Radar Detectors - do they work?

[Leonidas]

i read all 6 pages.

i drove 560 miles from denham to ocean springs friday night. i have waze and a radar. ill take the radar

By way of Jackson?

 

[mcinfantry]

By way of Jackson?

LOL, i turned around 4 times. LOL. it didnt make a lot of sense then, OR now. LOL

 

[Leonidas]

Actually, now it makes perfect sense. Argument with the wife. They can make a guy crazy. Been there, done that. I got fed up one friday night and left for Mexico. Got as far as Baton Rouge before sanity re-emerged. Hang in.

My first thought was, 'Daaaamn, he needs a new gps.'

 

[AustinBR]

Random thread bump of the month for me!

Today while driving down Old Hammond, my radar / laser detector randomly went off with the big bold "*LASER*" warning, and then popped up the speed I was going (46 mph). I am sitting there drinking coffee looking around and I don't see a cop in sight. I know MOTORS mentioned earlier about good and bad ways to enforce speed laws, and I have to say, he is super correct in regards to the good ways. These guys had it down to a science this morning. The cops (three units) had their cars parked behind bushes off to the side of the road. One guy is standing behind one of the wooden street light or electric poles and none of his body was visible. Out to the side he had one of the LIDAR units at about head level, and was just tagging every car coming down the road at somewhere between 200 and 300 yards out.

At 200 to 300 yards, you simply couldn't see the guy. I was actively looking around trying to find him for a good eight seconds or so and I couldn't see the dude at all. When I passed where they were standing at I saw their whole setup, and then I watched the guy give a thumbs up to one of the other cops standing with him and he then walked right into the middle of the road into the lane that the car was coming at him at and pulled them over. By my math, the car probably had over eight seconds or so to even get to the cop after he walked into the road and thus plenty of time to slow down, all without having to burn the gas or tires up on the cop car. All in all, super efficient. In this case, had I been speeding, my detector wouldn't have helped at all.

Yesterday though, I was coming home down the interstate and knew when I was coming up on the four different speed traps all WAY before I was even in view of the patrol car. The guys had their cars parked on I-12 just chillaxing with the KA band radar blasting down the road and bouncing off of stuff.

I did experience something new later last night as well. I was driving down I-12 (at a different time) and a BRPD unit was parked on the side of the interstate with his drivers door open holding what I assume to be a radar gun. It was putting out a K band, not a KA or laser. I thought that y'all only used handheld LIDAR (laser) units now and were no longer using the older and arguably less accurate and inefficient RADAR guns? Any BRPD guys have comments?

Austin

 

[LNSvince]

Subscribers to "waze" app always helps.
Mine is constantly on. I make sure to let others know asap.

NOt a perfect scenario, but the with amount of people using waze, it is working. [ or we are all working as a team ]

If there are no wazers in the area, then slow down. Its that simple.

 

[AustinBR]

Not speeding much helps too!!

 

[Suburbazine]

Not speeding much helps too!!

Escort LIVE and a radar detector work better (if you're not speeding *much*)! A radar detector with a ZR1 shifter is even better!

 

[AustinBR]

Escort LIVE and a radar detector work better (if you're not speeding *much*)! A radar detector with a ZR1 shifter is even better!

True. Lasers will still get ya though as the ZR1 shifter doesn't work that well. I find driving smart to work best though.

--Sent From My Galaxy S4

 

[sixgundunn]

Just wear a foil hat, preferably with a pair of those spring mounted Martian Antennae on a headband, when the officer approaches the vehicle and your window is loaded, begin waiving your hands in the air above your head while exclaiming in an excited voice "the bees, oh my God, it's the bees! Help! Help!". Once the officer calms you down, start going down the list as to why you shouldn't be stopped with explanations such as 1)the ship for the planet ZAR leaves in half an hour and won't be back for at least another millennium 2) You're not riding dirty-your superiors won't issue you a raygun and you are allergic to drugs and alcohol . 3)as an ambassador from ZAR you have intergalactic, diplomatic immunity. 4)Although you are licensed to practice law on the planet ZAR, you are not licensed on the planet Earth, much less the state of Louisiana and are totally unfamiliar with any speed laws. 5)If all else fails, plead with him that you can't be taken alive - there are fates worse than death. 6)offer to be pepper sprayed, tased, waterboarded, and/or shot if he lets you go with a warning. If you don't get pepper sprayed or shot, the officers dash cam video will go viral and you'll be famous plus you may very well be let go with just a warrant.

 

[sixgundunn]

And your allergic to peanuts as well. Last line should read, let go with just a warning. Damn spellcheck.

 

[sixgundunn]

You could also chain yourself to the steering wheel and tell the officer that you have to get home before the timer in the airbag goes off. Damn newfangled cars!

 

[alpinehyperlite]

I did experience something new later last night as well. I was driving down I-12 (at a different time) and a BRPD unit was parked on the side of the interstate with his drivers door open holding what I assume to be a radar gun. It was putting out a K band, not a KA or laser. I thought that y'all only used handheld LIDAR (laser) units now and were no longer using the older and arguably less accurate and inefficient RADAR guns? Any BRPD guys have comments?

Austin

Not sure about how brpd does it, but when we put our cars into the fleet yard for maintenance and check out a pool car, they don't have radar units in them, so we have a handheld radar unit that we can check up of the office to utilize until our assigned unit is ready.

 

[swagge1]

Off topic, but does anyone know why troopers were pulling cars over on the on ramp at Highland Rd. and I-10 last week? As I passed the pulled over cars it appeared that they had current inspection stickers.

 

[Jack]

Off topic, but does anyone know why troopers were pulling cars over on the on ramp at Highland Rd. and I-10 last week? As I passed the pulled over cars it appeared that they had current inspection stickers.

Seatbelts maybe?

 

[molonlabe]

Newer radars are hard to evade. They take a quick, split second snapshot of your vehicle (with a photo) and that's it, you're done. The less funded PDs still use old "guns", that require longer "focusing" and those you can pretty much beat.

 

[Suburbazine]

Newer radars are hard to evade. They take a quick, split second snapshot of your vehicle (with a photo) and that's it, you're done. The less funded PDs still use old "guns", that require longer "focusing" and those you can pretty much beat.

Vehicle based radar units do not take images; while they can be fast (instant-on, POP, etc) doesn't mean they are accurate like that. (POP isn't reliable, instant-on requires the officer to play with the RF Hold function).

If you're speeding along by your lonesome and get snagged with instant-on, you're probably microwave toast.

The new Ranging Doppler units hitting the roads are a whole lot of fun to use though- no more "It was the guy in front of me speeding" excuses...

 

[SVT]

Seatbelts maybe?

I was thinking they were hard-up for money

 

[Suburbazine]

Off topic, but does anyone know why troopers were pulling cars over on the on ramp at Highland Rd. and I-10 last week? As I passed the pulled over cars it appeared that they had current inspection stickers.

Big campaign running right now on seatbelts and DWI. (The drunks all fell asleep on the roads early this morning LOL)

 

[kz45]

Off topic, but does anyone know why troopers were pulling cars over on the on ramp at Highland Rd. and I-10 last week? As I passed the pulled over cars it appeared that they had current inspection stickers.

Using the shoulder as the turn lane to get on the interstate, during rush hour traffic helping the flow!!
They had a motor unit siting in shell parking lot watching, then would radio there bud's

 

[Vsotok10]

Using the shoulder as the turn lane to get on the interstate, during rush hour traffic helping the flow!!
They had a motor unit siting in shell parking lot watching, then would radio there bud's

So hard up for money then. Public safety is in jeopardy when the shoulder becomes a free-for-all.