7 ms·

Physicist Uses Math to Beat Traffic Ticket

106 points by bhavin 14y ago

bcl 14y ago
A friend of mine beat a speeding ticket once by demonstrating that it was physically impossible for him to have slowed down from the claimed speed and stopped in the location where the officer wrote the ticket.
- lotharbot 14y ago
  A guy from my parents' church beat a speeding ticket by demonstrating that the motorcycle cop would have had to reach a speed of over 160 mph in order to clock him at the speed measured at location A and then catch him by location B.
- jaylevitt 14y ago
  I once failed to beat a speeding ticket by not noticing that the officer had forgot to introduce the ticket into evidence. I introduced it, the judge said "Really? Are you sure?", I missed the hint, and since a ticket is evidence of speeding in Massachusetts, my case was kinda shot...
sosuke 14y ago
The paper was submitted April 1st according to http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.0162 http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.0162 April fools perhaps?
- whackberry 14y ago
  Does look like so. No judge I know would spend even 5 minutes on a misdemeanor case such as this one.
drucken 14y ago
Haha, nice way to beat the system. But I doubt the symmetry of those two graphs. Surely, there is no (ordinary) retail car on the planet which can accelerate as fast as it decelerates?
- ktizo 14y ago
  I doubt there is any car that can unless the brakes are really dodgy (apart from the rocket powered ones with parachutes).. Just goes to show, if you haven't got a hope in hell, try bullshit and long words. [edit] Just looked up formula one cars, they are 2g acceleration and 5g braking apparently.
- tedmiston 14y ago
  First comment: "venky said... He claims in his model, 'his car decelerated at - 10 m/s^2 and, instantaneously, accelerated to + 10 m/s^2 at t = 0'. No known mechanical system is capable of achieving such an instantaneous jump without a tail-off period. ...."
  - xxbondsxx 14y ago
    MechE here, electrical motors can obtain almost instantaneous acceleration / full torque at 0rpm. Their torque curves typically look like this: http://www.jmag-international.com/catalog/img/e68-3b.gif http://www.jmag-international.com/catalog/img/e68-3b.gif The brakes are independent, so it's not as if one system has to provide both accelerations, one just needs exceptional timing of the feet. A lot of rally car drivers can do similar maneuvers This is the same reason why the Tesla Roadster has such a killer 0-40mph
- mistercow 14y ago
  First, we assume a spherical car...
  - RegEx 14y ago
    Ah, the perfect physics world. It's a fun place to go from time to time.
- excuse-me 14y ago
  A modern hatchback (VW Golf) with good tires on a perfect road can decelerate at 1g with a pro driver. In tests regular drivers posted between 0.9 - 0.6g in a range of cars from Ferrari to Honda civic. To do 1g in acceleration you would need to do 0-60 in 2.75s that MIGHT be possible for a $1M supercar (or a bike ;-)
dmd 14y ago
> or maybe he was simply impressed by the sheer dedication Krioukov put into avoiding this ticket. This seems more likely. I beat a speeding ticket with GPS data once - except the judge didn't even ask to see the data. I just said I had it. (Yes, the officer was there in court too.) The judge said he'd take my word for it.
- 0bs1di4n 14y ago
  My friend always appears in court after getting speeding tickets because it is apparently more costly for the court to pay for the session and the officer's time than what they will get from a ticket, so they usually dismiss it to save money. Sometimes the officers don't even show up. He has told me it works every time.
  - grannyg00se 14y ago
    If everybody would choose to appear in court like your friend does, perhaps this law that most people don't follow would actually get changed. Instead most people just pay the ticket and continue to allow the law to "work" as it is.
    - vacri 14y ago
      If that happened, rest assured that legislators would find a way to streamline the process.
  - kelnos 14y ago
    If you lose in court, though, aren't you required to pay the cost of the session? (I have no idea, never done it before, just curious.)
    - waiwai933 14y ago
      In criminal court? I can't think of any jurisdiction that charges a fee for pleading not guilty, going to trial, and being convicted. In civil court outside the US, the loser pays attorney's fees. I don't know about court fees, since those are usually relatively tiny compared to attorney's fees.
huhtenberg 14y ago
> I want to ask the readership to please find the flaw in the argument. "The officer had special two-week training that qualifies him to estimate angular velocity whichever the fucking way he wants, even with a completely obstructed view." Courtesy of Canadian reality. Plot me a graph to counter that.
- mynegation 14y ago
  Right, so I do not know about California, but in Canada if at stop sign the back of your car did not have a chance to come full way down on suspension, the stop is not considered to be performed properly. His charts assume instantaneous change in acceleration let alone any "settle down" period.
joshmlewis 14y ago
