Speeding Ticket? Use GPS to Get Out of It

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...ding-gps-data-could-get-you-off-the-hook.html

As anyone who has ever gotten a speeding ticket knows (full disclosure: I never have... knock on wood), you often have very little ammo to fight back against the reading that the all-knowing radar gun spat out. But thanks to more sophisticated and affordable technology, that could be changing. A California teen is using GPS data to attempt to get himself off the hook for allegedly going 17 miles per hour over the speed limit, simultaneously casting doubt on the accuracy of police radars and giving hope to tech-savvy drivers.

The story started out simply enough. 18-year-old Shaun Malone was caught by a police radar going 62 in a 45 mph zone last summer. Under most circumstances, most people would assume that this was all simply true—it's not unheard of for teenagers to speed, after all. Malone's parents knew differently, though. It turns out that they had installed a GPS device from Rocky Mountain Tracking in his car in order to monitor his driving behavior.

But this was far more sophisticated than your everyday "turn left at the stop light" kind of GPS device—it tracked his speed, sending signals every 30 seconds, and was even capable of sending e-mail alerts to Malone's parents if Shaun ever exceeded 70mph. (I'm thanking my lucky stars right now that my parents didn't have access to this technology when I was a teenager.) According to the data from Shaun's GPS device, he and his parents argued that he was going exactly 45mph at almost the exact time the police radar clocked him going 62.

Unfortunately for the Malones, Shaun was found guilty of speeding in a trial-by-affidavit thanks to a report from an expert saying that the GPS data could not have been accurate. The Malones appealed the decision, however, with a hearing in the Sonoma County Superior Court earlier this month. During the new trial—where both the city and the Malones pulled out all the stops to bring in experts to argue their sides of the case, according to PressDemocrat—the same GPS expert was called to testify. Dr. Stephen Heppe ended up backtracking on his original report, however, once he was on the stand. Rocky Mountain Tracking says that Heppe "corrected" his original statements and painted the device as being quite accurate after all, "to within a couple of meters on location and to within 1mph on speed."

When the judge rules on the case in October, he could be let off the hook for his $190 speeding ticket. But the implications of the case go far beyond $190—it could change how speeding tickets are handled in the future. "This case has caught the attention of the nation, and it will set a precedent on how police departments use speed traps in the face of an increased GPS presence," Rocky Mountain Tracking president Brad Borst said in a statement. "The accuracy and reliability of GPS has helped bring this important issue into the limelight."

Of course, Borst is happy to talk up using GPS data to help keep you out of speeding tickets, as his commercial interests are in line with your interests in proving yourself innocent. However, the outcome of the case may suggest that consumer tech has reached a point at which it's considered accurate enough to hold up in court. Does this mean everyone should run out and buy GPS units for their cars that can track speed and location down to three digits to the right of the decimal point? Perhaps, if you feel the cost is worth the peace of mind and you're not a big speeder. But, as HotHardware points out, that same data could eventually be used against you, too. All the police have to do is obtain subpoena for your GPS data when you argue that you weren't really lead-footing it down a straight stretch of the highway a couple of weeks ago..