County

Proving your violation of the speeding laws in Prince William County is the job of the police officer and can come in the form of radar, LIDAR, pacing, or more. Understanding the defensive strategies for dealing with charges in these cases requires a Prince William County speeding ticket lawyer who has experience. Regardless of your situation, everybody deserves competent legal defense.

How Police Officers Prove Speed in Prince William County

Officers use speed detecting equipment to determine how fast drivers are going on the highways. These instruments include radar and LIDAR, both of which include a paper trail of required work to show in court that the equipment is accurate and reliable. The officer is required to have the instrument calibrated within a particular time period, and he has to have a certificate of calibration in order to prove it in court.

Pacing Versus Radar and LIDAR

Pacing is when the officer chooses a vehicle to target, then gets behind the vehicle and follows it for a significant enough period of time to be able to match his own speed with the driver’s speed, and then look down at his speedometer to determine how fast the targeted vehicle was going. There are some issues with pacing because it is a little bit more subjective than a radar or Lidar reading. The officer is much more prone to make mistakes here that are harder to prove, such as that he could have been gaining speed while he was trying to target the vehicle and therefore the speed at which he is claiming the driver was going is faster than the driver’s actual speed.

Another issue is that the officer’s own speedometer may be incorrect, which means that in court it is wise to ask for the officer’s speedometer calibration certificate to show that his speedometer was accurate at the time of the pacing. It is really important in pacing cases for a Prince William County speeding ticket attorney to take apart the officer’s testimony as much as possible because there is so much room for interpretation.

Radar in Speeding Case Trials

Clients commonly ask that question, but it is really not an easy thing to prove in court without more supportive evidence than just your word. The difference between an individual’s word and the Prince William County officer’s word is big because the driver only has their biased word, unless there is a witness or something else supporting his testimony. Additionally, the officer not only has his word, but also the backup of their equipment’s reading which is backed up by the equipment’s calibration certificate.

It can feel like it is your word against the officer’s, but in reality it is your word against specialized equipment designed specifically to track speed, which is then backed up further by documentation showing that the equipment was working adequately and well.

Traffic radar guns are used to detect speed in Prince William County. These tools not only include radar but they also include LIDAR, which is slightly newer and more accurate and uses lasers instead of radar. The courts consider these readings to be very accurate and reliable and will admit them into evidence if the prosecution is able to lay the proper foundation. However, there are ways for an experienced speeding ticket attorney in Prince William County to call these results into question. These are very case specific.