Yeah, that took some dedication, and because we aren't all as dedicated or physicist here are some practical tips I've learned: 1. When an officer asks how fast you were going, never say anything over the speed limit or that's automatic guilt. Just decline to know or tell. A lot of people say within a +5-10mph range over the speed limit because they think that is "ok", but in fact anything over the speed limit is speeding and is ticket worthy. 2. Look up laws in your area about loopholes. I once had a friend who got pulled over for doing a burn out in his Cobra, the officer was so aggravated he forgot to wear his hat when he got out of his car and the case got dismissed because of it. 3. Always be polite. Always, always, always. Even if they're real jerks, which has never happened to me, always be courteous and make things go as smoothly as possible. If you start being an ass they WILL remember it and will take that into consideration when writing the ticket and/or in front of the judge. You'll have a chance to give your side in court, so don't bother wasting your breath with the officer. 4. I once got out of a reckless driving ticket ($400+, I was young and dumb) because I just happened to know the director of the area highway patrol. It turned out I was in the top 5 worst tickets the highway patrolman had ever given out in his 20+ years of duty. My director friend told him I was a good kid and my parents were going to kill me anyway, so he let me off. 5. And really, the single most best way to not get a ticket, don't break the rules. Of course in this guys case the officer apparently was mistaken, but more times than not that's not the case. This got large quickly. Just some things I've learned over a few years of driving.
- culturestate 14y ago
  > in fact anything over the speed limit is speeding and is ticket worthy. This actually varies per jurisdiction, though that's still a good general rule. In Florida, for example, you can't be ticketed for 1-4mph over the limit thanks to a law that was passed to eliminate speed traps.
- cperciva 14y ago
  the officer was so aggravated he forgot to wear his hat when he got out of his car and the case got dismissed because of it That really sounds like an urban myth.
Steko 14y ago
Recreation of the courtroom, from my brain: Physicist: "Pretty much cold feet and sneezes your honor, QED." Judge: "Well seeing as how you're a member of the affluent class I shall not inconvenience you further."
ww520 14y ago
I had a similar story. I once sped through a traffic intersection and a cop car coming from the other way perpendicular to my heading. He turned immediately and chased me down. After stopping, he ordered me out and said I was doing 110mph. I was like there's no fucking way I was doing 110. The car felt very different going 110 than 60. He was saying I looked like going very fast. The only thing that ran through my mind was to get a lawyer. Amazingly he left me go after lectured me for a while. I guessed he wasn't sure exactly how fast I went. I was wondering how can he misjudge the speed so far apart. This article explained the phonomena.
codezero 14y ago
Gets more love when it's a churched up article than when you just post directly to the PDF :( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3830019 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3830019
- m_for_monkey 14y ago
  I give you a point, because that's what you really want, not "love" for the paper, right?
  - codezero 14y ago
    yes, of course.
throwaway1979 14y ago
I have a question about avg ticket costs. My first (and so far, only) ticket was in LA for crossing a solid HOV line. The ticket itself was 80-100. However, they added a ton of fees to it (the best one I remember was a fee for courthouse improvement but there were fees by the county of LA and the city of LA). All-in-all, the grand total was around 400. Is this just a California thing? I don't see how people can eat in that state when a ticket costs this much.
whackberry 14y ago
It is amazing that a judge would even listen to this in a non-criminal and minor offense case. Most places I know it'd just be dismissed and the fine upheld.
gwern 14y ago
> "A way to fight your traffic tickets. The paper was awarded a special prize of $400 that the author did not have to pay to the state of California." Good economics reasoning too - losing a loss is as good as gaining a gain.
eriktrautman 14y ago
His argument and charts imply a stopped duration of 0s. I was taught that a legal stop is >= 2 seconds duration. Guilty.
defen 14y ago
If you're in California, trial by written declaration[1] is a great way to deal with minor traffic violations. The way it works is that you fill out a form[2] giving your version of events, and submit a check for the amount of the ticket. The beauty of this is that the officer also has to fill out a form giving his version of events - and if he doesn't, you automatically win and your money is refunded. It's the equivalent of the officer not showing up to your court case. If he does submit the form you might still win if the judge sides with you. And if you lose, you can request another trial by written declaration. I'm 2/2 using this strategy for minor violations, and I haven't had to waste any time in traffic court. In both cases I won because the officer did not submit his version of events - probably because it's boring work and they had better things to do. [1] http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d17/vc40902.htm http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d17/vc40902.htm [2] http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/tr205.pdf http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/tr205.pdf
michaelcampbell 14y ago
A buddy of mine tried the same thing (math in court) using the weight of his SUV, the HP of the engine, and other things to show he couldn't have been speeding at the location the officer said he was. Result: "Too bad. Pay me." Like they say in the movies; with law it's what is the truth, and what you can prove. He failed the latter and got a hefty fine.
nmridul 14y ago
Why is it that most comments here are about ways to fool a policeman and avoid a speeding ticket ? I was expecting more advices on reducing your speed and driving safely.

