Only illegal in commercial vehicles IN CA. But you can get tagged with a windshield obstruction charge if you put it there.
And is does exceeding the speed limit in and of itself constitute reckless driving? It apparently does in Virginia, but most other states specify the vehicle has to have been operated “in a careless manner” or in a manner that endangers life or property. Would a careless maneuver have to be witnessed, or would there have to be other cars on the road, to charge reckless driving?
Here in Colorado, where they did drive, they can be charged with reckless driving, which has a similar standard (it applies to “a person who drives a motor vehicle, bicycle, electrical assisted bicycle or low-power scooter in such a manner as to indicate either a wanton or a willful disregard for the safety of persons or property."). It’s up to the jury to decide, as a matter of fact, whether driving 150 or so shows a reckless disregard for the safety of persons or property. Obviously, for the defense, it’s easier to argue that the answer is “no” if they can argue that it was done on a desolate road.
Actually, a quick google search tells me that Reckless Endangerment would be a better charge for the prosecutor, since it carries a more severe sanction. A person commits reckless endangerment in Colorado by recklessly engaging in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious bodily injury to another person. Reckless endangerment is a Colorado class 3 misdemeanor. It can be punished by a fine of up to $750 and up to 6 months in jail.
Again, I think the defense is bolstered if the evidence is that the car was on an empty road. Of course, if they are darting through traffic, then you have witnesses who can testify to their whereabouts.
Actually, on preview, as a defense attorney, I’d argue that - per case law - reckless endangerment is an improper charge, subject to dismissal, since the legislature provided a more specific charge in the form of reckless driving (or its lesser equivalent, careless driving). Reckless driving is only punishable by up to 90 days in jail, which might explain the apathy for prosecution, in light of the costs of pursuing the case and the fact that, let’s face it, nobody was actually hurt.
Just to elaborate, in Virginia speeding over 80 MPH, or 20 MPH in excess of the posted limit, whichever is lower, is automatic reckless driving.
I suspect it’s mostly this. It’d be a pain in the ass and expensive and to what end? Nobody was hurt and the act is (pardon me) in the rear view mirror.
I mean there’s an entire TV show called Moonshiners about illegal alcohol production and nothing appears to happen to them.
In which country? That is news to me. More so, given the data privacy regulations.
There are sections in Europe that have a speed limit that is enforced by timing the vehicles between sections from video footage. I am surprised that it is not done for tunnels, or not in any that I know of.
Given that Garmin is American, it is more likely that they are helping the police. If they are. I have a Tom Tom GPS, but no longer use it, as the new car has a GPS built in. Dunno what make.
Pour encourager les autres?
I mean, maybe. I can see a DA deciding to take this on as a PR move. Plenty of attention for the prosecutor and maybe a warning shot against the underground racing community. Or maybe not, but it doesn’t seem totally implausible.
This is a bit of a hijack, but my experience from the other side of the fence says different, unless you’re specifically talking lidar and trying to decelerate from 150 or so in time to keep from getting a ticket. It seems to pay for itself about once every two months, tops. Since purchasing my current detector in 2008, I’ve had exactly four tickets from radar and lidar*. On one ticket, I wasn’t paying attention to the detector blaring, so it was my fault. The second was on a desolate road, with no other traffic for miles at 2AM, so he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger until I came by. The third was man who was admirably patient with his radar gun on a two lane highway. The fourth was a guy who literally popped out from behind a bush (on foot) and tagged me from around 100 feet with his lidar. I actually complimented him on his technique, and would probably appreciate yours as well. He actually issued me a front plate ticket to make his job easier next time, so I might just keep my big mouth shut in the future. Too many of your fellow officers have a tendency to spray too many cars before eyeballing its speed before hand, providing many stray signals for the detector to pick up. If they were more patient, the guns would be more effective. But! I did know that someone was getting a ticket before they did one morning this week.
