🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4v0e6j$gpc@hermes.dna.mci.com>,
	davem@metal.con.mci.com (Dave) writes:
>"NMA [Bob M.]" <nma@motorists.com> wrote:
>
>>The biggest problem with photo radar is that you can't face your accuser. 
-SNIP...
>The machine is not the accuser, the machine is a tool. The accuser is
-SNIP..

The real problem is a court system that merely accepts that a tool is
effective and (in essence) summarily convicts. The advantage in terms
of civil liberty of having an attended system (cop with radar) is that
typically other corroborating evidence or lack thereof result in a
fairer disbursement of justice.

For example in a speeding case, the radar operator has some visual
evidence of speed (subject is passing other vehicles, appears to be
materially faster than normal traffic etc.). If a radar operator
couldn't truthfully testify in court that a radar reading was
consistent with his or her own judgement of speed then there would
likely be no conviction and in fact there would likely not have been a
citation either. With unattended photo radar the usual assumption in
court is that, if it's your face and your tags in the picture, then,
you must have been in violation. Further it usually winds up that the
defendant must prove that the system was flawed, almost impossible to
do since the defendant would probably be unable to recall what were
likely to be entirely unremarkable events or circumstances  around what
happened several days or weeks before receipt of a citation.

-- 
PLEASE REPLY TO:      brieckhoff@houston.geoquest.slb.com
Bernhard Rieckhoff       Sr. Geophysicist, Schlumberger-GeoQuest
Denver, CO USA           Voice (303) 486-3204 FAX (303) 694-4690
*Opinions expressed here are unlikely to reflect those of my employer*