CHP MEMORIES

Yes, I really was a member of the California Highway Patrol, and here's the proof. Each office had a picture board of all the Officers and Sergeants, and I suspect this one was taken about 30 years ago.

In the pre radar days, one of the most misunderstood aspects of a CHP Officers job was how we determined the speed of vehicles, particularly on open stretches of freeway like Interstate 5. There were about 3 different ways, and I'll explain the easier ones first.

Estimating - Most of the judges in the Municipal and Justice Courts acknowledged that we were experts in estimating the speed of vehicles. Under most circumstances, we were allowed to give testimony regarding our estimate of what a vehicles speed was. I didn't do this very often, but there were times when for example, I would see a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction at a high rate of speed. Often, before we could turn around and get behind the vehicle, to determine it's speed, the driver would also see us, and immediately slow down to the speed limit. In those cases where the speed was in the outrageous category, usually over 90 mph, I would still stop them, and often write them a speeding ticket. This method almost always created an argument, because most folks didn't think we could do that, but we could, and we did.

Pacing - This was the most common way of determining how fast a vehicle was going. The simplest form of pacing was to drive the patrol car right up behind the suspected speeder, and match their speed. When you were going the same speed, you simply looked at your calibrated speedometer in the patrol car, and you knew how fast the other vehicle was going. It was amazing how often you could do this, especially at night when it was a lot more difficult for the drivers to tell what kind of vehicle was pulling up behind them.

During daylight hours, this method had a slight variation. When a suspected speed violator was identified, usually going in the opposite direction, I would often continue for a 1/2 mile or so, then make a u-turn, and start following the vehicle from about a mile back. If I initially thought that the speeder was going say 80 mph, I would set my speed at exactly 80. When the speeder would pass an identifiable landmark, like start into a curve, or go under the shadow of an overpass, I would make a note of what my odometer read. When I got to that landmark, I would take another reading of my odometer, and I would then know the approximate distance between our two vehicles. Continuing at the same speed, I would then go through the same process one more time. If the distance between the two vehicles during the second odometer check was the same, or greater, then I knew the speed of the violator was at least as fast as I was traveling.

Time/Distance - This was a little more complicated, and sometimes controversial, so bear with me. The California Vehicle Code prohibited "speed traps", where a vehicle is timed through a predetermined distance, and it's speed is calculated based on the time it took to travel that specific distance. So, we couldn't just park the patrol car in a hidden area, and stopwatch vehicles, as they passed by a known, measured distance.

A few of us in the Los Banos Office came up with a combination of pacing, and time/distance, that was much more accurate, and it allowed us to remain almost invisible until we pulled up behind the speeder with the red light on. Here's how it worked. When a speeder was identified, usually going in the opposite direction, when the vehicle passed, we would identify it passing a landmark, such as a milepost, a big bush, an overpass, etc. When it passed that landmark, the stop watch would start. I would continue in the opposite direction until either there was a long distance between the two vehicles (a mile or more), or I was out of sight, and could make a u-turn without being seen. When I was now going in the same direction as the speeder, and often 1-2 miles behind, when passing that same landmark, I would check my odometer. I now had the beginning point of a time/distance calculation. Often, many miles down the Interstate, when the speeder passed another identifiable landmark, (shadows of overpasses were the best), I would click the watch to a stop. When I got to that landmark, a second check of the odometer gave me the total distance that the vehicle had traveled, and I knew exactly how long it took for that vehicle to travel that space. With those two known quantities, it was a simple matter of calculating the speed on what we called the "whiz wheel", which was an aviation air/speed calculator. When that calculation was made, we knew the average speed of our violator over that total distance, from the first landmark to the second. Then the fun part began. We had to close the gap, which meant running at top speed for several miles before we could catch up to our speeder.

When the top brass in Sacramento caught wind of what we were doing, they thought the method was too close to the definition of a "speed trap", and sent out a memo that didn't entirely prohibit the practice, but the recommendation was not to do it, because the cases might be thrown out of court. My graveyard partner of many years, Bob Emmert and I came up with a possible solution to the potential roadblock. We invited the local judge, who presided over most of the speeding cases, to come ride with us, and we would let him determine if this method met the definition of a "speed trap". When the day came for our judicial ride-a-long, the Judge rode with me, and my partner played the role of the speeder. When we showed the Judge exactly how we determined the speed of a vehicle, his judgement was that it was NOT a predetermined distance, therefore, did not meet the definition of a "speed trap". He was OK with the practice, and I remember him being impressed with the accuracy of this method. Needless to say, Emmert and I didn't lose any speeding cases in front of this judge.

Today, with radar being used on most California highways, some of these methods might seem a bit archaic , but, back in the day, these were the methods we used to write speeding tickets.