I absolutely agree with you that issuing a ticket to the subjects of the thread would be massive work for small potatoes. Any municipality that had the extra funds to spend on this would be better served by spending the same money on a group of cops with a sergeant (who would presumably know what he’s doing) running the gun and telling everyone else who to go get. They’d make more revenue, and have an actual effect on the speeds on at least that freeway for a day or so, with evidence that’s certain to stick. Arlington and Fort Worth both do this on freeways where there have recently been wrecks that were determined to be due to excessive speed. The folks who zipped through on the Cannonball Run trip aren’t going to be coming back anytime soon, but there are other fools who drive there every day at lunatic speeds.
*I’ve gotten other tickets since then, but they were all obtained through the time honored tactic of pacing. Also, I have had detectors that were only a “you just got a ticket” detector, but my current model is actually a decent warning device. It can detect a cop that’s spraying radar all over every car in the passing lane for more than a mile or so in perfect conditions. Lidar, it’s only really useful at about half that, and only when the guy is just being lazy and hitting just about every car that is passing someone, or when the operator couldn’t find your headlights or plate to save his life. It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t amount to a license to drive like a moron, but it is effective. I know about a lot of traffic enforcement’s presence before I see them.
Wait a minute. You tell me I’m wrong and then turn around and say you’ve gotten speeding tickets while using a detector? Point and match: Me!
Not with laser they don’t. Laser is always instant on. The main target is usually the front license plate. At it’s widest a laser gun beam is about the circumference of a coffee can. Your detector on you dash or visor usually can’t even see it. When it does it’s too late. And laser detectors rarely pick up laser while cars ahead are being clocked.
Some officers will turn their radar on full blast while they are typing up a report of checking BOLO reports on their data terminal. But any officer that’s serious about nabbing someone will use the hold feature on the unit.
FYI, almost every department uses laser in SE Wisconsin, though departments have some old radar guns sitting around I’m sure. We’ve got an old Kustom Electronics Roadrunner stationary K-band that I think was made in the late 70’s/early 80’s. But it works and it gets recalibrated every year at the service center. But I don’t know anyone who uses it.
Laser is great. But one PITA about is many of the units can’t be used through the windshield as it says not to in the operators manual. Because of this the squad has to be parked differently and the driver of passenger window has to be down. This can make it’s use awkward on some roads, and miserable in the winter.
If the purpose of a ticket is to slow people down & not just bring the town revenue, a cop could just “spray radar all over every car in the passing lane” which would cause “actual effect on the speeds on at least that freeway for a day or so” of anyone with a detector. Geez, what a lazy cop, sitting in his car, eating donuts & slowing down traffic all because he’s sloppy with a radar gun. :rolleyes:
My emphasis. “Anyone with a detector” may be 1% of all cars on the road, max? Probably wouldn’t have a noticeable effect.
You appear to be under the impression that it’s purpose is to eliminate all tickets. It aint. I commute 600 miles a week, most of it at a ticketable speed. My experience is that I avoid around two tickets a month with it. Those two tickets equal it’s inital cost, so it pays for itself every month.
When you shoot your coffee can beam down the freeway, it doesn’t all reflect back at you. It bounces around off of other things, and it can be detected by the detector. It’s not as effective as it is against detecting radar, but it is effective. Again, some cops can eyeball a car’s speed pretty well, and are patient. Others just hit every car coming down the road in the left lane.
And again, it’s useless against a cop who is pacing you.
Yeah, commasense, they’re not common enough for a spraying cop to affect the flow on a freeway with one.
I drive about one fifth of what you do but I also drive pretty much everywhere at “ticketable speeds.” That is, I am usually the fastest thing within a few miles of me. I have no radar detector so, by your estimate, I should probably expect to catch about one fifth of the two tickets per month you think you are avoiding. That is, I should expect to get about five tickets per year. How many do I actually get? I’ve had one ticket in the last five years and one time being pulled over and let go with a warning. pkbites is absolutely right; your radar detector is doing nothing for you. It has convinced you it’s helping though but it’s just a placebo. Chances are, its hurting you both because it gives you false confidence to speed when you shouldn’t and because if a cop sees it when he pulls you over, the cop is almost certainly going to give you a ticket when you might otherwise have gotten a warning.
