Etrex Legend - worth its weight in speeding fines?

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Geodes
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Etrex Legend - worth its weight in speeding fines?

Post by Geodes » 02 July 07 2:50 pm

Well, this one's gone a long way towards paying for itself at least :lol:
<P><a href="http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/ ... lic_rss</a>
<P>I guess he's lucky it didn't show his max speed as being around the speed-of-sound :roll:

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Post by CraigRat » 02 July 07 3:00 pm

How the hell did he get away with that???

1) Tracklogs can be altered/re-uploaded
2) His GPS would NOT have any kind of calibration validation. Due to EPE and other uncertainties a GPS unit is useless for statutory measurements)

The police should've pursued it a bit harder.... they'd have won it...
They can't book you with an uncalibrated radar unit..... the same would go with providing evidence to argue against the ticket

Odd..there must have been something else that's not been mentioned... reading thru the lines I'd say they either hadn't calibrated the radar gun or lost the paperwork...

If you're ever in court re: speeding, ask to see the cal details of the unit......

/part of my job is to calibrate stuff for statutory requirements....

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Post by CraigRat » 02 July 07 3:25 pm

That article is surprisingly detailed... I'll stick with 'no paperwork for the radar unit' after re-reading it...

The guy got lucky...no more, no less

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Post by unbreakables » 02 July 07 3:45 pm

yet another use for the trusty old e-trax, have herd a similar story recently, but the guy was on a bike.
Good on him I say, if ther is a way of beating the them do it.
I don't mind the marked cars out on the road cruising the hwy, good visual deterrent, it is the radar traps, hiding behind bushes and un-marked cars that I am not a fan of, especially with kids seats or luggage racks to disguise themselves.
And revenue raisers,,, I mean speed cameras, just there to make money,
IMO,
Cheers

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Post by Knot_gillty » 02 July 07 3:57 pm

Before almost every trip I will reset the max speed and odo for the reason that if i did get pulled over i might be able to get out of it. Either that or leave the top speed on about 100km and hope they believe me. :twisted: :lol:

Or just don't speed.

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Post by CraigRat » 02 July 07 4:42 pm

Knot_gillty wrote:Before almost every trip I will reset the max speed and odo for the reason that if i did get pulled over i might be able to get out of it.
If you found a cop who was reasonable, you probably could!

BUT: Your GPS wouldn't stand up to scrutiny if you went to court (even on a RAM mount :lol:) due to the fact there is no certificate of accuracy of any kind... we all know these units are accurate, but in court you have to PROVE it....that's where 'I read it on the internet' doesn't really cut the mustard.

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Post by Zytheran » 02 July 07 6:36 pm

I'm waiting for the "I didn't commit the <insert crime>", my GPSr shows my tracklog as alibi.
I'd assume the courts would soon find out the tracklog can be manually made/modified and uploaded. Of course if you have a <insert expletive> Garmin like moi, you will have discovered that saving a track compresses it, loosing accuracy and all the time stamps proving you didn't rob Fort Knox.
Oh damn, shouldn't have typed that.. :wink:
In SA if you used this alibi they'd throw the book at you for operating a GPSr while driving anyway.

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Post by Dooghan » 02 July 07 8:18 pm

CraigRat wrote:
Knot_gillty wrote:Before almost every trip I will reset the max speed and odo for the reason that if i did get pulled over i might be able to get out of it.
If you found a cop who was reasonable, you probably could!

BUT: Your GPS wouldn't stand up to scrutiny if you went to court (even on a RAM mount :lol:) due to the fact there is no certificate of accuracy of any kind... we all know these units are accurate, but in court you have to PROVE it....that's where 'I read it on the internet' doesn't really cut the mustard.
Looks like you didn't see this story.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/fat ... 23012.html

Dooghan

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Post by Knot_gillty » 02 July 07 9:50 pm

Dooghan wrote:
CraigRat wrote:
Knot_gillty wrote:Before almost every trip I will reset the max speed and odo for the reason that if i did get pulled over i might be able to get out of it.
If you found a cop who was reasonable, you probably could!

