I picked up new in the box old stock Cobra ESD 7000 radar detector for $ 10.00 that touts “VG-2” operational mode that means it’s undetectable by police radar sniffers. Radar detectors re legal in the large majority of US states. Why the big deal about the police being able to detect their presence in cars? Other than the small handful of states where they are illegal who cares?
Radar detectors are legal in most states, why the concern about the police detecting their presence?
Weird. I’m guessing there are very different internqtional differences going on here.
The guy who says it saved him a few tickets in a single month… I dunno what he was doing to be at risk of so many tickets, and presumably before he got the dectector he was getting quite a few… I’d guess we’d be better off he he wasn’t driving. He sounds like a twat. The occasional ticket is understandable, but racking 'em up in one month? I hope I’m never on the same road as this guy.
Over her in the UK that simply can’t happen. A ticket of any kind gives you a mimumum of 3 points and a maximum of 12. 12 points, and that’s an automatic driving ban. So you could only speed 4 times at maximum (depenidng where you are and how fast you are going, of course, each might result in more points, menaing you can do it only 3 times or twice without being banned).
That said, if the aim of tickets is to get you to slow down, surely a radar detector is gettijng you to do the same thing at certian locations? So it’s a good thing. The cops should just set up a bunch of fake radar emitters, everyone would slow down, everyone wins. This, of course, assumes that revenue is not the motivation for tickets.
I will never understand these. Is their target market twentysomething douchebags? I have only known a few people with them, and they have all driven like maniacs. Is it so hard to NOT speed?
–chaoticbear, twentysomething who manages to go the speed limit.
The way I understand it, while laser/radar detectors are perfectly legal, the police will probably pay more attention to someone that they know have one, since they’re more likely to be doing something they shouldn’t.
From my observation, although I don’t use them myself (this was bought for eBay re-sale) a good chunk of the more expensive detector users are not kids, but 30-50 year old men who drive fairly expensive sports cars and like to travel at, or just over, the speed limit, and occasionally “speed burst” on open, non-trafficked roads to test their cars performance (when they can get away with it). They also like the cat and mouse game if they think they are made aware of radar. I never realized how many cops are riding around with active radar “on” (although they are not always looking for speeders) until I rode with these guys.
You had it perfect up to here. This is the big flaw, because it’s ALWAYS about revenue generation. Always.
That’s not completely true. There are some major roads around here that end up passing through some fairly high populated residential areas. While the speed limit of 25 in a few places is probably not justified, if it was never enforced people would likely go at least 45 - which be would incredibly dangerous. Of course, it was enforced in a way that was entirely unreasonable - both I and the mother of one of my friends got pulled over after accelerating while just coming out of the residential area, but before the speed limit changed.
The insanely high fine you pay - that’s for revenue. I’d reckon that for many folks, being pulled over for what often amounts to a half hour and having the hassle of dealing with the citation are big enough deterrents.
The reason for having a radar detector, for me anyway, is not to use it to violate laws. I just want to be able to tell when I’m under surveillance. The police have have their tools, and I want to know when they are in use, so I have my tools.
In Texas, they actually setup fake radars that pretty much broadcast a constant signal. This makes using a radar detector absolutely useless because it is always going off every five minutes.
When the police do use a radar detector, they have a trigger on/off switch on it. The device is off until they see a suspected speeding car. Then, the police aim the radar at the car, pull the trigger and turn on the radar. By the time your radar detector is flashing, it’s too late. The police already have you.
I think it’s one of the reasons why radar detectors aren’t as popular as they once were.
Most U.S. states (remember most laws in the U.S. are state laws) also go with the point system. In New Jersey a speeding ticket is 2 points, and it is 4 points if you are going more than 15 miles per hour over the speed limit. Points are doubled in construction zones and certain “safety corridors” which means a single speeding ticket could be as high as 8 points. If you get 12 points, your license is suspended.
You can take a Defensive Driving Course to remove a few points, but only once.
There are certain highways I exceed the speed limit on just because I don’t want to get rear ended. I know that IH 45 between Galveston and Houston is one of them. The last time I was on it, I was going over 80 mph (back in the 55mph days), and I was the slowest car on the road. I suspect that many of the drivers easily exceeded 100mph.
Count me in the oddball section then. Except for setting my cruise control for 74 on the freeway, I’m content to drive the speed limit in the right lane and let people do their thang. I think I am overly paranoid. I got my only two speeding tickets in my life in the same week when I was barely 18, and I think I am turned off for life.
