Transportation and Vehicle Safety: Speeding Ticket-Illinois, orange cones, construction zone

Question
Last night I was with my daughter when she got pulled over for a speeding ticket.  The ticket says she was going 55 in a 35 Construction Zone.  There are a few issues we have with this we want to clear.  First of all, my daughter may have been speeding, it was a two lane road on a dry warm night with nothing for me, the passenger, to judge her speed.  I drive the road all of the time and the pace seemed just right.  If she were speeding, it would have been between 5-10 mph over.  The officer noted on the ticket that he used "Lidar."  I have heard these devices are inaccurate and can be thrown out as evidence in IL courts(?).  Second, the construction zone. For one, the road was a construction zone in the early fall and has not been worked on since.  The road has been put together but you can tell they want to do more with the road in the future.  So the only thing that makes it "construction" are the orange cones sitting way off in the ditch.  And to go back to my first point, it was a dark night and where the officer was sitting he would have had to use the lidar around orange cones to get the reflection off of the car.  I'm not trying to get my daughter off the hook of violating the law, I teach government and feel she was wrong if speeding just a little, but I don't think the results were accurate.  Would it be worth fighting this ticket in court?  At-least to get a lesser sentence?  Would she have to make a motion of Discovery to get the certificate to show the officer tuned the lidar?
Thank you!

Answer
Hello Jen and welcome to AllExperts.

Firstly, Lidar is actually the most accurate and almost entirely foolproof in its ability to determine speed and who was speeding. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but If the officer has in fact clocked your daughter with Lidar, she most certainly was driving at the speed he had indicated.

When traveling in any direction for a period of time, it is quite normal to become less aware of your speed, especially when doing this often and especially when there are less references such as trees, signs, structures or other fixed objects that we commonly use to determine speed by.

While I am not familiar with Illinois courts, the technology of the device, its extreme accuracy and long period of testing and proving itself as a viable form of assessing speed, I would be most surprised if any state would disregard the device itself. Sadly, myths and urban legends have a bad habit of  influencing people to believe many things that are not necessarily true.

If you intend on contesting the use of this device, your only option is to focus on the officers aim-point, distance (36" at 1000 feet), training with the unit and pre-calibration. While the unit is accurate and almost foolproof, the officer is most certainly less so. Keep in mind however, that officers who use this device are usually well trained and have probably learned how to ensure their tag was selective and decisive.

Best of luck to you Jen!!