BUT: Your GPS wouldn't stand up to scrutiny if you went to court (even on a RAM mount :lol:) due to the fact there is no certificate of accuracy of any kind... we all know these units are accurate, but in court you have to PROVE it....that's where 'I read it on the internet' doesn't really cut the mustard.
Looks like you didn't see this story.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/fat ... 23012.html

Dooghan
Jeez, those guys are MAD!! $27,000 in fees to get out of about $400 of fines :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

But I'm sure it was aalllllll worth it!

Fools.

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Post by CraigRat » 02 July 07 10:03 pm

There must be some bad lawyers for the prosecution out there.
A domestic GPS isn't a precision device... it'd be easy to get it thrown out of court...

I'm actually stunned by the result of Dooghans article... the expert witness must have baffled eveyone!

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Post by Knot_gillty » 02 July 07 10:06 pm

CraigRat wrote:A domestic GPS isn't a precision device... it'd be easy to get it thrown out of court...
Must be using a Magellan. :wink: :twisted: :lol:

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Post by Chwiliwr » 02 July 07 11:43 pm

CraigRat wrote: BUT: Your GPS wouldn't stand up to scrutiny if you went to court (even on a RAM mount :lol:) due to the fact there is no certificate of accuracy of any kind... we all know these units are accurate, but in court you have to PROVE it....that's where 'I read it on the internet' doesn't really cut the mustard.
All you have to do in a court is put enough doubt into the case and you get off. You don't necessarily have to PROVE anything just provide enough contradictory evidence to the prosecution and you will always get off as they DO have to PROVE a case beyound reasonable doubt.

Presented in the right way a handheld GPS track log could be enough to provide that doubt even though it is not a certified accurate device.

There are a number of means to back up the track log evidence to show that it is more likely to be accurate than not. When I was in Victoria last I went through a number of those public speed check spots and each time checked the GPS 'speed' against the displayed speed and they always displayed the same speed. This kind of evidence presented with the track log should go a long way to providing enough 'doubt'.

All this is speculation as this kind of evidence hasn't been been presented yet as far as I know anywhere in Australia so we don't know how a court will actually see it.

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Post by Coffee and Cache » 03 July 07 1:35 am

It may be worth noting, that while the position accuracy of the etrex and similar GPSr's that use the civilian GPS signal is only accurate to 5-10 metres or so, the velocity indicated is usually much better than could be obtained by time and positions alone, since most (possibly all) receivers use the doppler shift from the satellites carrier to deduce or augment the velocity calc. This is not effected in the same way by the various errors in the GPS position calc.

Of course, the possibility of tampering is quite another matter, but I'm inclined to think that if the GPSr log can be shown to be genuine somehow, the speed indicted should be regarded as just as accurate, if not more so that a radar gun. Of course, I speak from a position of total ignorance from a legal perspective.

Steve

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Post by unbreakables » 03 July 07 2:42 am

I tent to agree with Chwiliwr, get the doubt in there and you are in with a chance, I have heard that some hwy cops hate to have to goto court to justify there tickets, so if you can 'bluff' them initially you may get away with it on the spot, I once heard a story of a guy getting off because the defense questioned the hwy cop as to how he could , checking his radar for the recorded speed, and his watch to ensure he had the correct timing of same, maintain a watch on his 'victim' all whilst being in full and safe control of a vehicle negotiating a bend at 100km/h, I believe the accused, who was on a bike, was not charged, but the legal bill, that was another story.
Worth a try I think, whst have you got to loose???


Disclamer: anything you say that i said, may be used as evidence against you in a court of law, so therefore All of this is the opinions of someone else, & I cannot be held accountable for your own circumstance... :roll: :lol: :roll:

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Mr Router
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Post by Mr Router » 03 July 07 7:06 am

You dont have to worry much about speeding fines broken one! You drive a lux :shock: :oops:

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