Driver says his tape shows lawmaker speeding

The video supplied to WATE-TV by Knoxville resident Keith Jones includes the time and date — about 3:15 p.m. July 14 — and a display in the upper left corner showing the speed of Ramsey’s car, caught by radar.

Jones, who sells such radar and video equipment to police departments, said Ramsey was driving up to 94 mph in a 60 mph zone in the eastbound lanes of I-40 in Knox County.

Ramsey denied the allegation and questioned the reliability of the tape.

“I never drive that fast,” said Ramsey, R-Blountville. “That’s just ridiculous. How do we know he was accurate?”

The video aired by the TV station shows the rear of Ramsey’s car and rain falling. Jones said Ramsey was using a cell phone for most of the time and he didn’t know at first who was driving.

“When the vehicle passed me, I looked and it had state license plates that indicated it was a state Senate (tag),” he said. The footage Jones supplies shows the car has a state lawmaker plate with the initials RLR, the same as Ramsey’s.

Ramsey, who chairs the Senate Ethics Committee and is considering a race for governor next year, said it was just “too suspicious” for Jones to have gotten the video and questioned if it was politically motivated.

“I just find it hard to believe that someone’s following you with a radar detector, that has super-imposed radar on it, that could be accurate for that matter. How did he know I’m going 60?” Ramsey said. “And obviously, if I was driving fast, he had to be driving fast too ’cause he was following me, apparently.”

Jones said he’s just concerned about elected officials who think they’re above the law.

“I just think it’s hypocritical. You can put on here if you’d like, I’m a registered Republican. But I don’t subscribe to this type of behavior from anybody,” Jones said. Voters in Tennessee don’t register by party affiliation although some other states do.