GPS Beats Speeding Ticket
Rocky Mountain Tracking‘s device is accurate. So good, in fact, it beat a police radar in court:
Eighteen-year-old Shaun Malone has a few people to thank for being able to plead "Not Guilty" to a speeding offence – his parents, who installed a GPS device in his car, and Rocky Mountain Tracking, the service provider of that device.
"Because of our GPS tracking data, Malone and his parents can protest the imposition of an unfair speeding ticket," says Brad Borst, Founder and President of Rocky Mountain Tracking, and who is also a former Police Officer.A police radar had found Malone driving at 62 mph in a 45-mph zone. However, Malone’s parents, who had installed the Rocky Mountain Tracking GPS device in his car to monitor his driving, found that the device tracked him driving at, and not above, the speed limit.
The most telling testament to the accuracy of the Rocky Mountain Tracking Rover GPS tracking device came, ironically, from a GPS expert who originally helped find Malone guilty in a trial-by-affidavit. Dr. Stephen Heppe, the expert, had written a report affirming that, going by the GPS data, Malone had to have been traveling faster than 45 mph.
Read their blog for more detail. And Hot Hardware gets more from the expert:
While the police clocked him going 62-mph, the GPS’s data in fact showed him driving at the 45-mph speed limit. In an initial trial-by-affidavit, Malone was found guilty of speeding. GPS expert, Dr. Stephen Heppe wrote a report that essentially said that the GPS data was not accurate enough to contest the accuracy of the radar gun. Malone appealed the decision and had his day in court. At trial, things played out differently:
"However, when he took the stand to begin his testimony, Dr. Heppe corrected that written report, saying that the Rocky Mountain Tracking device was "very" accurate, to within a couple of meters on location and to within 1 mph on speed. Dr. Heppe also pointed out that the GPS device released instantaneous data, and not data averaged over a distance."
Needless to say, with Dr. Heppe’s revised testimony, Malone was found innocent of speeding.
Teenagers. Some learn about the danger of speeding the hard way, some know better before they start driving. Check out this kid in Kentucky:
Landon Wilburn, 11, grew tired of speeders zipping through his subdivision, so after growing hoarse shouting at them, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
The youngster, who used to shout at speeders to slow down as they drove through the Stone Lakes subdivision in Louisville, now has taken matters into his own hands.
Dressed in a reflective vest, wearing a bicycle helmet and armed with an orange Hot Wheels brand radar gun, he points and records the actual speed of passing traffic.
Landon also carries a flashlight with a built-in siren.
"When I saw it happening, I got the biggest kick out of it," said resident George Ayers, 61. "People were locking up their brakes when they saw him."
You can hack these toy radar guns, or you could really have some fun as-is.
