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I got busted by the plane today!!!!

4K views 31 replies 22 participants last post by  greg 
#1 ·
OK.. I was coming down to NJ after some relaxing vacation in Boston today. I was travelling around 75 mph in I-91, keeping up with traffic when I saw a Conn state police cruiser park on the grass. Before I even passed him, he took off into my lane (Of course the passing lane) and ordered me to pull over. I thought "what the f****?" but what can you do..
I stopped and he came and said "Do you know why I got you?" "I have no idea..." "You've been a little bit busy searching on the ground, but our plane clocked you at 87mph in the air"
His attitude was very cheerful, hence I have no reason to piss him off. So I accepted my mistake and handed my driver's license and a new registration. He took some minutes out in his cruiser and came to me with a ticket. "I'm a fair guy. This is beautiful day and you've been nice and gentle, so you have options: $37 for no seat belt (Even though I wore it), or $300 for speeding" I was so happy to claim $37 and even shook hands with him. He also tipped me that there are more of them ahead off me, which was proven to be very true.
What a great day!
 
#2 ·
what, they are using planes to get you speeding now????.....That's crazy, where is this kind of police work when it's needed???
 
#4 ·
Mike,

becarefull when you travel in FL interstates, some areas are partrol by planes. I got nailed few years ago and the trooper gave me an option of seat belt over speeding ticket.

You can usually spot the patrol areas by looking at the lanes. If you see a white line across the lanes, that usually where the guys from the plane start the stop watch. watch out for those lines and constantly look out for the planes in the sky. If you see a circling plane, slow down.
 
#6 ·
Yep, the Conn Smokeys do use planes. New Hamshire does the same. Your radar/laser detector is usless because the system does not use active emissions. Rather it's like an old high school algebra problem. Look near the median on interstate highways like I-91 and I-95 and you will see big white stripes perpidicular to the lane markers. Bascially once a plane see you cross one of those lines, they start a device with a stopwatch. As you pass a second set, they stop the timer. A calculation is then done to see how quckly you passed the two stripes. They can they figure out how fast you were going. Real nasty.
 
#9 ·
What a GREAT police officer you got. My wife still remembers my having her scout for planes with binoculars and my having the rear view mirrors angled "upwards" for better plane spotting. While on the way to Phoenix a car I was a passenger in got pulled over and all we noticed was a plane far off in the distance circling! Tricky!! The driver was let off since it was 7 am, light traffic, and he was very respectful! The cops aren't the enemy - it's the a$$holes who recklessly speed and cause accidents that are!
 
#10 ·
They are using the planes more and more in California too. I was caught by a plane several years ago and had to take traffic school. The instructor was an ex-CHP officer and he was great. He told us that the planes (in California at least) must clock you by watching you vs. a reference point on the plane. They usually use the wing-strut. Anyway, they get the plane going at some specific speed (say 75 MPH over a road limited to 65). If they see a car traveling faster than the wing-strut they know the car is traveling faster than 75 and radio down to the ground unit. You are caught! He also said that most judges in California will throw these out if you go to court -- apparently they don't feel this is a legal way to catch speeders. They only good defense to a plane is a radio tuned to their frequency.
 
#11 ·
PhilSeastrand said:
He also said that most judges in California will throw these out if you go to court -- apparently they don't feel this is a legal way to catch speeders. They only good defense to a plane is a radio tuned to their frequency.
Phil, now you tell me. :crying: :crying: The things I learn from this board.

I was caught by a plane on Highway 4 going skiing to Bear Valley. I went to traffic school instead.

And that's in a freaking Mercury Villager. grrrrrrr grrrrrrr

CP
 
#12 ·
2001's X5/Z8 said:
what, they are using planes to get you speeding now????.....That's crazy, where is this kind of police work when it's needed???
Time to buy a V2 with the optional "eye in the sky" option that will register a bogey above. Mike Valentine swears by it. Not on the website yet or Ebay yet. A police scanner tuned to the right frequency will also help.

Maybe with enough resources we send a scout car ahead to check things out.
 
#14 ·
Quad_exhaust said:
Terra,

And you're just about to sell your car, what a bummer!

Quad
Yes..:crying: :crying: But the good thing is I don't have to "donate" $300 to Conn police!
Anybody wants my M5?? I think I have to get it to dealer pretty soon.... If anybody wants it, it is at discount now!!

Holy cow! How far into CT was this??? Was it past Hartford or before???
Chris,
It is somewhere between Hartford and New Haven. I don't know excatly where. I knew some police uses planes, but I never seen those white strips on I-91. I've seen them on NY Thruway, though..
 
#15 ·
I had a horrible experience with a CT State Trooper (I hear that most of them are actually quite nice) -- three of us in three different cars, all travelling together. First car gets nailed for 85 mph. The other two cars, after seeing this, stop further down the road to wait. The trooper sees the other two cars stopped, asks if we're together, and orders the first car to pull up to the other two cars. ll three drivers were ticketed for 85 mph since, if we're together, we're all obviously travelling at the same speed.