106 points by bhavin 14y ago

bcl 14y ago

A friend of mine beat a speeding ticket once by demonstrating that it was physically impossible for him to have slowed down from the claimed speed and stopped in the location where the officer wrote the ticket.

lotharbot 14y ago
A guy from my parents' church beat a speeding ticket by demonstrating that the motorcycle cop would have had to reach a speed of over 160 mph in order to clock him at the speed measured at location A and then catch him by location B.
jaylevitt 14y ago
I once failed to beat a speeding ticket by not noticing that the officer had forgot to introduce the ticket into evidence. I introduced it, the judge said "Really? Are you sure?", I missed the hint, and since a ticket is evidence of speeding in Massachusetts, my case was kinda shot...

sosuke 14y ago

The paper was submitted April 1st according to http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.0162 http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.0162 April fools perhaps?

whackberry 14y ago
Does look like so. No judge I know would spend even 5 minutes on a misdemeanor case such as this one.

drucken 14y ago

Haha, nice way to beat the system. But I doubt the symmetry of those two graphs. Surely, there is no (ordinary) retail car on the planet which can accelerate as fast as it decelerates?

ktizo 14y ago
I doubt there is any car that can unless the brakes are really dodgy (apart from the rocket powered ones with parachutes).. Just goes to show, if you haven't got a hope in hell, try bullshit and long words. [edit] Just looked up formula one cars, they are 2g acceleration and 5g braking apparently.
tedmiston 14y ago
First comment: "venky said... He claims in his model, 'his car decelerated at - 10 m/s^2 and, instantaneously, accelerated to + 10 m/s^2 at t = 0'. No known mechanical system is capable of achieving such an instantaneous jump without a tail-off period. ...."
- xxbondsxx 14y ago
  MechE here, electrical motors can obtain almost instantaneous acceleration / full torque at 0rpm. Their torque curves typically look like this: http://www.jmag-international.com/catalog/img/e68-3b.gif http://www.jmag-international.com/catalog/img/e68-3b.gif The brakes are independent, so it's not as if one system has to provide both accelerations, one just needs exceptional timing of the feet. A lot of rally car drivers can do similar maneuvers This is the same reason why the Tesla Roadster has such a killer 0-40mph
mistercow 14y ago
First, we assume a spherical car...
- RegEx 14y ago
  Ah, the perfect physics world. It's a fun place to go from time to time.
excuse-me 14y ago
A modern hatchback (VW Golf) with good tires on a perfect road can decelerate at 1g with a pro driver. In tests regular drivers posted between 0.9 - 0.6g in a range of cars from Ferrari to Honda civic. To do 1g in acceleration you would need to do 0-60 in 2.75s that MIGHT be possible for a $1M supercar (or a bike ;-)

dmd 14y ago

> or maybe he was simply impressed by the sheer dedication Krioukov put into avoiding this ticket. This seems more likely. I beat a speeding ticket with GPS data once - except the judge didn't even ask to see the data. I just said I had it. (Yes, the officer was there in court too.) The judge said he'd take my word for it.

0bs1di4n 14y ago
My friend always appears in court after getting speeding tickets because it is apparently more costly for the court to pay for the session and the officer's time than what they will get from a ticket, so they usually dismiss it to save money. Sometimes the officers don't even show up. He has told me it works every time.
- grannyg00se 14y ago
  If everybody would choose to appear in court like your friend does, perhaps this law that most people don't follow would actually get changed. Instead most people just pay the ticket and continue to allow the law to "work" as it is.
  - vacri 14y ago
    If that happened, rest assured that legislators would find a way to streamline the process.
- kelnos 14y ago
  If you lose in court, though, aren't you required to pay the cost of the session? (I have no idea, never done it before, just curious.)
  - waiwai933 14y ago
    In criminal court? I can't think of any jurisdiction that charges a fee for pleading not guilty, going to trial, and being convicted. In civil court outside the US, the loser pays attorney's fees. I don't know about court fees, since those are usually relatively tiny compared to attorney's fees.

huhtenberg 14y ago

> I want to ask the readership to please find the flaw in the argument. "The officer had special two-week training that qualifies him to estimate angular velocity whichever the fucking way he wants, even with a completely obstructed view." Courtesy of Canadian reality. Plot me a graph to counter that.

mynegation 14y ago
Right, so I do not know about California, but in Canada if at stop sign the back of your car did not have a chance to come full way down on suspension, the stop is not considered to be performed properly. His charts assume instantaneous change in acceleration let alone any "settle down" period.

