I don't know how it is done in America but where I am from there is essentially a 9km/h grace. This means while and where the speed limit is 50km/h, you will never get a ticket for less than 60km/h (except for public holidays where the grace is switched to 4km/h in an effort to curb the road toll). Part of the reason for the grace (apart from allowing for normal human error) is to account for possible errors that may occur in the measurement.
Now that makes me think that if his average speed between the two points is estimated at 35mph and the areas speed limit is 50mph, with a similar grace that is one giant error in the system. (Since typing I've gone on to read that the grace is 12mph, which converts to 19km/h... in my opinion a huge leniency). The reason I feel it must be a glaring error is that the calibration of these devices, which I presume are radar would be far more precise than 19km/h. I would go on to guess that the 0.363 seconds between the photos is fairly accurate too, given that these devices are designed to be evidentially sound.
So he's worked out he's going 35mph, he must have been going at least 62mph to activate the camera. 35mph is 15.6464m/s meaning that in 0.363 seconds he would have travelled 5.67m, 62mph is 27.71648m/s which would indicate he travelled 10.06m. There would also me a small amount of error in the reading due to the doppler shift going on in the radar that records his speed. The favour of the cosine coefficient from the doppler effect always goes to the advantage of the motorist. It seems to me that with all the possibilities to cause error, there is still one huge difference. So while I think that the error is actually in his use of photogrammetry, he must have done one big error and fooled the judge on it. He's worked it out too. As per the article "Mr. Foreman said he is awaiting trial on about 40 more tickets, all of which he called “bogus.”" He worked out he get off the tickets and now he speeds everywhere like a maniac no doubt. I just do not believe that there can be that large errors in the system so that leaves him behaving like an arrogant tosser who is a danger to all other drivers and especially pedestrians.
The odd thing is the manufacturer of the camera says:
"Optotraffic representatives said the photos are not intended to capture the actual act of speeding, and are taken nearly 50 feet down the road from sensors as a way to prove the vehicle was on the road.
“No one has come to us with a proven error,” company spokesman Mickey Shepherd said Tuesday. “Their speed is not measured by the photos. The speed is measured before the photos are taken.”"
I would have thought that would be enough to get his style of defence thrown out of court. Are the judges in America trained lawyers or are they political monkeys? The company should be making everything as evidentially sound as possible though.
