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Monday July 18, 2005 9:43 pm
How Google Maps Got Me Out Of A Traffic Ticket
In January of this year, I was pulled over by a traffic officer for “disobeying a steady red”, a.k.a. running a red light. I pleaded “Not Guilty” to the charge, and today - nearly six months later – I went to court to find out the fate of my ticket violation. Check out how Google Maps saved me some serious cash - and points on my license!
There I was on a bench waiting for my name to be called at the Downtown Manhattan DMV hearings bureau. After hearing several testimonies from other drivers, I knew this Judge wasn’t going to be sympathetic to my troubles. So driver after driver, only one had a happy ending. So at this point I was worried because being found guilty would mean a 150 dollar fine, plus 50 in penalties, and worse of all points on my license. I began to contemplate how it all happened since it had been so long. I jotted down some notes on a small piece of paper, and then the moment of truth arrived.
After my name was called, I gathered my belongings and made my way up to the stand where the offending officer joined me. The judge swore her in and asked for her testimony. The officer did what I expected - after all, I had been listening to all of those prior testimonies – and began to describe the scene of the violation. In her story I noticed one fatal flaw, which I had planned to exploit but I had no proof whatsoever. The officer stated the street I was on was a one way westbound street and I was turning onto an avenue that was at a two way street separated by a concrete divider. Only thing was, I was on a two way, not one.
So it came time for my testimony and I stated that I was in mid-turn when an oncoming vehicle was coming toward me very quickly and I had decided not to make the turn until that SUV passed me. The Judge stopped and asked me how could there be an oncoming vehicle if the street was only one way. I stated that it was indeed a two way street. The officer reiterated that it was only a one way. So who was the judge to believe? I was desperate for proof so I did the unthinkable: I whipped out my notebook. I was very lucky to find an extremely bad connection via Wi-Fi. I pulled up Firefox and when to maps.google.com. I typed up the intersection and zoomed in as close as possible:
As you can see, Cathedral Pkwy (110th street) has no arrow indicating the traffic directions. However, 109th and 111th do. I mentioned this to the judge that this means that 110th is indeed a two way street. The traffic officer begged to differ. She said perhaps an arrow was just missing from the equation. So I called her bluff, and researched a new intersection, Times Square:
I asked her honor if she was familiar with 42nd Street. She nodded and I continued to mention how all of its neighboring streets have indication arrows of the direction, with one exception: 42nd Street. Everyone knows that this is a two way. The judge said that due to lack of memory of the officer she will have to dismiss the violation. Thank you Google Maps, you rule.
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Comments:
Right on, Edwin!
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Wow! that’s is pretty amazing! You were pretty lucky to find that access point…
-Zak
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Awesome.
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If I understand here, you were in the middle of a turn, probably past the nefarious white line, waited till an SUV turned, and then when you completed your turn it was then a red light and that is what the officer ticketed you for?
If that is the case it was a weak ticket in the first place.
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Ya definitely did your homework good job
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You found no Access point you just made a fake website before you even got up to the stand you dog. You took those arrows out and you know it. J/k that is cool
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Unfreakin believable, you truely are the man of men. Way to think on your feet! I stand and applaud you.
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Props to you!
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Wow, if I was the judge I will also dismiss you from the ticker but… have you arrested for stealing wifi
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illegal use of wireless connectivity!
what a b!tchy cop also. Trying to say that the map was wrong?!
Sidenote:
The comment form may be broken. When you Preview and then Submit, you get an error about not entering the Word, however there is no Word in the Comment Preview page.
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i live in the neighborhood so i can confirm that 110th st is indeed a 2 way street.
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My favorite is that the officer would even try to attempt to claim that 110th is one-way; it’s an outright lie. Even if you <em>hadn’t</em> have had your laptop, would the judge just accept the claim of the officer over yours, despite it being 100% demonstrably false? (I mean, anyone could stand at that intersection and see that both roads are two-way.) God love the justice system.
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Wow you have serious guts man!
But to all those who say he stole a wifi connection: It’s only stealing if the person broadcasting the signal doesn’t want people to use it. Though it’s not safe to assume that because its wide open its automatically meant to be used by the general public, but it’s not like he cracked WEP to use it or anything…
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You made BoingBoing.net!
That’s awesome that you were quick on your feet like that. I applaud you for your ingenuity!
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Very nice. I love Google Maps.
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awesome story.
congratulations!
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> I was very lucky to find an extremely bad connection via Wi-Fi.
Good thing the judge didn’t charge you with theft of network services or illegal hacking
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Don’t know what part of the country you come from, but most courts won’t allow you to take laptops in for the same reason you can’t take cell phones in. The mere thought of bringing it up to the stand seems absolutely ridiculous-- maybe the courts here are just too strict-- or maybe this is an embellished story.
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Zakarth- my experience has been that federal courts tend to not let you bring in laptops/cellphones/etc without a court order while state and local courts generally allow it, atleast in Florida.
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I can’t believe im actually answering these posts that are IN the story already:
“Don’t know what part of the country you come from, but most courts won’t allow you to take laptops...”
I said I was in a Manhattan DMV Hearings Office, NOT a city, state, federal court - so i can bring my laptop in. *rolls eyes*
Additionally, again in MANHATTAN! Part of the country I’m from. I then you TIMES SQUARE as an example. SHEESH
“… or maybe this is an embellished story. “
You may take it back now. =)
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Good Job. firend of mine had some what similar issue. But he didn’t have laptop with him in the court (and no wifi in court either). He did take pictures with his digital camera and showed that to the judge.
