I guess I'm going to be the bearer of some unpopular news here.
Remember, I'm just the messenger here. I don't agree with most of what I'm about to write, so I'd appreciate it if people don't get snippy with me about it. I'm just telling you how it is.
First off, if people had taken the time to search for the phrase "visual estimate of speed" they would have seen that, yes, in many states police can and do give tickets simply based on visual observation, with no LIDAR, radar, VASCAR, pacing or other speed detection equipment.
Again, I don't like this. But on the other hand, I understand where such laws come from. It's a tool meant to be used in cases where the officer does observe someone speeding but for whatever reason, he/she can't measure the speed involved. Any honest person can think of times when they saw a car obviously speeding and said to themselves, "hey, they're really moving." Well, here's the tool for law enforcement to pursue that speeder even without clocking them.
Where this falls apart for me is somehow assigning an actual speed to the violation. But then again, I could see that legislators wanted to use the existing graduated speeding penalties, so they get the police to (arbitrarily, to me) assign it to one of the levels by giving it an actual speed.
What training police get in this visual estimation I don't know.
So there's that part of the story. Yes, if a cop sees someone they think is exceeding the speed limit, they can write the a ticket just based on observation. It's the law, and more than a few state supreme courts have upheld the laws. So it's best to just accept it, it's not going to change.
On the other hand, these laws have been around for a long time too, and they're not used frequently. So I'd say in most cases, the laws aren't abused, which is good.
Just a note on "ANSI" - yep, not a requirement. Not sure where that came up. Devices do at some level need to be certified and calibrated though. But I won't get into that because it doesn't apply here.
Next part of the story: the "guilt before innocence" feeling. Yeah, no.
That is, I've fought tickets and won. In fact I usually win or get at least an agreement which is in my favor. By the way, this is over a very long driving experience, so don't assume I'm getting tickets at a high clip, I'm not.
So, you get stopped. Cop gives you a ticket. You sign for it (just a receipt, not an admission of guilt), then you have something like ten days to 2 weeks to figure out what to do - pay it and admit guilt, or fight it.
If you're just paying the ticket (and thereby entering a guilty plea), well, that's your choice, right? You could choose to fight the ticket - which you might guess I recommend, in pretty much all cases.
Before I go further, let's be honest here: a huge portion of the population speeds on a regular basis. In addition, a large proportion of those people will get upset that they were caught. Cops, DAs and traffic court judges run into these people many times a day. They've heard every excuse in the book, repeatedly. In many ways, the system is set up to process tickets through in a fairly quick manner, simply because the vast majority of people that are stopped are, in fact, guilty. So I'm sure it can feel like there's a huge scam going on here, but in reality it's the justice system being efficient. Could you imagine everyone getting a trial jury for speeding tickets? Get real...
OK, back to fighting it.
First off, get a ticket in state X, first thing to do is to find out if they have a program for you. By this, I mean a program whereby if you haven't had a previous ticket in (say) 12 months, you can "enter" this program and have the ticket effectively dropped.
The names for these programs vary from state to state. My state calls it "supervision" while I've heard names like "Prayer for Relief" and so on.
Here's how a lot of these deals work (details vary state to state): if you're eligible, you enter the program. The program could be nothing but waiting, or it could mean taking an hour-long drivers safety class over the internet. If you don't get another ticket for (say) 6 months, then the ticket is dropped entirely. Poof. Here's the catch for my state: If you DO get another ticket inside the timeframe, then the deal is off and IIRC (I may not) there are actually accelerated penalties for the second ticket.
Note, of course entering these programs cost money. As you might guess, yes, speeding tickets can be huge revenue sources.
If such an option is available to you in the state where you got the ticket, generally that's the option to take. You may not be eligible if you're from out of state. But you might be.
Second option is to hire a traffic ticket lawyer. Oh, they're not going to represent you in court, not if they can do anything about that. That would be defeat. Nope, they're going to sweet-talk the DA in question and see what deal they can get for you.
Of course, the DA probably won't know a thing about your case, and they probably won't care, it's a freaking speeding ticket. They have better things to follow up on, you know, like actual crime. So right off the bat they might agree to change the ticket to a non-moving violation - no points, no impact to insurance and likely a smaller fine. That's a win.
But maybe the DA is in a bad mood, so they decide to look into the case a bit before caving to your lawyer. They might talk to the cop to see how the stop went (were you a dick when pulled over?) Then again, they might see it's a cop that writes a boatload of marginal tickets. So even after talking to the cop they might decide to cut you a break, or if the cop is adamant that you were in total violation, then it's game on - but I think this is rare. In my experience (again over many years, not a few months) is that the DA will agree to something lower, or even drop it.
So, here's where the moving estimation of speed comes in. The DA will see that, and if he doesn't get more corroborating information from the cop, then you're probably going to get the ticket dropped. However, only you know how guilty you were. Were you doing 80 in a 55, and it took the cop a mile to catch up with you, and you actually had multiple violations (excessive lane changes, loud muffler, talking on a cell phone, not wearing a seat belt, etc)? Anything that makes you stand out in a bad way is going to get discussed.
But if it's simply a cop pulling you over with a visual estimate of speed - and it's not excessive - I'd say your chances are good.
I'm going to stop there. I've never gotten past the process in the DA stage. One last comment is that judges are likely more sympathetic to citizens than you might think - as long as your record is generally clear and your behavior in court is appropriate. However, the opposite can happen quite quickly if you're a serial violator.
