There are so many holes in the story... Did the Subaru (blocking the cop's view of the Yaris) not stop at the stop sign, and was he not given a ticket too? The sneezing story- how fast was he going to suddenly stop during a sneeze? Let's see- a sneeze-induced (panic?) stop at 30 mph takes just under two seconds and leaves twenty to thirty feet of rubber- any mention of that? And the acceleration of a Yaris is not, let's say, impressive, so how long did it take him to get back up to 30mph, 7, 8 seconds? Also, did he sneeze with his eyes open so he was able to check the traffic before proceeding? The way I see it, the cop was blissfully eating his donut for 9 or 10 seconds while this event was taking place- no wonder the judge went along with the perp. Too funny, but nice going with the ticket- I find those who took science courses are often more clever than those who studied law (or enforce it).
It's ridiculous because a driver should communicate with the people around him that he is stopped. What this paper argues is that the driver executed a 'hidden stop.' There is an epidemic of people around here who do the 'California rolling stop,' even on red lights and with pedestrians nearby.
There are so many holes in your line of questioning.
Regardless of which direction the Subaru is coming from he could have full stopped and still obstructed the cops view as he continued. That is assuming he even had a stop sign; it could have been a 2 way stop in a 4 way intersection.
You don't need to blow a stop sign doing 30mph to get a ticket you only need to roll it. I think its safe to assume the driver didn't screech to a halt from 30mph in his yaris. One could easily "sneeze" on the brake going 2mph and get back up to speed in the time that another car is obstructing the cops view, irregardless of what kind of vehicle they're driving.
I'm not sure if you've noticed but nobody leaves rubber on the road anymore since the advent of anti-lock braking.
You could easily assess most intersections rolling at 2mph (again, not sure why you're assuming hes going 30mph the whole time)
There are no holes in this story. You don't need a physics degree to understand the scientists point. A judge and an officer, one of whom actually witnessed the entire event, agreed with the scientists point.
A similar argument could be made to dismiss speeding tickets. I'm sure we've all heard of police departments declaring "Zero Tolerance" on speeding tickets thus inferring that 1 mph over the limit would result in a speeding ticket. The obvious flaw being that speedometers can't always be accurate to within 1 mph.
The counter to the accuracy issue has always been that the owner of the car is responsible for the accuracy of the speedometer. The flaw in that argument is that it is actually impossible for a speedometer to be accurate to within 1 mph in all circumstances. All speedometers base their readings on the number of rotations of the tire and therefore on the circumference of the tire. As the circumference of the tire is directly proportional to the pressure in the tire, any variation in the tire pressure results in a change in the accuracy of the reading. Tire pressure can and does vary base on, ambient temperature and frictional based temperature variation (i.e. cold when first started and hot after having driven for a while. Also hotter on rough surfaces while cooler on smooth surfaces. Etc. ).
Given this information, a 1 mph variation while traveling at 50 mph (2% variation) can be caused by as little as a 1/3" variation in the diameter of a tire (2% of a 17" tire). It's therefore pretty clear that speedometers CAN'T be accurate to within 1 mph at 50 mph without constant monitoring of the tire pressure while drive.
Have you ever gone to court for a speeding ticket? You can always knock two to three mph off of the charge due to inaccuracies with the radar or lidar used to determine your speed by the officer. In NJ for example you can speed 15 mph over the limit on highways without every being bothered. 15mph over the limit is technically a 4 point ticket. Speeding 1-14mph over the limit is a 2 point ticket. The police know you will argue down a couple mph and therefor won't bother pulling you over unless you are going 16+ over the limit. Or at least this has worked for the last 20 years I've been commuting to NJ.
But more to your point, its not actually the states problem that you can't accurately assess your own speed. If there is a 1mph fluctuation in the accuracy of your speedometer then you should go 1mph under the limit.
I am a physicist and a couple of years ago got a ticket in Newton, MA, where the cop said I had not stopped at a yellow light at an intersection. I went to court with photographs of the intersection and a mathematical analysis that the yellow light was too brief and the intersection too long to allow anyone to cross the intersection before it turned red. The judge asked me if I was an engineer. I said I was a physicist and had just taught a class that day about velocity and acceleration. The judge turned to the cop and said "We dont want to get too technical here, do we?". And dismissed the ticket!!
