Got a ticket for running a stop sign? Defend with Physics!

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ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/moto...r-traffic-ticket-physics-paper-151808710.html

A physicist at the University of California San Diego used his knowledge of measuring bodies in motion to show in court why he couldn't be guilty of a ticket for failing to halt at a stop sign. The argument, now a four-page paper delving into the differences between angular and linear motion, supposedly got the physicist out of a $400 ticket. If you want to use this excuse, you'll have to learn a little math -- and some powers of persuasion.

The paper by Dmitri Krioukov titled "The Proof of Innocence," notes in the abstract that it's "a way to fight your traffic tickets," and was "awarded a special prize of $400 that the author did not have to pay to the state of California." (It's also posted with a date of April 1, so downloader beware.)Krioukov claims he was approaching a stop sign in his Toyota Yaris when a police officer saw him roll through the intersection, apparently without stopping, and pulled him over. Case closed — except that Krioukov says he was able to show a confluence of events that only made it seem he hadn't stopped.

First, the officer was watching the stop sign saw Krioukov's car from the side, distorting his idea of how fast Krioukov was traveling before the stop. At the stop sign itself, Krioukov contended he had stopped — but the officer's view was briefly blocked by a passing car. When Krioukov started again, the officer's sense of Krioukov's speed made it seem he had never stopped at all.





Krioukov told PhysicsCentral that the case and his argument were real, but that he left a flaw in his work for others to find, and sure enough a few commenters found the Yaris-based defect quickly.


Leave it to a physicist to create an explanation that ends with people doubting whether the problem explained actually existed at all.
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And a picture to go with it:



The judge probably let him go just to shut him up. :p
 
S

SeraRelm

Welcome to law school.

Edit: And politics.

Edit: Edit: And religion.

Edit: Edit: Edit: *Is just setting fire to everything today...*
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Shegokigo said:
Law school uses facts to prove a point. As most of the time does politics, but religion? Naaaaah.
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Nah, it's mostly just in the US that religion doesn't even bother with basic facts...

So that's about right, uses facts to come to a conclusion that isn't actually supported by logic... humanity in a nutshell.
 
strawman

strawman

All he needed to do was get a friend and stage the same incident with two camera views, one from the police officers pov, and one from an overhead pov. That would have clearly showed that the passing car could have hidden a complete stop from the officer, and he could have recorded it in under an hour without writing a paper about it.
 
Officer_Charon

Officer_Charon

stienman said:
All he needed to do was get a friend and stage the same incident with two camera views, one from the police officers pov, and one from an overhead pov. That would have clearly showed that the passing car could have hidden a complete stop from the officer, and he could have recorded it in under an hour without writing a paper about it.
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That's the most likely scenario I'd encounter here, what with the Savannah College of Art and Design here in town... fucking SCADlings...
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

Oh. I see.

The "defect" is that the car's negative deceleration (braking speed) was the same as its acceleration speed. Which means, in layman's terms, he never stopped at the stop sign.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Shegokigo said:
:rofl:

Funniest thing I've read all day.
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No really, first time i saw religious arguments on the internet i thought protestants where crazy... turns out it's just americans (ok, plenty of other places in the world where they're crazy too, but hey, those places are 3rd world if you're being kind).

Like i said, it's more like: uses facts to come to a conclusion that isn't actually supported by logic (mostly by ignoring sound alternatives).

While over there it's more like: gravity is a lie, we stay on the ground because we're fat (obviously not everyone, but you either have a lot of those, or they're very loud... i'm still hoping it's just insane troll logic at work, and not just insane logic).

 
Frank

Frank

My dad once did a similar thing when he was a bus driver waaaay back when. He was driving some old clunker the company used to transport people to the furthest reaches of the north and was "caught" doing 130 by highway patrol. Problem was the bus was such a complete piece of shit that it can't do 110 on pavement, let alone gravel. So, my dad went about proving this through video, getting a mechanic to sign off and act as witness and all this other nonsense to get him out of the ticket. My dad's funny that way. It definitely cost him more time, money and effort than just paying the ticket but he has some grudge with that particular highway patrolman and wanted to prove, "That piece of shit was lying."
 
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