• HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    You’re basically talking about the difference between traffic cops and regular patrol.

    More pedantically, it’s “Traffic enforcement unit cops” or “Cops who went out of their way to take a speed measurement certification course and get issued the equipment and thus are expected to use them or lose them” vs. “Cops who didn’t.”

    As you can imagine, the latter doesn’t care nearly as much about traffic enforcement.

    - Ex-cop

    • MangoCats@feddit.it
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      17 hours ago

      Ironically enough, I am pretty sure I got let off by traffic enforcement units a couple of times when I was far enough over to qualify for “the expensive ticket”, but very rarely when it was just 12-15 mph over. Also, even though I tend to drive about 9 over most of the time, I seem to get an awful lot of tickets for 15 over - where the fine takes a bump up… Their word against mine…

      • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        In my area (HCSO, PCPD) you could tell by their boots: jackboots = traffic enforcement.

        Of course there’s also FHP, who are basically an entire agency of only traffic enforcement.

        I’d recommend getting a dash cam and your speedometer calibrated, just in case you got a wheel resize or gear configuration change that made your speedometer inaccurate. We were required to calibrate our patrol cars every year if we used it to measure speed, but there is zero such requirement for random motorists. I think the LIDAR and RADAR guns were yearly too, but I never applied for the class required to use one so I’m not sure.

        • MangoCats@feddit.it
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          15 hours ago

          I “calibrate” my speedos vs GPS every so often, they’re reasonably close (+/- 2mph at 70).

          I waffle about the dash cam, of course I’ll want it after something happens and I don’t have it, but on the other hand I also hate the thought of a protracted court fight for what?

          • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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            1 hour ago

            There are tons of nightmare scenarios you can avoid by having a dashcam including the police lying about something you did while driving, which could lead to all sorts of awful things for you.

            For $50, it’s a no-brainer to me.