Speed trap warnings on Waze are actually helpful. I hate the aggressive routing algorithm and the endless notices of “car stopped by road” from Waze but those speed trap warnings are worth the rest of the irritations.
Radar jamming is a federal offense, radio waves being regulated by the FCC and all that.
When Alex Roy revived the cannonball run fury after 27 years of relative inactivity, it was all very hush hush / rumor rumor until the various statutes of limitations expired. I don’t know why this recent record was announced so quickly, but I suspect they saw how little anyone really cared about the previous records. And besides, if you’re rich and bored, what’s the big deal about a few reckless driving charges? Pay your fines, maybe spend a few days in jail, big whoop.
FCC violations, on the other hand, nobody wants to mess with those. And I think that’s all it would take to shut the cannonball run down, essentially for good – a federal law under the commerce clause that made it a felony to attempt interstate speed records.
Same here (I guess it depends on what the definition of speeding is, but generally I go around 15-20 over on the highway when traffic allows). and I’ve only been pulled over once in the the last fifteen or twenty years for speeding (and got off with a written warning, which I had no idea cops actually took the time to do around here. I thought it was either verbal or you get a ticket. I mean, I knew written warnings existed, it’s just that if the cop is going to take time to write it out, they may as well just write a ticket.) No radar, no nothing, though these days I do try to put Waze (which gives user-submitted warnings of police spottings) on my phone when I remember.
Yes, but the average road cop is not equipped to investigate such an offense. An active jammer will activate the radar units RFI indicator and prevent a reading. But other things do that as well. Having the Radio Frequency Interference indicator activate is Hardly reasonable suspicion the stop a car.
Rocky Mountain Radar Corp makes a passive jammer. But you’d get the same results putting a brick on you dash. RMR is a complete scam.
The OP mentioned that having a device that detects aircraft would be illegal in a road vehicle. I question this but they won’t come back and provide a cite for their claim.
Doing 190MPH on I-80, however, is reasonable suspicion to stop a car. And when that car is loaded with $50k in fancy electronics, it’s going to garner even MORE suspicion.
I don’t know how the actual events would go down but if the car gets impounded and the FBI is called, nobody wants to deal with potential federal crimes.
These guys are banking on not getting caught, but the lack of radar jammers is in case they do.
I question this too but I don’t feel like digging up cites or trying to prove a negative.
For what it’s worth, everything pkbites has said in this thread is spot on in my opinion.
(snips all mine)
Well, you may drive near the speeds I do, I don’t know. I know you’re probably not driving where I am. In Texas, you’re going to get something like a free 10-15MPH at freeway speeds without getting pulled over in anywhere but the most restrictive burgs. There’s someone going faster than that who’ll be coming by in mere seconds, so they’ll usually wait for them. I may drive slower than that, but it’s almost always to avoid actually passing the local constabulatory. Being the fastest thing on the road doesn’t mean much with regard to tickets. You’d have to be driving heavily patrolled roads at relative speeds to local enforcement greater than that, and my commutes have been over some of the more heavily patrolled in my area. When I drove without the detector I was getting at least 3-4 speeding tickets a year, sometimes many more, for longer than two decades. With it the rate has dropped to less than 6 a decade, and a rate of about 3 a decade by radar/lidar (seriously, ask nicely and they’ll usually tell you what made them interested and how they clocked you). I know I’m a sample size of one, but that’s a pretty drastic drop. My route has not changed appreciably during that time other than when I was getting 3-4 a year, I wasn’t driving about half as far. The roads I added to my commute are about as heavily patrolled as my previous route.
So, I’ve been pulled over nearly 100 times, and less than 10% were after getting and actually paying attention to my current detector. I’m not really saying you’re wrong, but it certainly hasn’t been my experience. I arrive at the 2/month rate, because that’s about as often as I’m going “Yep, surely gonna get a ticket” speed, see a particular beep from the detector, slow down, then see the cop who is sitting on the side of the road (or hiding behind a sign on the overpass) who then sprays another car as it passes me and the detector goes nuts in a way it did not when I slowed down a few seconds ago.
