Transportation and Vehicle Safety: Speeding ticket, toyota prius, gravel road

Question
Stopped  last evening,9:30PM, on Interstate. Police office stated she saw my car speeding, then spotlighted my car, the established with radar I was traveling 86mph. My car is a Toyota Prius, we were driving 67 mph and were almost run down by the actual speeder, another small white car. The officer was sitting,parked,across an access gravel road, headed the opposite direction on the interstate. She pulled our car over 1.3 miles from where she was sitting originally. The officer could not keep visual contact with any vehicle for that distance as the road was curvy. The officer appeared quite stressed with the entire event. I don't believe the math would support that she could catch a car going 86, starting from zero, after seeing,spotlighting and radar-ing a car in 1.3 miles. I'll have that worked out prior to court. Driver is 62 yrs old, with no previous tickets in the past 40 years. My Prius onboard computer shows my mileage at 54.5 mpg, and an average speed of 34 for the past 2400 miles. Stats that don't exactly support a high speed driving pattern.  Outside of establising the mathematics of the event, aloong with the "losing eye contact with a car travelling 125 ft per min", do you have any ideas regarding questions we should ask during our hearing, or any advice on furthering our case. We plan to plead not-guilty. The officer informed us twice that if we came to court that we would have to appear twice, she was very interested that we knew how to pay the ticket. There were three fields on the citation completed incorrectly, which I don't plan to point out, although that might speak to the officer's night vision?

Answer
Hello Twilla and welcome to AllExperts!

You pose some very interesting points that are certainly arguable in court.

Firstly, even with the newest laser radar which is extremely accurate, the operator must be able to identify the tagged vehicle. What radar/ladar cannot do is identify the vehicle by year, make, model, color and license plate number. This means the operator/officer must either be able to differentiate the tagged car from all others based on something that effectively and clearly sets this one aside, or keeping visual contact with the tagged car at all times.

Secondly, you have an impressive assortment of facts to establish something known as reasonable doubt. We are considered innocent until proven guilty, and the guilt must be proven to a moral certainty in the mind of the one(s) making the ruling.  Concerning a trial by judge (infractions do not warrant a jury trial), the judge weighs all evidence and makes a decision based on acceptable and credible evidence.

Not all judges are the same however. Some are more lenient and willing to place value in all submitted forms of evidence, while others are more jaded and likely to dismiss out of hand many things that should merit greater examination.

As to the accuracy of the citation, this is a legal document which is considered factual on its face. Any mistakes can be considered as reasonable doubt as to the officers due care and observations, to a point, and mostly over identification of vehicle and driver only.

Usually, having your day in court with a judge is a gamble, but overall, your case seems to merit viable arguments and reasonable doubt. I would concur that you should take this one to the judge.

Best wishes to you Twilla!!

Terry