Come ON - do radar detectors REALLY work any more?Nov 27 '00 (Updated Dec 15 '00) Write an essay on this topic.The Man loves to oppress those with a heavy right foot. The Man, however, doesn't love being oppressed by superior technology, and thusly he raises the bar in the high speed stakes. With the advent a few years ago of instant-on Ka band radar and the currently obscure but increasingly popular Laser radar, is using a radar detector the equivalent of bringing a knife to a gunfight? Forget choosing WHICH model to buy - should I even CHOOSE a model at all? Before I continue, I can't take complete credit for the inspiration to write this. Originally I had posted a request on a public Epinions message board concerning radar detector acquisition. A member (an loquacious but credible critter) then posted a reply to the effect of hoping I'm a collector since they're completely useless in highway combat. He then went on to post his example of how years ago he was caught grossly exceeding the speed limit despite having a working detector. The alert went off too late for him to react and get legal. The result was, of course, a ticket. I'm not picking on the guy. He had no way of beating the radar trap. Fact is, this occurs thousands of times a year, including one adrenaline-kicking episode to Yours Truly in the winter of 1987 on some deserted Wisconsin highway. I believe that radar detectors are powerful weapons in combating the oppression of speed laws. I fully believe they do a fine job of detecting signals from a greater distance than any cop could get a reading. I ALSO fully and unequivocably believe the guy's story. Sound like a paradox? Mmmmmmaybe. So where's the disconnect? The operative term in describing a detector is weapon. Different weapons have varying capabilities. A rifle is useful in a field and useless in a phone booth. A broadsword is completely ineffective from 100 yards away. A shield is considerably better on defense than offense. The point is any given detector has strengths AND weaknesses. A detector owner has protection, but does NOT have Carte Blanche to speed obliviously. While it's true that the range of a good detector can exceed a radar gun's reading range, one fact shatters the apparent paradox - not all radar bands have to be on all the time! In the good old days, X and K bands were allocated for speed detection. The technology was such that the speed guns had to be turned on all the time to function properly. The difference between the two bands is range - the K band has a shorter range and was - theoretically - harder to detect. Radar guns, though, are nothing more than handheld, relatively short-range transmitters with an even shorter-range scope of reading the speed of traffic. All a detector had to have was a range adequately superior to the reading range of the gun to allow the driver to react accordingly and legalize. This all changed with the introduction of Ka band in the early 1980s. Ka band (also known as instant-on) could be left off until the officer chose to read a vehicle. The read time was quick - on the order of a couple seconds. Unless the subject was in heavy acceleration or deceleration, a speed could be determined by a mere trigger pull. Detectors could be tuned to read this band, but by then it was too late. Given the time frame, this is what likely nabbed the other member, and what DID nab me. Since we were each on deserted highways, by the time we saw the pretty lights, our pictures were taken. Busted. This didn't completely kill the detector industry. Working in favor of motorists was traffic volume. If the highway was fairly well travelled, the cop would usually read cars ahead of a motorist with a detector, giving enough warning blips to allow the speeder to find his brakes. Recently Laser band has crept onto the scene with an even shorter range than Ka and increasingly difficult detection as it carried the same instant-on capabilities. Even the detector manufacturers admit that defending against Laser is virtually impossible unless traffic is heavy. So are detectors passe? No way! Despite the availability of more effective radar, many Barney Fifes still use the antiquated X and K bands, which are laughably easy to detect from a safe distance. Granted, some municipalities plant them primarily to slow detector users, but to the unprotected, the technology might as well be cutting edge and the Powers That Be still bag enough kills to justify their existence. Enough jurisdictions use Ka and - currently in rare cases - Laser to merit some prudence on the part of fast drivers. Detection of these bands depends heavily on the amount of traffic on the road at that moment. If there are enough targets for the cops to shoot ahead of an equipped speeder, he will have the time (provided he's mentally awake) to react and pass the trap unscathed. However, if the speeder is a solo traveler on a barren road, then it's an easy kill for the cop and the speeder has indeed brought a penknife to an AK-47 battle. A lone motorist would be wise to be extremely vigilant regarding what's down the road and to maintain a speed close to the limit. As painful as it is, and BELIEVE ME I feel this pain, it's easier to choke on losing a few minutes and a little patience than to choke on a ticket and the accompanying five year insurance hike sentence. To further combat laser, dimming or eliminating reflective material on a car's surface goes a long way in reducing a laser gun's effective reading range. Driving with headlights on also helps greatly. Nothing confuses a light beam like another light beam AND you get the added safety benefit of greater visibility to others. One more consideration is that radar is NOT the only game in town. One sure-fire way to beat the detector manufacturers is to not use radar. Old-school methods such as following a suspect or timing him between two points are still used effectively by some officers. Even the Valentine One won't pick up on this dinosaur "technology". My conclusion is that radar detectors are still useful and are NOT hopelessly obsolete. They are, however, a weapon with powers and limitations. Being aware of these factors and using them to your advantage will immeasurably reduce the hassles and costs that come with being nabbed for speeding by The Man. Related Reviews: Passport 8500 Radar Detector: http://driver4t5.epinions.com/elec-review-6DC4-15F80693-3A1166AE-prod2 Passport 7500 Radar Detector: http://driver4t5.epinions.com/elec-review-269B-11999613-39EA738E-prod5 Valentine One Radar Detector: http://driver4t5.epinions.com/elec-review-1878-10D3544-39EFB908-prod1  |
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