Was the officer mistaken when he clocked my vehicle?
I talk to many potential clients who think that the officer must have been mistaken when he clocked their vehicle and claimed they were going a certain speed on the interstate. This typically happens when someone is charged with reckless driving, for example, and they’re very upset about the nature of the charge. They simply don’t think there was any way they were going 85 or 90 miles an hour on the interstate.
The natural tendency for some people is to say that the officer must either be misrepresenting what happened or maybe made an honest mistake.
The problem with this argument is that judges give the officers a lot of deference in court. If an officer of the law takes an oath to tell the truth, stands there in his badge and uniform, and testifies that his equipment picked up their vehicle at a certain speed, the judge is normally going to believe that officer.
Does this mean that we can’t cross-examine the officer or question how he was able to determine it was your vehicle? Of course not. We can certainly ask if there were any other vehicles around, if it’s possible he was mistaken, and how he was able to identify that it was your vehicle he clocked. However, those can be difficult arguments to make.
This is absolutely not to say that we don’t have any defenses in speed-related cases. However, usually arguing about which vehicle the officer clocked with his radar or laser is not going to be a winning defense.
The major exception to this could be if there were two vehicles side-by-side on the interstate. We might have an argument that the officer is not able to tell which vehicle is going which speed. And also perhaps it was nighttime and there was a couple vehicles with a very similar make and model. We might could argue that the officer may have clocked one vehicle and pulled the other one over.
There are some arguments to be made in some cases based on the identification of the vehicle and whether or not the officer clocked the correct vehicle that he ticketed. However, in the average speeding or reckless driving by speed case in Virginia, these arguments are simply not going to be a winning defense.
To learn about which arguments WILL help in your case, contact me for a free consult or grab your free copy of my reckless driving defense book.