Note, I said “a few seconds ago”. Having one is no license to drive like a moron. For it to work, it’s one more thing you have to be paying close attention to if you’re going faster than the speed limit. I have no doubt that pkbites pulls people over with them, possibly the same person repeatedly with my particular model. If they’re running lidar, and they’re patient enough and good enough at eyeballing speed to only tag cars that are going fast enough to be worth going after, it will only save you by the skin of your teeth, at best. I’ll forever remember the guy in Arlington who viewed me while standing behind a bush with his cruiser parked behind the same bush, popped out and tagged me from 100 feet, and I only scrubbed about 5mph off before he got a reading. I think he got me for 16 over. The plate ticket to make his next shot easier was a wash, install it and send a pic to the judge. Damn, he was good with that gun, and I eyeball that bush on the morning shift to this day. It would be completely useless at 150MPH against that guy. You’re going to have a very long talk on the side of the freeway, even if you know the governor or something. I imagine that’s probably why they used jammers and other people to scope out the route for this run.
Heh, I did get two warnings before the detector. Once because the cop said “Stand over there, I don’t think there are any ants there”, and I ended up standing right in an ant bed. All around nice cop, but no entomologist. The other was because I don’t know why. I was going “please take me to jail”* speeds. I guess it was because I was willing to sit around and talk? Maybe it’s because he tailgaited me when I was going “ticketable” speeds, and that goaded me into a quick display of “please take me to jail” (hey, it was a trooper in a fucking Dodge pickup in 1998, hadn’t seen them in highway patrol duty yet), but I quickly pulled over when he hit the lights? I dunno. Another amazingly nice cop. Crazy man also let me walk on having my inspection and tags out 18 months (but current insurance when I finally found the right card! :D). Lots of fun to talk to. Will always remember that stop. Really, my experiences with getting stopped and ticketed 3-4 times a year were usually socially positive, but financially negative. I’ve often driven noticeable cars, and what gearhead doesn’t want to be asked about their car? Good times, I honestly miss them even if they were expensive.
But the theory falls apart when I add that I’ve gotten two warnings since getting the detector in around half the time span, and with fewer opportunities to get a warning since I was being pulled over fewer times per year. Not having the detector didn’t seem to save me from many tickets. Being charming and having an interesting car appears to have a low success rate, as well. I was getting them left and right. Having it doesn’t seem to have affected my rate of warnings negatively. The only 100% method I know of is standing in ants. I’ve stood in ants on exactly one traffic stop and the officer directly attributed issuing a warning to the critters.
So, if you’re probably already getting a ticket and are desperate to get out of it. I advise you stand in ants. Please report back here if it works or not. It was an accident when I did it, and I don’t plan to use it again. I’ll just pay the ticket, but your input is valuable should you be in a position for this tactic to look favorable.
Well, those will stop some speed traps, like the one where one guy is running a gun and several cars or cycles are running down the offenders, but those only really tell you when someone else is already getting a ticket and don’t really work for the single well placed cruiser beside the freeway. If I’m paying half as much attention to the beeps and readout of the detector as you are to the Waze app, I usually see both of them coming.
*Around double the posted speed limit.
What a great tag line for an ad from Whistler, Valentine 1, Uniden, Escort, Bel, or any of the other companies making bird dogs. They’d be bankrupt in about a month.
Or how about *“You’ll only get 4 tickets this year, instead of 8”. * 
Truth is, if you ever had the opportunity to use actual police radar and laser equipment you’d realize how easily a skilled patrolman can make your device useless.
I never pull the trigger unless I’ve made a visual calculation of a speed in excess of my tolerance for that location. By the time your Fuzzbuster screams bloody murder I already have a speed locked in as well as video of you slamming on your brakes. I also love when people rip them off their dash or visor and try to hide them under their seat.