Pacing simply means that the officer followed you with another vehicle, attempting to maintain a constant distance and referring to his speedometer to gauge your speed. In this case, the calibration of the police car is critical to your defense. The defense strategies that we outlined earlier may not all apply since the officer does not have to be specifically trained in reading a speedometer, and it is unlikely he was following the wrong vehicle. Your best bet is that the officer does not appear in court and that the prosecution fails to prove all the points in the specific section of the vehicle code. Review the cross examination sections that we have discussed earlier and also the radar ticket cross examinations. These questions should get your thinking on the right track in order to prepare the questions for the motor pacing case. Some of the more important items for you to remember are the following:
Make sure the officer is giving recollection of the incident and not reading directly from the back of the citation.
Make sure that the officer testifies that the unit was calibrated at a certain date, and that the calibration certificate is present in court. Also, the qualifications of the technician that calibrated the unit should be available. Review the officers testimony carefully and also the prosecutors line of questioning. If they leave out any of the points covered in the vehicle code, you have grounds for motion to dismiss. Don't expect that this will automatically happen, because the judge may allow the prosecution to reopen their case if they do omit something. Ask the officer a series of questions concerning the other traffic on the road. Ask him if during the time he was pacing you, he passed any other vehicles. If not, that would indicate that you were traveling at the same speed as the other vehicles at that time of day on that section of road.
Ask the officer as to the exact distances covered from the time the officer began to pace the speed of your vehicle until you were stopped. You would also want to know the estimated distance between the two vehicles at all times. Review the math and see if the officer actually had to speed up in order to close the distance between your vehicles before he pulled you over. It's possible he could have used the accelerated speed and used that speed as the basis for the ticket.
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