Is there a site out there where I can look up my citation number? I prefer not to deal with calling the number on the back of the ticket as it usually results in about 15 minutes of waiting to get to some lady working out of her house.

I'm not aware of one.

BTW, if I stop you for speeding and I see your radar detector, it's usually an automatic ticket. Of course, my threshold for pullling someone over is many klicks over the limit.

See? Automatic ticket. Another cop who makes his own law.

FYI, I'm a self employed on-site computer and networking tech. I spend a great deal of time driving all over the place. So the information provided by these devices (without taking my eyes off the road) is invaluable to me.

Reading a map or mapquest printout vs. a GPS mounted where mine is. Which do you feel is actually safer? The GPS talks too. "Right turn in .5 miles on Main St. Ave. Rd. NW Circle Dr."

BTW, if I stop you for speeding and I see your radar detector, it's usually an automatic ticket. Of course, my threshold for pullling someone over is many klicks over the limit.

Mine is mounted in the Lower Left windshield area just above my speedometer. I can see it at a glance, reach it if I have to hit repeat, and it's out of view unless needed. I'll bet it's still afoul of the statute.

Dick, I think what I originally said stands on its own.

Fine, Dick, "I'm making my own law". If you prefer, I certainly can start ticketing at 56 mph in a 55 zone.

I can ticket for the actual speed, rather than the lowest bracket available. I can also write the no proof of insurance citation, if your card shows that your policy expired yesterday. Oh, and by the way, are you wearing your seatbelt?



Making up my own law? Hardly.

Using my experience and judgement in applying the statutes to each situation? Absolutely.

In the specific case of a speeder who is using a radar detector. It is obvious that he or she is employing the device primarily as a means to detect police radar emissions. If you have one and don't speed, I won't pull you over.

I believe the presence of a radar detector indicates an attitude of "I will speed as much as I can get away with it."

But let's take that one a step farther. It's three in the morning, and you decide to pull over a guy who is weaving, just a bit, and doing 61 in a 55. You run the plates -- no wants or warrants, and the driver's record comes back clean on anything significant; maybe a speeding ticket or two, over some years. When you go to the window, your experience leads you to believe that he's a sober guy just heading home, late at night, but he's got a radar detector, which he didn't happen to have on. (If he did, he would have slowed down when you flashed your radar at the guy a quarter mile in front of him.)

He doesn't threaten you or anything, but he's not particularly pleasant or apologetic about doing 61 on an unbusy highway, and when you ask him, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" he says something like, "No, not really."

He's got his DL and proof of insurance, although he takes awhile to dig it out of the glove compartment; it's buried among a lot of other paper.

What's it going to be? "Have a nice night, sir; drive careful" Or "Sign here?"

You've a right to your belief, but it may mean, "I'm planning on traveling at safe speeds, and sometimes -- perhaps often -- that'll mean going faster than posted speed limits (you know, like 63 in a 55, not 85 through a school bus pickup zone), but since I don't really care to get pulled over a whole lot, I'd kind of like to know if there's a cop up ahead, because maybe he's not going to be one of those folks who uses good judgment and experience and ignore the statutes when appropriate, so when I start hearing that beep I'll poke along at the speed limit for awhile, and let somebody else get pulled over."

It does, by the way, mean just that when I've got my own radar detector up -- and if it's up, it's on.