Laser speed detector upheld

BOISE – Claim your speedometer is broken, or that you were rushing to the hospital, or that you never saw the speed limit sign.

But don’t try to get out of a speeding ticket in Idaho by telling a judge that the laser speed detector used by police is based on bad science.

The Idaho Court of Appeals ruled this week that such devices are generally reliable.

The ruling, handed down Tuesday, means that Boise resident Isaac Williamson must pay a $75 ticket he received last year after he was accused of driving 76 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour zone.

It also means that people will have one less way to try to get out of speeding tickets in Idaho, Deputy Attorney General Lori Fleming said Friday.

“Officers have been using laser detecting for some years now, but this is the first time in a published opinion that someone has challenged the reliability of those devices,” Fleming said. “The court’s opinion certainly will preclude that kind of challenge from now on.”

Williamson, a planner at Micron, hasn’t yet decided if he’ll try to challenge the ruling before the state’s highest court. But he maintains he simply was not speeding when he got the ticket last August.

“All I know is that they were wrong. I just don’t do 21 miles an hour over in a 55 zone,” Williamson said. “I am not saying the police officer lied or made a mistake, but I am 100 percent positive that they have something wrong somewhere.”

Williamson decided to represent himself, though he had no legal experience. He didn’t want to pay for a lawyer and feared none would take him seriously. Ultimately, fighting the ticket was a matter of principle, he said.

“I wasn’t doing what they said I was, which is why I fought it. The decision really had nothing to do with the laser,” Williamson said. “Yeah, it’s frustrating, but I’m glad I fought it.”

A few traffic tickets get appealed to the higher courts in Idaho every year, though this was one of the more unusual arguments, Fleming said.

“This is the most creative one I’ve seen, though it was a good argument and it needed to be decided,” Fleming said.