jurisprudence
What&#39;s The Law In This Scenario?
<p>On a highway through a rural area, the sign says &quot;speed limit 70 mph.&quot; But, the one cop who patrols that stretch of highway pulls over and tickets anyone who goes over 60. In the last 10 years no one has successfully appealed a ticket he's written. From the perspective of the citizen, is the speed limit 70 or 60?</p>
<p>Clarifications: The state code says explicitly that only the posted speed limit is enforceable. The cop writes a speed over 70 on the tickets he writes, but whether he does so because his radar gun is miscalibrated, or because he is lying, isn't clear to the citizen.</p>

<p>Courts, particularly traffic courts, tend to take a police officer's word over that of an accused person. While legally the limit is 70, the driver has very little recourse if the officer claims falsely that the actual speed was over 70. But the deterant effect of a posted limit is lost, since drivers in general have no way to know that Officer O will ticket anyone going over 60.</p>
<p>I suppose that driver D, or D's lawyer, could subpoena calibration records of any radar gun or other measuring devise used, and could insist on its being tested. However, unless they had reason to think there was an issue, I wonder if D and D's lawyer would go through that process.</p>
<p>Some speed measuring devices print a paper slip showing the date and time along with the reading. If such a device was used that record would be harder to alter.</p>
<p>Some cars are now equipped with devices provided by insurance companies that record speeds and other driving info in a secure way to help judge a driver's safety and allow individual rate setting. It might be that the record from such a device would be admissible to show the speed was under the posted limit.</p>
<p>But there is a sense in which the law is what the police and the courts enforce. If anyone who drives the road over 60 is cited and must pay, one could say the effective limit there is 60.</p>

<p>From the perspective of the citizen, the <strong>legal speed limit</strong> is 70 mph and the <strong>temporary safe travel speed</strong> on this stretch of highway is 60 mph. The legal speed limit is usually setting an <em>upper</em> bound on the speed one is supposed to travel, not a <em>lower</em> bound. The law does not change because it is (temporarily) inadvisable to travel that fast.</p>
<p>Imagine there is not a rogue lawman but a nasty pothole on that road. All citizens in the area know about it and know that their car will have to go to the shop if they hit the pothole at 70 mph. Do you think any of the locals will get much pity if he or she insists on taking the pothole at 70 mph, just because there is no lower limit posted?</p>
<p>The fact that it is a law-breaking (or just incompetent) cop and not a natural hazard will affect how the citizen should go about resolving the situation. With a pothole, they write to the state or county maintenance authorities and demand a road crew. When a cop makes &quot;mistakes&quot; for that long, one wonders what his or her superior has to say about it -- if the superior backs the cop, is he or she in on the scheme or just not interested? Who is the boss of that superior? Where is the elected official who should be responsible for all of them?</p>

<blockquote>
<p>From the perspective of the citizen, is the speed limit 70 or 60?</p>
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<p>The speed limit is 70 and the cop is a criminal who is also violating their constitutional rights.</p>
<p>It is unwise to intentionally try to function in places where police corruption is so deep rooted and tolerated.</p>
