If there’s anything that true crime podcasts have shown us, it’s that legal systems are systematically flawed and often devour citizens of both their free time and money. For some, legal cases are as easy as throwing $1,300 at court fees to dispute an assault case. For others, the price to see justice served on a speeding ticket is about a few thousand dollars short of Mike Tyson’s weed habit.
A 71-year-old English man by the name of Richard Keedwell got a £100 ($120) speeding ticket for doing 35mph in a 30mph zone in 2016. He didn’t believe he broke the law, and he definitely didn’t want to justify spending £100 to pay off the ticket, so he instead spent nearly £30,000 ($37,000) of his son’s inheritance fighting the traffic violation in court within the means of a “seriously flawed” legal system.
Keedwell, a retired engineer, swears he didn’t commit this crime so hard, he decided to expose a faulty traffic camera instead of paying off his ticket. “I know I wasn’t doing 30 mph because I’m someone who is quite obsessed with fuel economy and I drive no more than the speed limits to get the most miles per gallon that I can,” he told British publication i. “So I was very surprised when I got the NIP [Notice of Intended Prosecution]. Most people would open it and think ‘damn,’ and just pay the fine. I’m sick of the injustices happening with our government and police and ordinary people being ripped off. I thought, I’m going to challenge this.”
And challenge he did. In court, Keedwell hired the help of electronics and radar specialist Tim Farrow to analyze images of the alleged speeding incident. Farrow exposed a speeding camera malfunction known as the “double doppler” effect, in which a camera’s speed radar measures the speed of a passing car and deflects that speed onto a second car that is heading the same direction. Basically, Keedwell maintains that he wasn’t speeding, it was some other dude who sped by him and the camera snapped the wrong guy.
Ultimately, after a few hearings, various court fees and travel expenses, and hiring Farrow, Keedwell said he spent around $36,982 fighting his case. He lost his most recent hearing in August. But hey, three years later, Keedwell has finally paid off his fine. Sometimes you’ve got to blow some dough to disrupt the system.
24 Comments
“Sometimes you’ve got to blow some dough to disrupt the system.”
When does that story get published?
As someone who deals with instrumentation on a daily basis, I’m always curious how well these sensors are calibrated, or if they are at all. I’d think anything being used to measure speed, BAC, etc. for the cops would likely not be checked on a regular basis because cops are lazy assholes. But I still haven’t heard of any successful attempts to get things thrown out because the cal cert on a piece of equipment was expired.Anyway, the point is that if that shit isn’t NIST traceable, it’s fucking worthless.
Yeah I wonder that as well. Or just miss use of the equipment. Honestly the whole concept of speed limits is stupid for the most part. Cops should be less worried about Grandpa going 5 MPH over and instead worry about the kids dragging race down the way.
Going 5 miles over the speed limit greatly increases the chance that a pedestrian Speeding is not a victimless crime.
To be fair, the problem drivers are the ones going slower than the flow of traffic, not the other way around.
I don’t think cops worried about Grandpa at all since I’m pretty sure it’s all automated
I live in Colorado, years ago I was part of half a courtroom dismissed and had our citations dropped because of this. The judges first question to the officer in each case was “when was the last time you calibrated your radar?” At the time there was a window of a few days that would make the reading admissible, this officer had gone a week or so iirc. Once he disclosed that the Judge stated “you know where this is going?” the officer said yes and the judge dismissed us all.
It’s been a while since I got a ticket so I’m not sure if this is still in practice.
That judge fucking rules.
I’d think anything being used to measure speed, BAC, etc. for the cops
would likely not be checked on a regular basis because cops people are lazy
assholes.
FTFY.
But regular calibrations and checks are required for most laboratories. Hell, even gas pumps are required to get checked by Weights and Measures. There’s all sorts of government requirements for that sort of thing and it surprises me that it doesn’t get talked about more often when it comes to this.Seriously: if I blow a 0.08 in my state… what’s the error on that? What’s the accuracy of the significant digit? How does the display round? I’m assuming there are requirements/answers for this! I’m curious what they are!
I agree. Very few people understand the concept of false positives and false negatives.
In most jurisdictions you can request to skip the breath test and have a blood test (which has to be run by an accredited laboratory). But I’m guessing you have to let the cops arrest you before they’ll take your blood.
You can’t fight city hall.
You can fight it all you want, its winning that’s impossible
If conflict betwixt the two came up, you would prefer to follow the letter of the law, over the spirit of the law?
I contest that meme, sir. Your Lawful Neutral will never conquer the wavy truth of the underlying chaos, sir. SIR.
Rocko did. And he won too. “Rocko fought city hall! Rocko fought corporate America! They were big and he was small! Rocko fought city hall!”
I take the wording of ‘exposed a speeding camera malfunction known as the “double doppler”’ to mean he proved this indisputably, so why did he still have to pay the fine?
In the comments on the original article is made the claim that the speed cams use both doppler and take two photographs with lines marked on the lanes to confirm the doppler reading. Typically doppler will be more accurate, but the photographs can confirm the reading within some error limits. The chances that the timer for the two photos is off by exactly the same or anywhere close to the double-doppler effect (if there is one) is unlikely.
Old white guy who spent his kid’s inheritance fighting a small fine in the name of getting government off his back?
I’m going out on a limb here and guessing voted for Brexit.
From the country that brought you “Let’s leave the EU to save a ton of money”.
Myself, i don’t own a car, i don’t even drive, so my opinion might not jibe with all.
But were i to drive, i would absolutely have two timestamped dashcams recording everything, and if i could get a recording of all the other stats i create – how fast i am driving at any given time, for example – i would do that as well.
In the case above, i would have checked my own log before embarking on any such legal case. I’d make sure i had all the stats and such on my side.
In fact, given that the internal sensors are recording so mch for tune-up diagnostic purposes, and given it’d be so easy to copy a fraction of that data onto a drive, and upload it to the cloud every evening, i am surprised that the law and insurance companies don’t demand them…. but i suppose that means, the facts would lost them more cases (and money) than it would win.
Anyhow, thanks to the AV Club for this totally-not-a-Jalopnik-or-Gizmodo-article, ima gonna go to Splinter now and read about TV.
Most modern cars’ maximal fuel efficiency is around 55-65 mph (90-105 kph) which is way over 30 mph and has absolutely nothing to do with the local speed limit. I don’t know if he was speeding, but for a retired engineer to say this shows that he’s fully prepared to bullshit.