Andrew Flusche, Fredericksburg Lawyer

You’ve probably seen sporadic news reports about people using their car’s GPS to fight their speeding tickets. Will it work?

One of the most famous cases centers around a Sonoma County teen who has been fighting his speeding ticket for over a year. His parents have hired a GPS expert to testify in traffic court as to the accuracy of their son’s GPS unit. And the case is still trudging through the courts.

I saw a simple version of the GPS defense in Spotsylvania County General District Court the other day. A gentleman went up to the bench for his speeding ticket hearing. The Virginia State Trooper testified as to the defendant’s speed and his radar accuracy. Then the defendant claimed, “but my Garmin said I was only going 78.”

The traffic court judge was not impressed. He explained that the defendant had no proof of the GPS unit’s speed reading and the GPS could very well be wrong. The ruling? Guilty.

To effectively use a GPS defense in traffic court, you need two things: 1.) proof of the GPS speed readout at the time the police claim you were speeding, and 2.) proof that the GPS was accurate.

Some types of GPS units provide logs of the readouts and activity. But proof of the GPS accuracy would probably require a GPS expert, at least until traffic court judges better understand GPS technology and actually put faith into it.

The conclusion? You need more than “my GPS said I wasn’t speeding” to get out of your traffic ticket.

Photo by Premshree Pillai