Radar Detectors - do they work?

[JWG223]

Two words............."Valentine One". Get it and never look back.

That's what I did. Lost it to a rental car about 6 months ago. Still ticket-free, but I miss it. I rely on the MK1 Eyeball and common sense for now.

 

[mcinfantry]

when i say quota i mean when you tell your boss "i am going to do speed enforcement" you dont go sit your lazy ass down a dead end road in a neighborhood to write tickets. you go sit where you have wrecks, complaints or traffic violations. then you write offenses you see. so while everyone else is humping calls, the guy who offers to write tickets better be writing tickets. and in a city this big looking for violators isnt hard.

if you go to work a 10 hour shift and have NOTHING to show at the end?

homicide, burglary and narcotics detectives SOLVE their respective crimes. Traffic enforcement WRITES tickets.

a pipe fitter has quotas, so does a nurse, doctor and lawyer... i guess more of a performance goal.

 

[JWG223]

See, just like I said. I'm only a RADAR/LIDAR instructor so what would I know.


MOTOR51

There are smart cops who will leave the guns off. However, if anyone within a mile of you goes by them and they hit the guns, you get a "blip". If they are not hitting the guns, then they probably won't hit you unless you're being a total idiot.

Then there are cops who are not smart, or maybe they are and they just don't care because they still write plenty of tickets regardless of their radar discipline so, who cares?

Regardless, my radar detector works just fine when common-sense is used to back it.

Is it a bulletproof vest in an airsoft world? No. No way. What it is, is just one more tool in keeping a good driver ticket-free.

 

[mcinfantry]

i think hiding is a waste of time. i would like to add i did enjoy taking my time and stopping the third car in a line of speeders or the last car. they are all speeding but i did enjoy stopping the guy with no balls to take lead. and man they sure were mad that "the guy in front was speeding" like there is a law that says second in line isnt responsible for his actions.

 

[Leonidas]

The quota thing wasn't even secondary to my point. That's why the lol.

I was responding to your "behavior modification" comment. I inferred that you would have been content to never write another citation IF that meant universal compliance. Given that the goal of traffic codes is public safety, not revenue.

 

[Leonidas]

i think hiding is a waste of time. i would like to add i did enjoy taking my time and stopping the third car in a line of speeders or the last car. they are all speeding but i did enjoy stopping the guy with no balls to take lead. and man they sure were mad that "the guy in front was speeding" like there is a law that says second in line isnt responsible for his actions.

You have a devious side that I like.

 

[Cat]

i think hiding is a waste of time. i would like to add i did enjoy taking my time and stopping the third car in a line of speeders or the last car. they are all speeding but i did enjoy stopping the guy with no balls to take lead. and man they sure were mad that "the guy in front was speeding" like there is a law that says second in line isnt responsible for his actions.

The reverse of that...

The officer is driving five miles below the limit, so the others drive five below him.

OMG pass him already!!!

 

[AustinBR]

There are smart cops who will leave the guns off. However, if anyone within a mile of you goes by them and they hit the guns, you get a "blip". If they are not hitting the guns, then they probably won't hit you unless you're being a total idiot.

Then there are cops who are not smart, or maybe they are and they just don't care because they still write plenty of tickets regardless of their radar discipline so, who cares?

Regardless, my radar detector works just fine when common-sense is used to back it.

Is it a bulletproof vest in an airsoft world? No. No way. What it is, is just one more tool in keeping a good driver ticket-free.

I couldn't agree any more. I admit that I drive above the speed limit where it is safe. After all, the speed limits are there for safety (and to make some parishes money). On a straight line open road with a speed limit of 70, such as on the way to Destin at points, there are places where most people kick it up to 90 or so and just cruise at that speed. If you are in a line of cars all about a half mile or so apart, and a cop ahead tags someone with RADAR, you will get a hit on the detector. A LIDAR beam is a little more focused and does't expand as quickly as the RADAR waves (both are just light waves and expand just as a wave on a pool of water would), but I still get light hits on mine even when the cop is not pointing it directly at me. Now, I have been hit before with it while going the speed limit and you know instantly. I am not a cop, but I did get a chance to play with one of the new LIDAR guns used by the BRPD Motorcycle units, and those babies are SWEET. You look through a red-dot like scope, and then when you hit the trigger the HUD, if you will, reads how fast the object is moving and the distance of it. This allows it to be a point, click, shoot type system, as opposed to leaving it on.

I repeat again though, a detector is a tool to be used if you drive a little over the speed limit. Just like any tool, it is not infallible. And lots of people have them and just don't use them properly.

i think hiding is a waste of time. i would like to add i did enjoy taking my time and stopping the third car in a line of speeders or the last car. they are all speeding but i did enjoy stopping the guy with no balls to take lead. and man they sure were mad that "the guy in front was speeding" like there is a law that says second in line isnt responsible for his actions.

Oh...so you were that guy. I like it! Haha!

 

[JNieman]

Question for those who advocate the detectors...

...how would you know if they work?

No takers?

 

[JadeRaven]

Interesting thread. A radar detector has saved me hundreds of dollars. It did this by me not spending hundreds of dollars to buy one. I have driven hundreds of thousands of miles without a ticket. Its really quite easy; I don't exceed the speed limit. I have done the calculations. The extra 10 miles per hour really doesn't add up to that much time saved. Slow down just a tiny bit and enjoy the roses.

