ORLANDO, Fla. – News 6 traffic safety expert Trooper Steve Montiero answers viewer questions about the rules of the road every week, helping Orlando-area residents become better drivers by being better educated.
Trooper Steve was most recently asked about “pace clocking.”
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“Officers have many ways to determine how fast a vehicle is going,” Trooper Steve said. “We are used to seeing them on the side of the road with either a laser-measuring device or some type of radar, which can also be mounted inside a police vehicle and measure speed in a moving or stationary position.”
There are times, however, that law enforcement officers simply use their cruisers to nab speeding drivers.
“Every vehicle has a speedometer, at least I hope so. So, pace clocking would be when a police vehicle matches the speed of the violating vehicle,” he said. “An officer will travel at the same speed for a determined distance to gather the other vehicle’s speed.”
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Some may think, “What if their speedometer is not correct?”
“Police agencies have so many rules to live by so thinking that they don’t have this covered would be a mistake,” Trooper Steve said. “If a police officer is using their vehicle to pace other vehicles and issue citations, they would need their vehicle speedometer physically calibrated every six months.”
The courts recognize that the calibration verifies that the law enforcement vehicle can be properly used for speed enforcement.
“This is not just someone driving the car and saying that the speedometer works,” Trooper Steve said. “The vehicle is physically mounted on a calibration device to ensure that everything is in sync. So, speeders beware, if you’re out there doing nonsense on the roads, make sure you’re looking around, a police officer might be keeping up with you.”