Wrongly Accused of Following Too Closely

My question involves a traffic ticket from the state of: Kansas

I'm from Chicago. I recently was in Olathe, Kansas on business and got pulled over for following too closely. That’s what the officer told me. According to the cop I was .97 seconds behind the car in front of me. He said I was supposed to be 2 seconds behind. He acknowledged that I was not speeding when I asked him. The speed limit was 65 MPH but he did not record a speed of travel. He asked for my license and rental agreement and I gave it to him.

Even if I were doing the speed limit, .97 seconds translates to 92 ft. (2.3 bus lengths to put into perspective). Roadways were clear and there was no impending danger that would cause the car in front of me to stop suddenly. I was not tailgating by any stretch of the imagination.

In addition to the ridiculous nature of the alleged violation (the 2-second rule isn't even a law, but a suggestion), the officer apparently called for backup. After about 5-10 minutes, another squad pulled up and the second officer spoke to the first one. I was in my car watching the whole time. He stood behind my car and just stared at me for several minutes in my passenger side rearview mirror. Then he walked up and asked me to step out of the car.

The first officer had my license and rental agreement this whole time. The second officer interrogated me behind my car, but in front of the first squad, asking about 20 questions while the first officer got information from my rental car. Only after the second officer’s interrogation, he informed me that they suspected I may have stolen the car because the rental car had expired tags. The first officer said he called the rental car company and they told him that the car “should have been on their lot” and only after further checking did they tell him that I was in fact supposed to have it.

Olathe's code for following too closely:
(a) The driver of a motor vehicle shall not follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent, having due regard for the speed of such vehicle and the traffic upon and the condition of the highway.

I don't see anything about having to be two seconds behind the car in front of me.

Here is a link to a satellite view of where I was allegedly following too closely. I think it's funny that, as infrequently as these satellite photos are updated, 50% of the cars in this image that are following another car are following too closely - http://www.thezplane.com/citation/satellite_view.jpg

Also curious, neither I nor the officer signed the citation. Does that mean anything? When i asked him how he came to the conclusion I was following too closely, he told me he used a stopwatch to time me, but the ticket says no watch was used - http://www.thezplane.com/citation/citation.gif

This ordeal took almost a half hour of my life and the cop still gave me the ticket. Is this just a way for them to make money? It’s like he went out of his way to intentionally cost me money for no reason. And to add insult to injury, detain me for a half hour while he conducted a completely separate investigation for grand larceny.

Now I have to fly back to Kansas to fight this. No matter what I do it will cost me money unnecessarily.

Being from out of town and knowing it is going to cost me money no matter what i do, I guess I would expect the cop to give me the benefit of the doubt by letting me off with a warning, unless he intentionally wanted to just cause me harm in the pocket book banking on the fact that i wouldn't try to fight it. That is an automatic conviction though and it is unacceptable.

Thanks.

Try contacting a traffic ticket lawyer in the county where this was filed about the citation - you may be able to get the ticket resolved without having to travel back, and it may be cheaper than the cost of your plane fare and transportation for your return for a court hearing.

Was this a rookie officer?

Recognition time (of an event in front of you) is approximately 1 second and then you must have tme to react. Often 1.5-2 seconds is an accepted amount of time for recognition and reaction time combined. As such, you would have hit the guy well before you had time to react if he had to hit his brakes.

That makes your distance much to short to be considered prudent in the best of conditions.

Quote:

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Quoting jk

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Recognition time (of an event in front of you) is approximately 1 second and then you must have tme to react. Often 1.5-2 seconds is an accepted amount of time for recognition and reaction time combined. As such, you would have hit the guy well before you had time to react if he had to hit his brakes.

That makes your distance much to short to be considered prudent in the best of conditions.

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So, .97 seconds (according to the cop) is much too short, but 503 miliseconds longer is acceptable? So, are we assuming that the officer didn't start the stopwatch 1/4 second too late and stop it 1/4 second too soon? Are we also assuming that my foot wasn't covering the brake or that there weren't alternative actions? Take a look at this pic and the distances between nearly ALL the cars. This is right up the road where he actually pulled me over. That's an awful lot of imprudent people in one satellite image, wouldn't you say? I'm guessing these people can't read a cops mind either as to what he might feel is "reasonable" or "prudent". I don't disagree that 2 seconds is a good "rule of thumb". But if you want to enforce 2 seconds, make it a fricken law.
http://www.thezplane.com/citation/I-35_sheridan.jpg

I'm 45 and have been driving since I was 16. I've had plenty of people slam their breaks on in front of me over the years and have yet to rear-end anyone.