joshmlewis 14y ago

Yeah, that took some dedication, and because we aren't all as dedicated or physicist here are some practical tips I've learned: 1. When an officer asks how fast you were going, never say anything over the speed limit or that's automatic guilt. Just decline to know or tell. A lot of people say within a +5-10mph range over the speed limit because they think that is "ok", but in fact anything over the speed limit is speeding and is ticket worthy. 2. Look up laws in your area about loopholes. I once had a friend who got pulled over for doing a burn out in his Cobra, the officer was so aggravated he forgot to wear his hat when he got out of his car and the case got dismissed because of it. 3. Always be polite. Always, always, always. Even if they're real jerks, which has never happened to me, always be courteous and make things go as smoothly as possible. If you start being an ass they WILL remember it and will take that into consideration when writing the ticket and/or in front of the judge. You'll have a chance to give your side in court, so don't bother wasting your breath with the officer. 4. I once got out of a reckless driving ticket ($400+, I was young and dumb) because I just happened to know the director of the area highway patrol. It turned out I was in the top 5 worst tickets the highway patrolman had ever given out in his 20+ years of duty. My director friend told him I was a good kid and my parents were going to kill me anyway, so he let me off. 5. And really, the single most best way to not get a ticket, don't break the rules. Of course in this guys case the officer apparently was mistaken, but more times than not that's not the case. This got large quickly. Just some things I've learned over a few years of driving.

culturestate 14y ago
> in fact anything over the speed limit is speeding and is ticket worthy. This actually varies per jurisdiction, though that's still a good general rule. In Florida, for example, you can't be ticketed for 1-4mph over the limit thanks to a law that was passed to eliminate speed traps.
cperciva 14y ago
the officer was so aggravated he forgot to wear his hat when he got out of his car and the case got dismissed because of it That really sounds like an urban myth.

Steko 14y ago

Recreation of the courtroom, from my brain: Physicist: "Pretty much cold feet and sneezes your honor, QED." Judge: "Well seeing as how you're a member of the affluent class I shall not inconvenience you further."

ww520 14y ago

I had a similar story. I once sped through a traffic intersection and a cop car coming from the other way perpendicular to my heading. He turned immediately and chased me down. After stopping, he ordered me out and said I was doing 110mph. I was like there's no fucking way I was doing 110. The car felt very different going 110 than 60. He was saying I looked like going very fast. The only thing that ran through my mind was to get a lawyer. Amazingly he left me go after lectured me for a while. I guessed he wasn't sure exactly how fast I went. I was wondering how can he misjudge the speed so far apart. This article explained the phonomena.

codezero 14y ago

Gets more love when it's a churched up article than when you just post directly to the PDF :( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3830019 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3830019

m_for_monkey 14y ago
I give you a point, because that's what you really want, not "love" for the paper, right?
- codezero 14y ago
  yes, of course.

throwaway1979 14y ago

I have a question about avg ticket costs. My first (and so far, only) ticket was in LA for crossing a solid HOV line. The ticket itself was 80-100. However, they added a ton of fees to it (the best one I remember was a fee for courthouse improvement but there were fees by the county of LA and the city of LA). All-in-all, the grand total was around 400. Is this just a California thing? I don't see how people can eat in that state when a ticket costs this much.

whackberry 14y ago

It is amazing that a judge would even listen to this in a non-criminal and minor offense case. Most places I know it'd just be dismissed and the fine upheld.

gwern 14y ago

> "A way to fight your traffic tickets. The paper was awarded a special prize of $400 that the author did not have to pay to the state of California." Good economics reasoning too - losing a loss is as good as gaining a gain.

eriktrautman 14y ago

His argument and charts imply a stopped duration of 0s. I was taught that a legal stop is >= 2 seconds duration. Guilty.

defen 14y ago

If you're in California, trial by written declaration[1] is a great way to deal with minor traffic violations. The way it works is that you fill out a form[2] giving your version of events, and submit a check for the amount of the ticket. The beauty of this is that the officer also has to fill out a form giving his version of events - and if he doesn't, you automatically win and your money is refunded. It's the equivalent of the officer not showing up to your court case. If he does submit the form you might still win if the judge sides with you. And if you lose, you can request another trial by written declaration. I'm 2/2 using this strategy for minor violations, and I haven't had to waste any time in traffic court. In both cases I won because the officer did not submit his version of events - probably because it's boring work and they had better things to do. [1] http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d17/vc40902.htm http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d17/vc40902.htm [2] http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/tr205.pdf http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/tr205.pdf

michaelcampbell 14y ago

A buddy of mine tried the same thing (math in court) using the weight of his SUV, the HP of the engine, and other things to show he couldn't have been speeding at the location the officer said he was. Result: "Too bad. Pay me." Like they say in the movies; with law it's what is the truth, and what you can prove. He failed the latter and got a hefty fine.

nmridul 14y ago

Why is it that most comments here are about ways to fool a policeman and avoid a speeding ticket ? I was expecting more advices on reducing your speed and driving safely.