Exactly the same argument worked for me in Georgia in 1976. I quoted the Georgia driving handbook for supposed stopping distance at the given speed limit. The fine would have been $50, a small fortune to me back then.
BS. They just let this guy off because he is a high status member of society as a physicist. If I wrote the exact same paper they would have stuck me with the fine and laughed about it because I don't have status like that. The paper is flawed anyway because police are trained to observe angular velocity.
With all due respect,[to police officers, not you] most police officers have never heard of angular velocity[and do not need to] and if you could have written the 'exact same paper', you would not have submitted such an asinine comment.
Not necessarily... As a lowly teenage fast food employee, I once used science to get out of a ticket, too. The officer accused me of running a stop light that was two lots away from where I'd turned onto the street. Using 4-dimensional science, I demonstrated for him how timespace would not allow me to have run that stop light -and- have in my possession a timestamped receipt from the grocery store I had just left. After some debate, he conceded my point and let me go.
Science and strategery, my friends. They win every time.
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Did the Subaru (blocking the cop's view of the Yaris) not stop at the stop sign, and was he not given a ticket too?
The sneezing story- how fast was he going to suddenly stop during a sneeze? Let's see- a sneeze-induced (panic?) stop at 30 mph takes just under two seconds and leaves twenty to thirty feet of rubber- any mention of that? And the acceleration of a Yaris is not, let's say, impressive, so how long did it take him to get back up to 30mph, 7, 8 seconds?
Also, did he sneeze with his eyes open so he was able to check the traffic before proceeding?
The way I see it, the cop was blissfully eating his donut for 9 or 10 seconds while this event was taking place- no wonder the judge went along with the perp.
Too funny, but nice going with the ticket- I find those who took science courses are often more clever than those who studied law (or enforce it).
Regardless of which direction the Subaru is coming from he could have full stopped and still obstructed the cops view as he continued. That is assuming he even had a stop sign; it could have been a 2 way stop in a 4 way intersection.
You don't need to blow a stop sign doing 30mph to get a ticket you only need to roll it. I think its safe to assume the driver didn't screech to a halt from 30mph in his yaris. One could easily "sneeze" on the brake going 2mph and get back up to speed in the time that another car is obstructing the cops view, irregardless of what kind of vehicle they're driving.
I'm not sure if you've noticed but nobody leaves rubber on the road anymore since the advent of anti-lock braking.
You could easily assess most intersections rolling at 2mph (again, not sure why you're assuming hes going 30mph the whole time)
There are no holes in this story. You don't need a physics degree to understand the scientists point. A judge and an officer, one of whom actually witnessed the entire event, agreed with the scientists point.
The counter to the accuracy issue has always been that the owner of the car is responsible for the accuracy of the speedometer. The flaw in that argument is that it is actually impossible for a speedometer to be accurate to within 1 mph in all circumstances. All speedometers base their readings on the number of rotations of the tire and therefore on the circumference of the tire. As the circumference of the tire is directly proportional to the pressure in the tire, any variation in the tire pressure results in a change in the accuracy of the reading. Tire pressure can and does vary base on, ambient temperature and frictional based temperature variation (i.e. cold when first started and hot after having driven for a while. Also hotter on rough surfaces while cooler on smooth surfaces. Etc. ).
Given this information, a 1 mph variation while traveling at 50 mph (2% variation) can be caused by as little as a 1/3" variation in the diameter of a tire (2% of a 17" tire). It's therefore pretty clear that speedometers CAN'T be accurate to within 1 mph at 50 mph without constant monitoring of the tire pressure while drive.
But more to your point, its not actually the states problem that you can't accurately assess your own speed. If there is a 1mph fluctuation in the accuracy of your speedometer then you should go 1mph under the limit.
I went to court with photographs of the intersection and a mathematical analysis that the yellow light was too brief and the intersection too long to allow anyone to cross the intersection before it turned red.
The judge asked me if I was an engineer. I said I was a physicist and had just taught a class that day about velocity and acceleration.
The judge turned to the cop and said "We dont want to get too technical here, do we?".
And dismissed the ticket!!
Science and strategery, my friends. They win every time.
Thumbs down for driving that Yaris POS.