Errors on a LIDAR Ticket

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

The gist of it is that I was driving from San Francisco to Berkeley today at 1 AM and after I got off the Bay Bridge, after having just crossed from Oakland into Emeryville, I noticed a cop car with lights flashing behind me, so I pulled over to the next exit in Emeryville and got ticketed. The car isn't mine, by the way, and I could not for the life of me find the registration in the glove compartment, but I know it's up to date on registration and has the proper sticker and all, so I asked him to call to verify that the car was registered and that was all good.

Here's more detail: I was very cautious of driving at the speed limit of 50 MPH on the bridge and after getting off. I was driving in the far left lane, which at this point doesn't really qualify as your typical "fast lane" since we're just getting off a bridge where there isn't really one, and also, this is where things fork off into three different directions, so you're just going where you need to go. Anyways, as I was driving to where things were about to fork, I did notice some cop action on the far right shoulder which I'm pretty sure is six lanes away. There are always cops there and I'm very aware of that. Anyways, I'm pretty sure the Lidar was pointed at me from there, which means that it was pointed at the side of my car or from some weird angle. The ticket says "#1 204 feet" -- is that the number of feet that they pointed their Lidar at me from? How accurate are these things from that distance and angle?

Here's another detail: there's a freeway entrance into that left lane that I was in and there was a car entering the freeway from there right then. I may have accelerated slightly initially thinking to pass it, but then I ended up changing lanes altogether to make it easier for the both of us, since there was pretty much no one else on the freeway at that time. That could've been the time when they used the Lidar on me.

But here's the thing: they clocked me at 70 MPH, which I feel is grossly exaggerated. 55, I can handle, but 70 is just ridiculous. By the time I noticed that I was being pulled over, I was definitely driving at 50 or less because we were going through a pretty sharp curve.

Anyways, is the above enough to create reasonable doubt and make a good defense? And if not, here are a few errors that I noticed on the ticket. Would these help the ticket get thrown out at all?

1. The day of the week is wrong. It's Thursday at 1 AM, but Wednesday is circled.
2. In the "Registered Owner or Lessee" section, the name and address are both checked off as "Same as Driver" even though it's not my car (remember the car registration thing I mentioned up there?)
3. In the "Executed at (place)" section, it says "Oakland", but we were actually in Emeryville.

Final question -- if I need to hire an attorney for this, does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you in advance for you help! :)

1 - Clerical errors on the citation are likely to be corrected in the courtroom the minute you bring them up.

2 - The judge will believe the officer and not the one of many thousands who come through his courtroom every day with the same story.

3 - If you want to hire a lawyer, make sure you have a thousand or two to pay him up front and start making phone calls.

Thanks for the first two points. In regards to the third, when I got a ticket in Seattle, I paid a lawyer a flat fee of I think $150-$200 to represent me and he got the ticket dismissed. Is it different in California?

This cop literally might be using it across the bay. Only New Jersey has a LIDAR maximum distance at 1k ft. There's a reason for it, it's known to have errors beyond that. This link explains better: http://blog.motorists.org/what-every...ut-laser-guns/

One of the problems is that anything you find that states LIDAR will ever be inaccurate - is not found in the manuals. LTI (maker of the 20/20, most used LIDAR gun in the world) has intentionally left out potential problems with the device from great distances and will not address sweep error.

In other words, you cannot really find anything without a bias. Anything that makes the gun look bad, will be dismissed as one's opinion, since LIDAR is shrouded in secrecy.

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Quoting lostintime

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This cop literally might be using it across the bay. Only New Jersey has a LIDAR maximum distance at 1k ft. There's a reason for it, it's known to have errors beyond that. This link explains better: http://blog.motorists.org/what-every...ut-laser-guns/

One of the problems is that anything you find that states LIDAR will ever be inaccurate - is not found in the manuals. LTI (maker of the 20/20, most used LIDAR gun in the world) has intentionally left out potential problems with the device from great distances and will not address sweep error.

In other words, you cannot really find anything without a bias. Anything that makes the gun look bad, will be dismissed as one's opinion, since LIDAR is shrouded in secrecy.

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While NJ has a statutory limit of distance, the manufacturers do as well (I think its 2K ft) so there the usefulness of the device is not limitless as far as distance goes.

But lidar has some secrets .. mainly how the "final" result is calculated, how erroneous readings are vetted out of a "final" reading. One can read the patents online....they never talked in detail about the algorithms that the device uses in detail in any court that examined the device. The patents detail this a little bit and the statistical methods that they use are likely not appropriate for its enduse.

No one knows the all the errors of the machine....errors such as operator error is unknown, operator to operator error are unknown. All they can tout is machine error.

When I cross, I ask questions related to sweep error of the device. The greater the distance the greater this error IMO.

One can look at youtube vids to understand the sweep error concept.

LIDAR really should not be used due to the unknown errors and the sweep error in which an operator can get it to say whatever they want in reality.

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Quoting lostintime

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This cop literally might be using it across the bay. Only New Jersey has a LIDAR maximum distance at 1k ft.

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So then EVERYONE can stop reading right there, because your link and EVERYTHING you say is invalid. This is a ticket in CALIFORNIA.

Some devices can go up to 10K feet in speed mode.

So, what's the limit in California? Across the Bay?

Every department has a recommended range, but there is no law regarding it (in every state besides NJ). Even if there was a statewide protocol, the public would intentionally not be made aware of it.

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Quoting lostintime

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Every department has a recommended range, but there is no law regarding it (in every state besides NJ). Even if there was a statewide protocol, the public would intentionally not be made aware of it.

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First, what evidence do you have that EVERY department has a recommended range. I'm willing to bet you are dead wrong there.

Second, intentionally not made aware of it? It is not the responsibility nor a requirement for a police department to make the public aware of all their SOPs.

No department is going to tell you "use it from the maximum distance", which varies by brand of device and year.

Yet, there's not a protocol either. Call any department and ask, they won't comment on it. So many tickets are written outside the recommended range, and it's to their benefit this goes unnoticed.

Seems to be some confusion in WA lately as well.

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Quoting lostintime

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Seems to be some confusion in WA lately as well.

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There is NO confusion anywhere but in your feeble little brain.