[Diesel_Dave]

Okay, so here's the update.

Went to court tonight. The officer and prosecutor stood up and the officer went through the story. Pretty much everything he said was correct, except he said that I was in the fast lane the whole time. He said he observed me comming to a near stop when he was going the other direction, he then turned around, followed me and clocked me at 28 mph in a 60, said he pulled me over and did the sobriety tests, which I passed. Note, recall that the ticket was for the "near stop", and I was given a warning for the 28 in a 60 under the "low speed vehicle" law.

They then asked if I had any questions for the officer. I asked the officer if he observed any vehicles behind me at the time of the "near stop". He said that there was at least two. I asked how close the vehicles were to mine, he stated less than 1/8 mile. I asked if he had any evidence of that, and he said no. This was completely untrue--I had checked my rearview mirror and there were absolutely no other cars visible, and the visiblity is over 1/2 mile (probably about 1 mile). I then said exactly that--that there were not any vehicle close to mine at the time of the "near stop". I said that since there were no other vehicles, then my movement was reasonably safe. I also brought up the "low speed vehicle" warning as well as the minimum speed limit issue (which the officer admitted he had told me, but couldn't provide the law). I gave a copy of both laws to the judge along with the definition of "low speed vehicle" from the NHTSB and stated that I thought the officer was doing his job to pull me over, but that I felt he passed judgment too soon and wanted to cite me for something (the warning and the minimum speed limit were evidence of that). I also stated (near the beginning) that the reason that I was going slow in the first place was because I was an engineer and the getting good fuel mileage was my hobby, I wanted to know my mileage at low speed, and that I thought at the time it would be a good opportunity given there were no other vehicles.

So basically, it came down to the officer's word vs. mine that there were or were not any vehicles behind me at the time of the "near stop". The judge said that in these cases, they don't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, just reasonable probability. So the judge said I was guilty and gave me a $1 fine with $115.50 in court costs.

Oh well.