TexasCHLforum.com

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:The general take on lidar/laser detection is that since the beam is supposed to
be pencil thin, that even laser detectors will only tell you that you have just been tagged.

It has been a while since I looked at lidar or was trained in it, but pencil thin was only true compared to radar. The laser puts out a beam that expands to 3 feet wide at 100 yards. That keeps it pretty much on a single car target. Compare that to a radar gun that covers 40 feet at the same distance. That is covering three lanes of highway.

I don't think he inflated the ticket. It is much easier to be going faster than you thought, even when you looked at the speedo. I almost always remove my foot from the gas at the same time as I am looking for my speed when I see someone running radar. From 76 to 72 is easy in most cars to slow to by just removing your foot and not even realizing it.

But as an aside, the tickets, if done by the law, cannot be inflated too much. There is a maximum fine that can be imposed. In general, no ticket can have a fine of more than $200 for the locality and $30 for the state. There are about $110 or so added in court costs, so the maximum can be as high as about $400. Of course, to benefit you in this case that means you would have been going around 22 over the speed limit.