Physicist Dmitri Krioukov used physics to prove his innocence after being ticketed for allegedly running a stop sign. He wrote a four-page article titled “Proof of Innocence” that used relative motion and detailed graphs to show how the police officer erred. Krioukov also explained that he had come to a complete stop, but another car had blocked the officer’s view. The judge and officer were convinced, and Krioukov did not have to pay the ticket.
Most people don’t have the ability to start sobbing on cue when stopped by a police officer for violating a traffic law — and such a tactic probably only works in movies, anyway.
Nor are most people as imaginative as Dmitri Krioukov, who turned to physics rather than fake tears to prove he didn’t deserve a ticket for allegedly running a stop sign in 2012. The UC San Diego physicist captivated not only the judge, but also the ticket clerk with his four-page article titled “Proof of Innocence.”
Krioukov wrote about relative motion, used detailed graphs of angular velocity, and relied on the occurrence of a sneeze (his own) to show how the police officer erred in assuming that Krioukov executed the stop sign due to a change in his car speed.
“Indeed, he (Krioukov) was sneezing as he approached the stop sign. As a result he unintentionally hit the brakes very hard. Therefore we can assume that the deceleration was close to the maximum possible for a car,” he wrote. Krioukov also explained that he had indeed come to a complete stop, but another car had pulled alongside him at the same time and blocked the officer’s view.
“The judge was convinced, and the officer was convinced too,” Krioukov told the Physics Central website.
This is the ticket:
Approximately 44% of all direct contact between police officers and US citizens occurs during roadside stops.
About half of all speeding tickets are contested, and about 39% of those challenges end up with a reduced fee or no fee at all.
The first traffic fine was issued in Britain in 1896 to a man who drove his “horseless carriage” at 10mph, far exceeding the legal speed limit of 2mph.
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