“Airplane Caught Me!”

hwybear, I didn't realize the observer had constant sight of the vehicle, but it makes sense now ... although, in court, he can't honestly say "I observed a red 1998 Camero exceeding the speeing, now can he? .... I guess it's tag team in court between him and the ground officer..

I am a little upset on this one as I was only doing 121 in a 100. Yes, I know it's still speeding, but come on, 121? And to use an airpplane at hundreds of dollars an hour to catch someone only doing 121? I can see 130, 140+, but this is nuts. I blow past parked crusiers doing 130 in the city. Up north, it's a whole different ball game.

Up north,children play soccer on the soft shoulder.....SLOW DOWN!

I was on the 400, so there are no pedestrians allowed.

In remote parts of HWY 11, I see no problem doing 10 or 20 over, but in the built up areas, where you are probably referring too, then of course, I'd slow down.

My point is that I find it silly using an airplane (and all the costs asscoiated with that), to catch a guy doing 21 over when it's somewhat of a remote area. If I had been doing 21 over in a school zone (which I wouldn't), then yes, throw the book at me.

It's common sense man!

LOL,I was being sarcastic!

21 over the PSL is slow for the 400,you just helped pay for the fuel!

I didn't pick up on the sarcasm, but I get it now ... I am really pissed by this ticket..... I wonder if it's simply a matter of me being the only guy actually speeding at the time ... maybe no one was driving unsafe (30-50 over), so, in order to justify the cost of the airplane, they have to keep writing tickets in a certain time frame. Even if that means ticketing people doing 5-20 over. If no one is seriously speeding, including me who was only doing 21 over, would they get in trouble coming back to the station with no tickets written?

So, this past long weekend, the messge must've got out to stop driving agressively. This is obviously good news as no one (in the GTA) died this past weekend, but does it mean that they will now be handing out tickets to people only doing 5-20km over (because no one is driving 30km+ anymore)? Is there revenue being lost?

synergy wrote: ... although, in court, he can't honestly say "I observed a red 1998 Camero exceeding the speeing, now can he?

I would think it would be more an observation such as monitoring traffic and observed a red camaro traveling faster than the posted speed limit. So much greater that it passed 7 other motor vehicles. The camaro was "clocked" between 2 known points and calculated to be "X" speed, thus confirming the my observations that in fact it was going faster than the posted speed limit.

I buy that, but what I am trying to do, is establish doubt.

What if there were two similar looking cars in the traffic flow? The airplane observer cannot tell the difference from a blue Acura and a blue Civic, can he? There is some doubt to EXACTLY which car then that the land officer has to pull over.

Since the airplane observer cannot identify my vehicle by at least the brand name (let alone license number), then there has to be a little doubt here.

Using this lack of exact identitfication, coupled with some other things, I could establish enough doubt..

In trying to establish doubt, here are a few things ("thinking out of the box") to look into:

• car color: Over one in five cars are silver, if the officer took his eyes off you for even a second he may of picked up a similar colour car...only good if you have a silver, white or dark colour (black) car as there would be, statistically, a lot of them on a busy highway.


• Natural Obstructions like trees, bridges, road curving, or hills which may have caused the officer to loose sight of you.


• Where was the plane flying? Did it have to bank or make flight corrections while observing you? Request the flight log.


• Weather: turbulance, high wind, anything that would make the plane quickly change altitude. Human eyes cannot see in motion. They must be still. Look at something on the left side of the room and then quickly on the right side of the room. Everything in between is blurry because your eyes are moving. When we look at something are eyes have to stop to focus on an object. If the plane lurched (or was likely to lurch in high wind) then the observer would have lost focus, even if only for a split second.


• Did you change lanes and did the road curve? The inside curve is a shorter distance and you would have reached the second marker faster. Did you drive beside a semi which may have obstructed his view. Typically they have to fly off to the side, not directly overhead (there's no viewport at the bottom of the plane!)


• Disclosure: what were the exact highway lines they used to measure you? Can they pinpoint or recall the exact ones?

Some of this is stretching things but sometimes thinking outside of the box can lead to something you can use.

ticketcombat, those are excellent things I would never have considered in casting doubt. Hence the reason why I am tuning into this forum. I really would like to know how the observer knows that those two white lines are exactly 500 meters apart. This seems like a very good area to explore. But what I am concerned about the most (or perhaps extremely happy about), is that they have only been using the airplane for a couple of months so it's not likely that many guys have taken the ticket to trial. My case could actually be one of the first few to bring up such issues (casting doubt about all those things you mention). A JP may never have realized these things either, so it would be quite easy for him to dismiss the case.

synergy wrote: I really would like to know how the observer knows that those two white lines are exactly 500 meters apart.

I would think the same way construction zones are proven. Police receive a certified MTO copy of the zone and bring it to court.

Police receive a certified MTO copy of the zone and bring it to court.

And those MTO boys are a real crack staff, pun intended.