Blind faith

There are many times in life where you just have to have blind faith. Today, even before a full cup of coffee, I had a moment to challenge that faith. Not to long ago I got a speeding ticket. Yes, I was speeding. I took my ticket. I thanked the officer and proceeded to do as I should and paid a rediculious amount in the sum of $175.00.
Today I got stopped after dropping my son off at school. I was driving up a hill and saw a police officer stopped to my right on a side street at the stop sign. As I passed him he pulled me over. Told me he clocked me at 33 in a 20 school zone. I call bull! Right away he can tell I am not buying it. I surprise myself by basically telling him he is wrong and at that point he starts to apologize and explain he will be giving me a warning. Warning? Come on, like he was doing me a favor? Here is where I realize why he backed down, he was not buying the radar either. Afterward, I drove back to see that I was not even in the school zone when he stopped me, I was between two school zones and after a little research found this...

Traffic Radar Reliability

The use of police traffic radar is so widespread that we naturally assume the technology is reliable. After all, if there were questions about radar's accuracy, would the courts process speeding violations with such assembly-line efficiency?

We tend to take the answer to this question on faith. That may be unfortunate, because radar makes mistakes. Lots of them. Some experts estimate that 10-20 percent of all radar-backed speeding tickets are issued in error; and in the case of radar that is operated from a moving police vehicle the number of bad tickets may be as high as 30 percent!
Our Hope is that more people will realize that traffic radar is not infallible, and will challenge speeding tickets they know they don't deserve. The end result will be a greater effort by the radar industry to build better products, and by law enforcement to use this technology more responsibly.
10. Terrain Error takes place when hilly or curved roadways affect radar's ability to process information. When the patrol car is at the crest of a hill, it is very easy for radar to overshoot the nearest vehicle and instead take a reading from a vehicle on the next hill. Because traffic radar is "direction blind," differences in reflectivity may cause instant-on readings to display the speed of a receding vehicle rather than of an approaching vehicle. So that vehicle "on the next hill" need not even be traveling the same direction as the supposed target vehicle.
So, as much I felt bad giving the nice officer a hard time, I'm glad I did.
He didn't even seem shocked when I said "I see your radar gun, but I don't believe it." and now I know why!
So, stick up for yourself. Technology isn't always correct. If you get a ticket and you think it was false, go to court.
Enjoy this glorious day!
And, um... Slow down;)
Celeste