I know these are difficult times for our economy. Budgets are tight across the board, so we have to make a few sacrifices and a few cuts that we wouldn’t normally make. But when I saw a recent Supreme Court of Ohio ruling, I had to read it twice.

On June 2, our state’s Supreme Court ruled 5-1 that an officer’s visual estimation of a vehicle’s speed is all that is needed for a speeding conviction, provided that the officer is trained, certified and has experience visually estimating vehicle speed.

Really? The last I heard, our police departments were not lacking in radar equipment. It may be the only thing they aren’t lacking. If a police officer wants to give me a speeding ticket, he should be using that equipment to provide evidence that I was speeding.

When did the burden of proof fall on the citizen? Without evidence, it becomes the police officer’s word against the citizen’s. I know that the vast majority of police officers are honorable men and women. But they are not objective instruments like radar equipment.

Police officers have biased opinions, just like every other human being on the planet. They have bad days where they make mistakes.

If police can make serious mistakes, such as the May 16 shooting death of a 7-year-old in Detroit, then it is obvious that they will make smaller mistakes such as miscalculating the “estimated” speed of a vehicle.

Speeding tickets are not trivial items as the Supreme Court of Ohio may think. They cost money. They can affect insurance rates. In some instances, they can prevent you from getting a job. They can tarnish a well earned reputation.

I am not arguing that Mark Jenney, the motorist involved in the case, was not speeding. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. The outcome of this one case does not worry me. What worries me is the legal precedence of this case.

This ruling opens up the possibility that other, more serious charges could require less and less proof. I don’t like the direction this decision takes our state.

This law seems less about the protection of citizens and more about an extra source of income for our local and state government. I already pay income tax and sales tax.

Please don’t guesstimate another tax out of my meager paycheck.