-Ask him when was the last time he inspected for pressure in his tires - Most likely he hasn’t in a long time. Bring up in your concluding statement that the officer’s speedometer may very well have been inaccurate.

 

If the officer used the aircraft determination method:

 

-This method’s big weakness is that even a short delay in pressing the stopwatch button will result in an incorrect speed reading. When you get the chance to cross-examine the officer, ask the officer these questions:

 

-Ask him to explain to you how he determined your speed from the aircraft – Basically he uses a stopwatch to see how fast you traveled between 2 highway markers. Follow up with asking him:

 

-Ask him what is the distance between the two highway markings – He will probably not know this information. And if so, bring up in your concluding statement that his estimate of your speed is inaccurate since he never measured the distance between the highway markings

 

-Ask him how many vehicles he was monitoring that at that time, if he had kept a log of the vehicles, and if he had caught anyone else speeding – He should at least say that he was monitoring other vehicles at that time. Bring up in your concluding statement how easy it would be, since the officer is busy monitoring many vehicles and keeping log, it is quite possible for him to lose track of the speeding car and mistakenly picked up on yours

 

-Ask him if he used a radio to tell the officer in the ground of your license plate number, as well as your car’s make and model – He should answer no to at least 1 of these questions, as it is extremely difficult to tell from so far up above. This again is extremely good to bring up in your concluding statement how easy it would be for the officer on the ground to have lost track of the speeding car and mistakenly picked up on yours

 

-Ask the officer if he can describe to you the other vehicles that were traveling at the same time – Most likely he will forget by this time. Here you can bring up in your concluding statement that the officer’s poor memory coupled with his lack of knowledge of your car’s make and model or plate number is representative of how he could have radioed down the wrong speeding vehicle to the officer on the ground.

 

-Ask the officer if he is aware that a mistiming of the stopwatch by even 1 second will vary the resulting recording of the speed of the subject vehicle by 15%? – He should be aware of this. You can bring up in your concluding statement that the officer was monitoring many different vehicles at the same time and it would be very easy for him to have mistimed the stopwatch. Even a second of mistiming can result in a 15% increase in speed recording result.