Much like having a tire blow out on the interstate turned me off of interstate driving for literally 2 years. I wouldn’t even make the 5 minute trip between the two exits in the city where I went to school.
Typing that out makes me sound like a total crazy person.
OP: Because in Virginia (and other states), they are illegal. Thus, I need a detector that cannot be detected by the police, lest they pull me over for having a detector.
Unfortunately, now that the Spectre RADAR Detector-Detector has come on the market, VG2 protection is useless, and you will be caught if you have one.
…unless of course you use the Stinger DSI. 
I’m a cop, for those who don’t know.
Radar detectors are legal where I am (Washington state), so I’ve never heard of any law enforcement agency using devices that detect them.
However, if I stop you for speeding and see one in your car, I am far more likely to write you a ticket that I would be otherwise. I figure that you have used the detector to avoid tickets in the past, so you don’t deserve a warning.
I also keep my radar unit in standby mode until I actually see a car that appears to be speeding. By the time your detector goes off, I already have your speed locked in.
A common assumption that simply isn’t true. I know that many agencies do depend on ticket revenues (a situation that I despise), but it isn’t universal. Where I work, over 70% of every fine goes to the state and doesn’t go into the city’s coffers. Our city budget does not in any way work off of ticket revenue, and in 22 years I’ve never been told we need to be writing more tickets or have even ever heard what our ticket revenues are.
Here, and in many (probably most) other places, tickets are used to make people comply with the law and to promote traffic safety. Period.
Are you saying the city budget doesn’t depend on ticket revenue or that your city doesn’t use the revenue for feeding the budget? When you say “does not in any way work off of ticket revenue”, it sounds like you’re saying the money doesn’t feed the city’s budget. It seems you just said that somewhere south of 30% of ticket revenue goes to the city, so this doesn’t make sense.
Maybe you cops are writing enough tickets and they don’t need to tell you to write more? Maybe they have ways of making it more likely that you’ll write more tickets like telling you to patrol certain areas more, rather then coming out and telling you something that might make it to the local papers? So what if they never told you where the money went?
The biggest fear of getting a ticket for a moving violation are the points and having insurance rates go up for years. I know plenty of cities big and small that depend on ticket revenue for new squad cars, equipment, etc. I’m betting this is the norm in most locales.
He may be a trucker driving through several states. He is attempting to deliver his load by a certain time. He can get a certain number of tickets in each state and still keep his license. He would carefully obey the speed limit in states where he has tickets, and risk speeding in those he does not if he were running late.
This is only partially true, since the beam diffuses over distance, and radar detectors will detect radio emissions that are directed at another vehicle.
That being said, the best way to avoid a ticket is to not speed. Especially since I have been led to believe that police are quite adept at determining an accurate speed without the help of radar.
And for the OP, vehicles over 10,000 lbs are subject to a federal highway radar/laser detector ban.
Well, if he’s a trucker, then he’s almost certainly got a Commercial Driver’s License, and the feds maintain a database on the driving record (actually, two). Most states are sharing driving record info nowadays, as well.
Sure, he could get multiple tickets for that single run, but then his license would have been suspended or revoked in short order after the convictions. . .
You’re right, I should have been more precise.
The city does make some revenue off of tickets. My point is that we do not write tickets because of the revenue (as Airman Doors, USAF stated as an absolute fact). The reason we write tickets is to enforce the law and to promote traffic safety.
Our city budget doesn’t even have a line item for ticket revenue. They do have one for monies received by the municipal court, but that includes all misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor crimes, court costs, and sanctions, as well as fines from infractions.
Despite the bad economy and having two of my officers laid off this year, no one in the city has remotely suggested that we should be writing more tickets to help the city budget.
I know that many agencies do count on ticket revenue for their budgets. My point is that this is not universal.
LRPD regularly sets up a radar trap on Markham. I passed a motorcycle guy running it today, hidden behind a curve, but distressingly never saw the guy who would step out with his palm out. Could one guy be doing it by himself?
It is usually run at the bottom of a half mile step decline on Markham, where it is quite easy to speed. Of course, it is only to make folks drive carefully where it is easy to drive dangerously. I waved at the guy with the gun last week. He grimaced, but waved back. 
Does anybody have a problem with that? I think it’s a great system. Police need revenue for their budget. They can either tax law abidding citizen me or they can fine non-law abidding citizen speeder who’s endangering the towns citizens by speeding through it. It’s like taxing criminals.