# long distance driving **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 1, 2005, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-distance-driving/306358 "2005-06-01T13:39:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-distance-driving/306358/41 "2005-06-03T14:02:30Z")
One of my brothers - get him in a moving car and he’s out like a light in 15 minutes. His wife has to do all the driving in their family if they’re going out of town. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-distance-driving/306358/42 "2005-06-03T15:39:19Z")
> [@chaparralv8](#): > > If you want to drive long days on the Interstates, buy a Valentine One, on credit if you have to. It is cheaper than any one speeding ticket and a lot cheaper than getting towed out of a cornfield after you fall asleep. \ I wish there was someone to get reliable, unassailable data about radar detector efficacy. I was under the impression that it was common knowledge that any and all radar detectors do not work. \ ---
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-distance-driving/306358/43 "2005-06-03T16:58:17Z")
Every summer since I moved to the US, I have driven to Alberta. 2543 miles one-way; last summer we put 7037 miles on our vehicle between leaving Baltimore, going to Yellowknife NWT, and back to Baltimore. The first year it was just me and my ten-year-old son. I found that stopping every few hours to pee or stretch, or just to make some lunch (we travelled with a cooler) helped. I went 12 hours one day, without being tired at the end of it. I stopped only because it was dark and there wasn’t another town to stay in for another three hours or so. ---
**Author:** ![chaparralv8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@chaparralv8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaparralv8)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-distance-driving/306358/44 "2005-06-03T20:12:27Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > \ > > I wish there was someone to get reliable, unassailable data about radar detector efficacy. I was under the impression that it was common knowledge that any and all radar detectors do not work. > > \ Car and Driver magazine does a test every three years. They use a huge proving ground and several engineers from different disciplines, and come up with tests that simulate normal and worst-case conditions. They buy their detectors anonymously at stores (or anonymously from Valentine) and the engineers take them apart after testing to screen for ringers. The garden-variety el-cheapo Wal-Mart radar detector is useless at best - not sensitive to anything at a useful range, capable at going nuts every time you go past a shopping center, and so poorly designed that it’ll set off other radar detectors. A Passport 8500 or, better yet, a Valentine One, is a great device. It will pick up REFLECTED radar beams and screen the waveforms for anything a police radar device could emit. It will pick up direct radar beams at a distance of several miles - much longer than the range of a policeman’s eyes. It will filter out minor sources of off-band radar (automatic doors and the like). The Valentine will even tell you WHERE the radar sources are and HOW MANY of them there are. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-distance-driving/306358.md?page=2)