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Of course you could have just gone to the satellite view, zoomed in, and shown the judge that there’s two way traffic on the road.
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“After hearing several testimonies from other drivers, I knew this Judge wasn’t going to be sympathetic to my troubles. So driver after driver, all but one had a happy ending.”
If all but one had a happy ending, why were you so worried? It sounds like this judge was in fact quite sympathetic to ticketed drivers.
Also, you really should be careful with your tense changes. They make the narrative confusing. “There I was on a bench...” “So now I’m worried because being found guilty...”
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“Also, you really should be careful with your tense changes. They make the narrative confusing”
thanks for the grammar lesson. i am (was) going to be careful from then (now) on. =)
For the record (an im sure all understood), only one person had a happy ending. *rolls eyes*
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<i>For the record (an im sure all understood),</i>
For the record, I didn’t understand. The entire opening of your story was confusing to me. I had to read it three or four times to even guess at what you were trying to convey.
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“all but one had a happy ending.”
This clearly means that only 1 person was convicted.
Also, your tone seems kind of rude in your responses to the comments, even ones that are clearly correct suggestions.
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You’re all right, i do apologize. That is not the feeling i want to convey in my comments. I hope everyone has an easier time reading it, i will be making corrections.
Thank you for your input. No hard feelings?
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About 2 years ago I got a similar traffic ticket which I belived I was not guilty of. To prove my innocence I downloaded a 1 foot resolution aerial image of the intersection in question and used photoshop to move the cars around creating 3 images depicting the sequence of events leading to my ticket. When I showed up in court with the 3 hi-res images the prosecutor asked me how I got them and proceeded to drop the case. I don’t think he dropped the case because he thought I was innocent. I think it was because he thought I was willing to go through a lot of effort fighting the case.
Traffic courts exist mostly to make a profit and therefor they aren’t going to spend more money prosecuting a case then they can make on the fine.
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Yes, but the fact remains, this guy still disobeyed a steady red and has shown no remorse for it what so ever.
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But were you guilty of the charge? Were you really innocent?
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You could of course have used other mapping software and not needed WiFi. But in your case Microsoft MapPoint 2004 would have hurt your case, in that every street around that area is shown with the one-way arrows correctly.... except for Broadway. Apparently the developers didn’t feel they were necessary since it’s a split road (similar lack of arrows on Interstates). In fact, it would have supported the officer’s contention that data was omitted from the map. It may have been adequate to show a shadow of doubt, but that’s often not enough these days.
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When there’s an argument about whether a street is one-way or two-ways, if you’re right, there is absolutely nothing to fear. Any judge would not just believe the officer - he/she has to verify the information is accurate, because it is verifiable information.
A different story is when you say “ the light was green” and the officer says “it was red”. There is no way to go back in time to see who’s right, so the judge will go with whatever the officer says, but that’s not the case with a street - the street was/is/will be there and the judge has the obbligation to verify whether the street is indeed onw-way or two-ways.
Also, I find it hard to believe a judge will trust information from an unverifiable source like something you bring up in your computer. And the fact that you pulled out your laptop as if you knew you were going to get a wifi connection out of the blue…
It’s a sweet story, I just don’t think it happened. Hey maybe it did, I’d just have to see it to believe it, that’s all.
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Congrats dude. Congrats.
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Great story. I still wish I had invested in the Google IPO…
Anyhoo, If your Wi-Fi network is unsecure, your bandwidth DESERVES to be stolen.
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Thats totally awesome!
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To further prove his “two-way” point, he could have clicked on the satellite image and zoomed in Cathedral Pkway to show the cars running in both directions.
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I would’ve liked to see you get a ticket anyways. Seriously, that was a terrible story. Why did you post it? To show your ‘quick wit,’ or to get respect from the four people who actually read this on a daily basis? Besides, you were at the DA, i’m sure they could’ve just pulled out a map instead of you taking up the judges time booting that laptop. Now lets see how many idiots respond with ‘good job’ or ‘you showed that judge d00d!’
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I’m surprised they didn’t consider your Google map inadmissible since it was obtained illegally. Accessing open wifi has recently been punished with jail time.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/04/State/Wi_Fi_cloaks_a_new_br.shtml
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Mike, because the story is BS, as previous comments very well described. Too many nonsense points in the story.
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Smart trick
Google gonna be legends-wraped soon.
<a href="http://explorer.altopix.com/">Google Maps Explorer</a>
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Thats great stuff, always write down, or atleast commit to memory everything that happens when you get a ticket. Officers forgetting stuff gets people off more often than anything else, especially when there aren’t lawyers involved.
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Good work. Although the satellite imagery may be more diffinitive.
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yep Google rules.
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I’ve gotten this a lot. Actually the satellite images do not help because the buildings are tall and you cannot distinguis the direction of the cars. So i was glad to have another option.
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Wait so your saying that a judge allowed you to use stolen wi-fi to get out of a ticket… This judge inadvertantly in p[en court supported wardriving(wartestifing)
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m Please.. someone could explain me how to use this satellite.?? i couldnt understand..
thanx..
bye..
anacta
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I am a courier and travel quite a lot. Unfortunately I have paid out on more than my share of red light and speed camera tickets. I bought some stuff from revenuedestroyer.com and don’t have to worry about this problem ever again
I would highly recommend them if you are in the transport industry. But would be great for any one else that can’t afford to “give” their hard earned cash over to the government.
Remember, “the more time on the road you have, inevitably the more nasty surprises you get in the mail”
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funny, my dad lives on 110 and it is definately 2 way.
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Great, but I think it will be unusuffuly…
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