Having to go 30-40mph slower adds a lot of time to travel any real distance. If all you do is 10mph over then yeah it's not worth it.

 

[JadeRaven]

No takers?

Because it goes "beep beep" and then a little while later you see the officer giving out tickets.

 

[JetMech]

I'm poor I just use my speedometer

^^^This^^^ I found that by slowing down and not speeding I stoped getting tickets.

 

[JadeRaven]

when i say quota i mean when you tell your boss "i am going to do speed enforcement" you dont go sit your lazy ass down a dead end road in a neighborhood to write tickets. you go sit where you have wrecks, complaints or traffic violations. then you write offenses you see. so while everyone else is humping calls, the guy who offers to write tickets better be writing tickets. and in a city this big looking for violators isnt hard.

if you go to work a 10 hour shift and have NOTHING to show at the end?

homicide, burglary and narcotics detectives SOLVE their respective crimes. Traffic enforcement WRITES tickets.

a pipe fitter has quotas, so does a nurse, doctor and lawyer... i guess more of a performance goal.

Yeah the word "quota" sounds bad, but it's not inaccurate. Everyone has to do his job, nothing wrong with that.

I just wish y'all would write more tickets to left lane hogs but I guess those are harder to spot.

 

[JNieman]

Because it goes "beep beep" and then a little while later you see the officer giving out tickets.

But isn't that kind of a false assurance? How do you /know/ it prevented you getting a ticket. How do you know that without it, you would have gotten a ticket. That's what I'm curious about. It seems to me that people get them and think every 'beep' is money in their pocket.

 

[Ritten]

But isn't that kind of a false assurance? How do you /know/ it prevented you getting a ticket. How do you know that without it, you would have gotten a ticket. That's what I'm curious about. It seems to me that people get them and think every 'beep' is money in their pocket.

You are really reaching to try and make a point here. That's like saying, "Well, how do you know if you would have gotten hit by a car if you didn't look both ways before running across a highway? They might have stopped." Everyone here who is advocating the detectors has said that a person can still get a ticket. It's about learning patterns, being aware of who's being lit up ahead of you, and using common sense (not doing 65 in a school zone). It's called a radar detector.....not a free pass. It detects radar, and the V1 does it very well.

 

[JNieman]

Just trying to nail down the return-on-investment, more than anything. Looking both ways before crossing the street costs me nothing and has a greater-than-zero benefit, so it's a no-brainer to do it. I've never seen a logical benefit over the cost of a radar/lidar detector so figured I'd ask for more detail - I usually don't ever see anyone talking about them who is actually reasonable about it, like I have seen here.

 

[mcinfantry]

I've owned. Valentine 1 for over 15 years.

I've never been stopped.

The arrows are nice to let you know someone is sneaking up


ΜΟΡΟΝ ΛΑΒΙΑ

 

[Ritten]

Just trying to nail down the return-on-investment, more than anything. Looking both ways before crossing the street costs me nothing and has a greater-than-zero benefit, so it's a no-brainer to do it. I've never seen a logical benefit over the cost of a radar/lidar detector so figured I'd ask for more detail - I usually don't ever see anyone talking about them who is actually reasonable about it, like I have seen here.

Unless you drive a lot of highway and your driving habits take you over the speed limit from time to time, then you won't see a return on investment for a while. A detector is about getting feedback from your surroundings that you wouldn't have had without it. That officer may not have pulled you over, but now you know a place that he likes to hide and how he likes to use his radar/lidar. MOTOR51 makes it sound like a game of cat and mouse. I look at it as a game of numbers. With the information I've seen repeated over, and over, and over by the habits of traffic enforcement through the years, I have a VERY good idea of when, where, and what my chances are of being hit with radar/lidar and know that most of them (not all) can be detected from a very long way off if there is normal traffic.

 

[JadeRaven]

Just trying to nail down the return-on-investment, more than anything. Looking both ways before crossing the street costs me nothing and has a greater-than-zero benefit, so it's a no-brainer to do it. I've never seen a logical benefit over the cost of a radar/lidar detector so figured I'd ask for more detail - I usually don't ever see anyone talking about them who is actually reasonable about it, like I have seen here.

As Ritten says, you are really reaching here.

Like you, I have also passed by police cars sitting on the side of the interstate that did not budge when I went past. They were not using radar at the time. Sometimes the policeman is just filling out a report, waiting for a bigger fish, surfing the internet, already writing someone else a ticket, etc.

I have also been driving along, heard the beep beep, casually slowed down and gotten in the right lane, been passed by a car in the left who did not slow down, come upon the police officer who then immediately turned on the blue lights and nailed the guy who sped past me. I have 1st hand witnessed this myself with my own eyeballs in my own car several times.

If I didn't hear the beep beep, didn't slow down, and stayed ahead of the guy behind me I am pretty sure I would have gotten the ticket. How do I "know" that I would have gotten a ticket? Well, I guess I don't "know" since perhaps the police officer would have liked my car, or maybe his radar might have malfunctioned, or maybe he would have gotten a flat tire and not been able to pull me over, or maybe he would have decided to finish the krispy kreme and wait on another car, or maybe he was just playing with his radar for fun while listening to the radio and the officer on each occasion decided to pull over the speeder for some other reason like driving a chevy or driving with foglights on when it wasn't foggy.

 

[mcinfantry]

simply put.
i owned a radar before, during and after BEING a cop. it works FOR me.