At 10:51 AM -0600 1/16/00, Ron & Maryanne Darner wrote:
However, there is a point that needs correcting elsewhere:
unlike radar,
laser speed detectors DO NOT use Doppler shift.
Interesting, thanks for the info; I wasn't aware of that. I requires
a bit more computation,
freespace speed of light is
300mm/nanosecond, or something like 11 13/16ths inches; in air it will be
slower
Actually 299.792458..., but everyone always rounds up to 300 (or
3x10^8 m/s)! The differnce in air is less than 3/100 of a percent,
also close enough that you almost never need to take it into
consideration.
This leads to a potential fraud: if the cop "sweeps" the beam downward
Makes sense, an interesting artifact of the speed calculation scheme.
In court, it will be your word against the cop's, and he
will be backed up by the "High-Tech" tool.
I imagine if one was prepared and had the technical info at hand, you
could argue that in court. I would hope that any intellegent judge
would understand, especially if s/he sees it in print. However, from
my experience (just once), most people in traffic court _are_ guilty
of the speed written on ticket (or more) and are not prepared.
There was a very good article
on this a couple of years ago, I believe in Road & Track; maybe someone can
locate it.
I would like to read a copy of that if anyone has the reference.
Lee
W. Lee Hendrick
[email protected]
http://soliton.ucsd.edu/~hendrick/
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