April 23, 2010

• Steven Topazio wrote this April 27, 2014 at 10:13 am

The defendant, a local taxicab driver, received a citation for speeding. The citation indicated that the defendant was allegedly caught on Radar traveling 66 mph in a 45 mph zone. The client hired Attorney Topazio. A basic summary of how radar works is that a pulse is transmitted and any return or echo is listened for. If a return is sensed, the timing between the transmission and the reception of the echo is used to determine how far away an object is. However, there are many shortcomings to traffic radar. First of all, radar is prone to interference. The radar’s antenna will accept any microwave that it is able to “hear”. The antenna might not be “hearing” the waves which originated from its own unit. High voltage power lines, telephone lines, power stations, even neon lights emit electromagnetic waves. The specific source of the wave cannot be identified. Secondly, radar cannot determine which target reflected off the waves. If there are two cars both travelling in a close proximity, either car could be responsible for the resulting radar reading. Identifying the target is a job left to the radar operator, who frequently makes mistakes. At a distance of 200m, the width of the radar beam can usually cover all 4 lanes of traffic travelling in both direction, causing a large error in determining which car is responsible for the radar reading. Even if there is only one vehicle on the road, radar has a typical range of approximately 400m (1200 feet), which is beyond the visual range of most human eyes. The radar might be clocking a speeder at a distance of 300m, but the officer can only see an innocent driver coming towards him at a distance of 100m. Today after a Clerk’s hearing, Attorney Topazio convinced a Clerk Magistrate to find his client not responsible.