> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: D. Jay Newman [mailto:jay@SPRUCEGROVE.COM]
> >
> >My advice is to pay the ticket and get a used sedan. Something
> >boring and broken in, but not noticible.
> >
> >This will lower your insurance premium quite a bit (sports
> >cars pay a premium), and you'll be less noticed by the cops.

> Surely this is a fundamental violation of the freedom that Americans are so
> protective of?  Why should he not be able to drive a sports car without
> discrimination?

Unfortunately it's also human nature.

The OP has the freedom to drive any legal car he wants to. The police
have the freedom to make mistakes.

In the situation described I don't think it was unreasonable for the
policeman to jump to the wrong conclusion. The radar buzzed, and he saw
a sports car driving by a young man and an SUV. If the SUV had seen
the police and slowed down so that they were both going close to the
legal speed the policeman had to guess. Which way would you have guessed?

> My (very limited) experience of the US highway police was not good.  On a

I'm not arguing. I think that many places, especially Pennsylvania (one list
lists the entire state as a speed trap), use speeding tickets as a source
of revenue. I do not think that this is the intent of the laws.

I live in State College, PA, which is a large football town connected with
a university (Penn State). There is a lot of revenue generated through
speeding tickets that are pretty close to entrapment.

However, the speeding laws are there for a purpose, and sometimes the
police do seem to be trying to help keep the traffic safe.

Even worse than the police is the judicial system. Unless you've got some
*really* good proof and know the legalites, your main hope of beating
a ticket is that the policeman who gave you the ticket can't show up
at court.

> explained he would simply have to pay up and that arguing against the police
> over there was futile.  He also said that mobile speed traps mostly picked
> on out of state cars.  "To serve and to protect" eh?  To serve tickets
> apparently.

Ayup. No argument.

However, I do find a couple of things very fishy in the OP's story.

He's driving an expensive car and yet can barely afford the time/mileage
to get to the appeals court.

I stand by my advice: sell the car and buy something that doesn't stand
out. It's not fair, but fancy cars get more tickets.

I wish the system was fair. I also wish that there would be penalties to
the police for making mistakes. For instance, if the OP can prove his
case (as opposed to just raising reasonable doubt), I think that *all*
of his expenses should be paid by the policeman (not the police in general,
but rather out of that man's pocket).
--
D. Jay Newman           ! DCX - it takes off and lands base first,
jay@sprucegrove.com     !       as God and Robert Heinlein intended.
http://enerd.ws/robots/ !

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