Anyway, we went to go fight it in court. All three of us on separate court dates. Two separate trips EACH: one to set a court date and one to actually fight it out. Two of us just bailed and took the $100 reduced fine (from $285). One fought it, saw the trooper blatantly lie, and lost. Worst of all, the judge knew he was lying and reprimanded him privately after the hearing, but let it slide as a personal favor to the trooper.

It's too bad that the experience was so bad when I've heard some very good things, too. I learned two things, though, from the experience:

1) CT points don't transfer out of the state. At least they don't to MA. Everyone at the courthouse insisted that was the case. And I didn't believe it until more than a year passed and no points showed up on my record.

2) CT is interested in issuing tickets quick and dirty. The appeals process is long and overbooked, mostly because the tickets are so expensive. If you just pay it right away, you're done with the deal and no tickets show up (even in CT, I think). If you appeal it and lose, you get points in your CT record and the fine, but points don't transfer. The end result is that people just pay the higher fines to avoid the hassle. The higher fines generate lots of revenue and act as a deterrent.
 
#18 ·
CEC said:
I don't get it. Don't the police have better things to focus their limited resources on? This country has bigger issues like terrorists flying planes into building.
That's not a very fair assessment. If all the police worked on counter-terrorism, then there'd be nobody to stop the murderers and rapists. If they stopped the murderers and rapists, too, who would stop the people that break into your house or steal your car? There are lots of crimes and police forces have to be evenly distributed based on severity, frequency, and urgency of crimes. I'm very much opposed to revenue generation through tickets, but I sure as hell don't want the streets full of kids doing twice the speed of what's safe, which is exactly what would happen if tickets were abolished.
 
#19 ·
What I don't understand is how a cop in a plane identifies a specific car. They can't possibly read the license plate from directly above, and I'd think it would be hard to even identify the make and model. Could you tell a Honda Accord from a Toyota Camry by looking at the roof from a mile up? How do they know? Do they just radio down to the cop on the road and guide him to the offending vehicle? "No, the green one, four cars up... okay, you're behind him now, turn on your lights."
 
#20 ·
dwasifar said:
What I don't understand is how a cop in a plane identifies a specific car. They can't possibly read the license plate from directly above, and I'd think it would be hard to even identify the make and model. Could you tell a Honda Accord from a Toyota Camry by looking at the roof from a mile up? How do they know? Do they just radio down to the cop on the road and guide him to the offending vehicle? "No, the green one, four cars up... okay, you're behind him now, turn on your lights."
I asked this same question when I got pulled over. And surprisingly, yes. that's how they communcate to identify the car. Keep in mind that they are flying not that high. :(
 
#21 ·
Chazzy I think you are missing my point. I didn’t mean to imply that there shouldn’t be any enforcement of speed limits. IMHO the resources devoted to catching speeders, in some areas (like CT), is not justified by the threat it poses to society. I agree with JFB that one reason for this is, right or wrong, revenue generation.
 
#24 · (Edited)
Low and Slow

2001's X5/Z8 said:
What type of planes are used???at what altitude are they????
In my experience, police typically use something like a Cessna 172 flying at about 2,000 feet AGL. The high wing allows good ground visability. They are easy to fly and relatively inexpensive. They are very commonly used as private aircraft -- so they don't stand out as special police aircraft (like a helicopter would). They also can fly relatively slowly. I recall the CHP using them in the high desert in CA.

The aircraft radios a ground unit, which identifies the speeding car and clocks its speed using either radar or by pacing the car from behind. To estimate the ground speed, the aircraft would have to measure the elapsed time over a measured course (e.g., evenly spaced markings on the ground). That, I believe, constitutes a speed trap under CA law, so the ground unit is used to confirm the speed.
 
#25 ·
CEC said:
IMHO the resources devoted to catching speeders, in some areas (like CT), is not justified by the threat it poses to society. I agree with JFB that one reason for this is, right or wrong, revenue generation.
One reason is definitely revenue generation. But I do believe that periodic "crackdowns" are effective deterrents. Law enforcement does all kinds of sweeps to keep criminals on their toes: drug dealers, child pornographers, organized crime, etc. It's hard to say it's definitely right or wrong because it does effectively meet both ends. Though abuse IS obvious in certain cases, I don't think use of aircraft is unwarranted -- at least every once in a while. If people think that aircraft are up there at any time and can bust them, well, that'll probably keep some people at a reasonable speed. This is the first that I've heard of aircraft in CT and NH. I don't screw around in CT any more -- they're hardcore. But now I'll be extra careful to keep my speed down. They already took my money, so now they need to keep the roads safe because they owe me. :)
 
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