I only heard it go off a few times over all the years I had them. I have no idea if that worked out to every time a laser was pointed at my car or 1 out of 100 times.
How true this is, I don’t know, but from wiki “radar remains more prevalent because of its lower price relative to LIDAR equipment and the amount of radar equipment already in service.”
There are 3rd party apps and extensions to add speed limits. Here’s one for android:
Some google maps show speed limits (beta or for some locals?). Waze has them.
Waze does part of this – it shows the road limit and changes the color of your speed if you’re over it.
I used to use radar detectors. They were really good at detecting grocery store doors.
One time, I did intentionally speed excessively over a 225 mile round-trip parts chasing mission. The detector definitely saved me from a (huge) ticket that time!
That they did, but I think on some of them you could disable the X band to eliminate most false alerts. By the time I stopped using them, I think all the police radars were on K (Ka?).
Another thing I remember about them was seeing a car suddenly slow down from 20 over to just under the limit for no apparent reason, then a quarter mile down you’d see a speed trap set on on the opposite side of the freeway. That was usually a good car to keep an eye on.
Even if you didn’t have one, there were enough people with them back in the 90’s that they provided a small amount of herd immunity.
Thanks, guys.
I downloaded Waze a while ago, but haven’t gotten in the habit of using it yet, so I didn’t know it had those features. I just downloaded Velociraptor, so I’ll see how I like it with Google Maps.
[quote=“Bonnie14, post:18, topic:813247”]
If I were the judge, I’d say, “The cop pointed it at the car that was moving the fastest. If you are saying that he must have picked up the car next to you, how fast were you going?”
Anyway, I use radar detectors, I just don’t keep them in my car. I keep them on the road, attached to the back ends of other people’s cars.
When I see them light up, I know that there is a cop ahead.
Didn’t he have time to take a fast train?
This. Not to mention that when the detector beeps, you’ve already been tagged. Cruise control is so much cheaper and better.
No, his baby just a wrote him a letter.
No, radar makes quite a large cone as it leave the transmitter. It can spread more than wide enough to set off your detector when their pointing it at cars next to you or well in front of or behind you.
In fact, there’s a long bridge in Milwaukee, this one, that’s notorious (or at least it used to be) for having a speed trap right past the crest under the super structure. I’m not sure if you can tell from the picture, but as you approach the hill, you can’t see anyone parked just past it. However, in the spot about where this picture was taken, my radar detectors would pick the speed trap, and then drop it as I came around the bend. I assume it’s a line of sight issue, but it worked great. I always got a small kick out of driving right around the speed limit as people would get frustrated and go flying past me.
The cops would set up shop in either direction, in fact, I’m still surprised that people don’t let off the gas as they go over the hill even if we haven’t seen a speed trap in recent memory. OTOH, this is the place to see what your car can do. I don’t know anyone (myself included) that didn’t break 100mph on this stretch of road. Of course, when I (and most others) did it, we’d do it coming this way (towards where the picture was taken) and wait until we got over the hill to make sure there wasn’t a speed trap as well as making sure there wasn’t any traffic for the next mile or so.
TL;DR, they work find and the radar doesn’t need to be pointed at your car to set it off.
I’ve recently seen one, and have over the years on occasion, but perhaps 1 once per 6 months timeframe.
My wife’s Kia has a heads up display that puts it right in your face. I want to say it lets you know when your speeding, but I’m not sure if I remember the warning or if I just remember thinking it would be trivially easy program it to do that.
She brought a good radar detector into the marriage which we habitually set up when we go on long road trips. It’s good for letting us know when we get near an airport or if someone is using their garage door opener. Cruise control keeps the bears off our tails effectively enough.
I seem to recall cruise control being relatively rare before the 90s. It was really easy for your speed to creep up on you, especially on uncrowded highways. I wonder if its ubiquity now has rendered the detectors largely useless. You can still get them, of course, but they cost more than a ticket. The old codger in me believes that if you think they’re a good investment then you’re a habitual speed freak and you need to slow down on the regular roads and get your jollies on a track.
Are you addicted to your escort? There are threads about that.
Waze takes a little getting used to – I just don’t like their UI very much, but it’s become my maps app of choice. It does show you speed limits and, from what I’ve seen, is pretty good about transitioning from one to another when the speed limits change. I don’t know if its the way I have it set, but mine doesn’t show the speed limit unless I’m going over it. Then it will alert me by showing my speed in red and a little speed limit sign with the posted speed limit next to it.
I also like it as it continually tells me about obstructions and police in the road that other drivers have reported. And most of the time, the reports are correct.
I stopped using my radar detector about 20 years ago. The last time I used it, I yanked the power cord out of the cigarette lighter socket (or whatever it’s called) as I was exiting the highway since I wouldn’t need it anymore for the rest of my ride home on residential streets. When I pulled on it, the tip of the adapter broke off and stayed in the socket— igniting an 8-inch flame as I was turning onto a different street. I was able to blow it out and figured it was a bad omen.
My father-in-law still uses one for long trips.
