Radar Detectors

[Spikes]

That's why I bought it.  I'm not much of a speeder but I do consider speeding tickets to be a form of unjust taxation and mild tyranny.  Our speed limits were set based on average stopping distances for cars that were built many decades ago with drum brakes and bias ply tubed tires etc...

I firmly believe that speed enforcement is about revenue for the state and not about highway safety because it's about the only rule of the road that is regularly enforced and almost always requires the offender to pay a fee.  I didn't want stimulus checks because they'll end up costing us much more in the long run than we'll actually receive now so I figure this way I'm doing my civic duty by helping other motorists drive with caution and avoid fines that I consider mostly unjust.

My brother in law does rallies like Gumball and swears by the Valentine One detector.

I did some research before my purchase and found out something interesting about jammers.


Radar jammers are illegal in all states because devices that transmit RF are regulated by the FCC.

Lasers are regulated by the FDA and there are no federal regulations that prohibit jamming lasers but a handful of states have banned laser jamming devices.

Interesting factoid about the jammers. I know in NY both radar and lidar jammers are illegal, but detectors are not.

All of our major highways upstate are 65MPH, but flow of traffic is pretty much always ~75-80.

[The Fugitive]

I'm a vending technician and spend my days driving from location to location repairing vending machines.  I average 125-150 miles a day. I use the Waze app. We have enough people who use it and report speed traps that it is easy to slow down before you get in range. Don't think I've been pulled over in 10 years.

[DurrD]

Valentine probably makes the best radar detector.  Personally, I think we should be like Germany and not have any speed limit on the interstates outside of urban areas. And yes Waze works pretty good.  Funny story about that:

I'm a part time police office in a nearby town, and one of the first times I was patrolling by myself I set up on a highway into town to eat my supper where I could watch the road.  I was not actively checking for speed (we don't even have radar/laser or anything in most of our units, and being a tourist town, are discouraged by administration from writing speeding tickets unless it is really egregious which is kind of how I like it anyhow).  Anyhow, I had the Waze app running on my phone, and I looked at it, and the little police icon popped up.  I was like, where is a cop?  Looking all around, then... oh yeah that's me lol.  Doh! 

Anyhow, when I sit up now, I often stay put until somebody puts it on Waze, and it usually doesn't take long, so yeah the app works really well.  I always move once it shows up though for officer safety reasons, we just had a police officer ambushed in a neighboring town the other day, so I'd just as soon people not be able to find me that way if they are looking for one to ambush. 

[Gman]

Radar Jammers are illegal in the two Provinces I live in, in Canada, but laser jammers are legal. 

I too ran a Valentine radar/laser detector for a long time, the original Valentine one, and then more recently the later/newer 2nd gen of that unit.  It was/is excellent.  I bought my first one from Valentine's one page add in Car and Drive circa late 1990s.  The owner/creator had worked for Cinc. Microwave for years IIRC, then left to do it "better", and he did IMO for a long time.  I know that if you have the original V1 detector that the company will upgrade it to the new unit for a much reduced cost.

Now running Escort again after using the battery operated Passport way back in the early 90s, the last time I had used Cincinnati Microwave products.  Primarily because the Escort installed laser shifter needs a compatible detector, and their own 360 installed unit seems to work out best.  I have a portable 360 I use in our other vehicles, but our main highway car has the installed units in it.  Not cheap, close to $2.5k CAD after install, but the company that did it only took a day, and they have the laser and radar guns both the city and highway L/E use in these parts for testing purposes, and I've seen it first hand jam the laser, and give pretty decent long range warning on the radar.  That said, the very newest laser guns some of the dedicated traffic units are using here give a "jam" warning when they get jammed, and they can have less than great sense of humor about the subject should you jam them.  My system has a kill switch for the jammer built in for this purpose, no sense getting pulled over in the well known ticketing areas if you're not speeding in them, while the jammer stills gives the "jam" warning on the L/E laser gun. The rest of the time I leave it enabled, and it works very well.  Really only vulnerable to instant on radar, which isn't used very frequently in my areas of travel, I haven't seen it being used in years.

Don't really speed much (too much), despite the wide open and flat/straight roads in much of Western Canada, but the flow of regular traffic on the highway I drive North/South is usually 125km/hr, 15 over posted, if not faster, so I have my detectors/etc just to prevent that random event of being the one person picked out of the crowd, plus my vehicle I have my installed units in isn't going to get a lot of sympathy votes from L/E either.

edit - DurrD, interesting post, your attitude about speeding should be commended IMO. Hadn't considered how dangerous Waze could be to officers safety, things are different up here, with a bit lower threat level in that regard.  Still, your policy of monitoring your own L/E vehicle on Waze, then getting off the X once someone has made your location, should be made SOP IMO everywhere.

[Rich46yo]

I've lived in two cities that adopted automated speed enforcement.  Accidents were not common before speed cameras were installed.

In both cities rear end collisions suddenly became common after this form of "skynet" traffic enforcement was adopted.

Its a shame they took the cop out of the ticket and Ive found its not much more then theft in a lot of cases. Most of all the red light cameras. First off many are not set right and even if they are they dont take into account other conditions at the time because the human has been removed from the equation. I'll tell you from experience these municipalities only want the cash.

They budget in how much cash they project to make from these Intersection bandits and thats why they are there. They dont prevent or stop people from driving goofy, or worse, drunk. And unlike the cop on the street they dont give warnings to good drivers.

I did that job for many years and our policy generally was on a close one a good citizen deserved a warning. These tickets are expensive and it hurts a guy punching a time clock. The city just wanted their cash, thats it plain and simple. Watch commanders never failed to mention "tickets" at roll calls.

[BOBO]

I'm a vending technician and spend my days driving from location to location repairing vending machines.  I average 125-150 miles a day. I use the Waze app. We have enough people who use it and report speed traps that it is easy to slow down before you get in range. Don't think I've been pulled over in 10 years.

I get a bit of enjoyment out of using the detector and reporting through the waze app.  I've found that my detector gives me a few minutes warning if a cop is using radar while driving towards me and checking speeds.  As long as there are other motorists on the road it seems to do a really good job.