I live in a relatively small town in Tennessee where the police department views residents with dollar signs in their eyes. Like clockwork at the end of every month, we see speed trap after speed trap around corners, over hills, most of which where the limit drops to 30mph. After getting tagged once and observing literally SIX places where these speed traps are set up from my house to the interstate (including right in front of the subdivision where I live at 5pm...waiting for you to come home), I knew it was time to stop driving 'naked' and pick up a radar detector. But which one?

In high school, I had one of those old square Escorts. Being young and ignorant, I still got busted a few times. But the Escort was reliable and did its job, even if I wasn't using it correctly. Knowing this and researching the 8500 versus the Valentine, I decided to stick with the Passport. After months of failed tries on ebay, I finally won one at $225, which I felt was a steal.

Upon receiving the Escort, I positioned it smack in the lower middle of my windshield and went out for a test. It was a nice feeling to have some sort of protection from radar. The first few days I left the unit alone on 'Auto' mode and got used to the different tones for the different bands of radar and the false alarms I will be encountering on the roads I routinely travel. Once I got comfortable with everything, I looked at what options the Passport has and how perhaps I could modify them to suit my driving.

By and large, I left the unit as is. I changed the display a bit, started using the City/Highway mode and that was about it. Right out of the box, it's click-and-go. Some of the more useful features I've found are:

-- The smart cord is a great idea. There is a mute button on the cord by the connection to your car's cigarette lighter so you don't have to go reaching up to the windshield to cut off a full blown alert. In addition, after a brief warning period, the Escort itself cuts the volume down so as not to annoy. This is another feature that can be modified if you choose to have the volume not change for an extended alert. The only addition I would like to see for the smart cord would be to have a City/Highway button on the cord as well.

-- False alarms aren't a huge problem. Sure, you get them in the city but if you're near a grocery store or whatever, it's likely you SHOULDN'T be driving much above the limit anyway.

-- There are a great many options that can be changed on the Escort, sounds, displays, start-up, you can even elect to have normal/low/no X-band detection since that band is all but finished as far as police radar is concerned, but still used for automatic door openers and the like. So if you KNOW X-band isn't in use in your state, you can turn it off and never have to listen to another false X-band alert again.

My only problem with a unit this expensive is that I don't feel comfortable leaving it up after I park my car. A top of the line $300 radar detector is easy money for a thief and I've had two radar detectors stolen in the past. So perhaps it's my being paranoid, but I either take the Escort off the windshield or take it with me when I park. I understand there is an in-dash model that perhaps I'll look into after buying a new car in a few years.

State, City and County budgets are being slashed right and left everywhere. I was reading an article the other day that stated that money would be made up by increasing fees on cigarettes, alcohol AND traffic violations. Politicians would rather keep their cushy jobs by raising the fees on those items, rather than income taxes...after all, who is going to argue with increasing fees on things we shouldn't be doing in the first place? My point is that speed traps and traffic violations are going to do nothing but get worse, some places such as where I live worse than others. When this happens, we as the public deserve to know when we're being watched. The Passport 8500 does just that.

Recommended: Yes