Jimellow

Thanks for the replies.

I assume it could have been a news chopper, as the roadways are quite busy around here with the holiday season still in full swing, and maybe they were taking a photo for a news story, or even a traffic report.

This was definitely a helicopter, and the reason I suspected it was police-related was due to it being hovering back and up behind a spot where there are speeding lines, and a place I've seen police sit before clocking speeders.

I did go out again and saw the helicopter in the far distance - even made a few rounds on the same road - but didn't see it as close, or hovering, again.

Personally, I don't see the logic in using a helicopter to hover over a spot a crew of police cars could just as easily access. It's not a stretch of open road, but instead a four lane (two lanes are almost standard around here) road that splits and has many exits along the way. I have seen police cars out in abundance (once saw five with cars pulled over at once), but I didn't see a single police car in any of my travels investigating this, and again, the roads were quite busy, so it seemed like a congested time to get speeders.

I am most curious about the ticketing aspect if it was in fact an police chopper, primarily because I did not see one squad car anywhere. And no one was pulled over or in the process of being pulled over at all. And generally, this did not seem like a stretch of road conducive to getting speeders via aircraft.

Initially I had the egotistical notion that I was spotted at the precise time I was speeding (this is on the second trip), solely because I saw the chopper, when in fact I was only speeding for about 1/4 mile before yielding to a faster car behind me. I am not sure what the chances are of being picked out of a "herd" in this case, but realistically I probably don't have much to worry about. Though I am curious if a ticket might be in the mail, as that is a practice I am not familiar with. I've received speeding citations before, but every time I've been pulled over and issued it physically; never receiving a ticket via the mail, or other means.

I did not ever suspect it could be a news chopper, yet when I made the return trip to check it out, I did see what I initially thought was a rather large radar gun on the side of the chopper, when in reality it very well may have been a camera.

In reality, I am not as concerned about a ticket as I am curious about the whole procedure. When I speed, I fully understand that there are consequences, specifically paying a fine and receiving points. This is also why I generally don't challenge tickets in court, as I don't feel I have ever been innocent of a speeding violation when I was cited for one.

I have this feeling that I would like to call someone locally and ask about this, if only to qwell my curiosity. I suppose I can't call the police and ask if they had a chopper up today getting speeders, but there is this lingering feeling of uncertainty that makes me wonder what exactly I had seen, as I've never seen a chopper so close while driving before.

One last question regarding the ticket being mailed. Would that be a feasable way of ticketing drivers? In the replies here there seems to be a trend of the pilot and officer on the ground working together, and if tickets were mailed solely on the basis of a pilot writing down a plate number, would that be a strong enough method to warrant practice by law enforcement? I know there are those that challenge tickets in court, and on that basis, it seems to me that having a man in the sky being the sole factor in determining a speeder at a single point in time, seems like it might not hold up too well. Again, I've never taken a ticket to court, so I am not familiar with the process, but I'd be interested in hearing thoughts regarding this as well.

Overall, very informative thread so far. I've always thought that the signs on the road indicating aerial monitoring were put in place more as a scare tactic than anything, but it's both refreshing and enlightening to find this is not necessarily the case. As a brief aside, in this case there was no "Aerial monitoring" sign for miles, if there is one at all. Is such a sign required to pull people over? I would imagine not, as I don't see why police officers would have to announce the methods by which they are getting speeders, unless that too comes back to the appeal process in court?

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