Interesting cop story

wstar

Could be. I don't know how it is in CA, but in TX you can't be ticketed based on the chopper's observation. He has to call in a ground unit to independently radar and ticket you. Has to do with some laws about how the officer signing the ticket has to be the one that witnessed the crime, so since the chopper pilot isn't gonna land and write you a ticket in person, the guy on the ground can't ticket based on the chopper's data either, he has to go and "see" (or in the speeding case, radar/laser) you himself.

Not that they don't try sometimes, but it doesn't hold up in court.

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initialgemini

Correct me if i'm mistaken... I see that you're located in texas, but don't they have aerial units that catch speeders on the more open highways via photograph?

wstar

Around Houston there are aerial units, and they can use them to catch traffic violations. But by the letter of the law, the chopper pilot can't observe the crime (radar the car), then send the info to a ground unit to write the ticket. Either the pilot has to land and write it himself (never happens), or he can radio a ground unit to go independently observe, radar, and ticket you. Writing a speeding ticket from the air based on radar/photo and mailing it to you (what I've heard has happened in other states) isn't technically legal here either.

I've never seen any kind of traffic choppers on the open highways in TX. There's a lot of miles of wide-open highway without a town for miles here, it wouldn't be practical.

This falls into the same legal quagmire as red light cameras in TX. Technically, they can't do red light cameras, because there's not an officer directly involved witnessing the crime and signing the ticket himself. Houston (and other municipalities) have installed them anyways though. They're skirting the law by making the red-light tickets civil offenses as opposed to the Class C misdemeanor ticket you'd get if a cop wrote a red-light ticket in person. There's been a lot of court battle over this issue in the past few years, so it's far from settled in the long run.

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