Speedtraps

[NuGuy]

Hiya Tarp,

You hit the nail on the head. As soon as I hit 3 errors in the first line, I shut down processing any information in the rest of the post.

Posts like that are hard to read. By the time you get to a certain age, grammar is hard wired, so it's difficult to see past it when it's done incorrectly (or not at all). It looks bad, so people immediately discount the point you are trying to get across.

LOL, sometimes I wish there were a way to send posts back to the sender marked with red ink.

JMHO,
Nu

 

[WrightAvia]

"so called laser guns" what the heck does that mean? LIDAR IS LASER.

http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/road/detail.cfm?ObjectID=7&SectionID=road

And that part you said about new equipment and LIDAR not being detectable? Bullcrap. Bullcrap on not being able to detect instant on radar either. It's up to a driver to know how to integrate a RADAR/LIDAR unit into alert driving patterns to reduce his or her's exposure to being persecuted for speeding. If you just plug the box in and drive around thinking it will just tell you everything, you deserve the ticket.

VASCAR isn't detectable, as is being clocked by the cops certified calibrated speedometer, neither of which is new technology. By the way, "so called LASER" isn't a panacea either. It can only be used while stationary. It can't be used in fog, rain or precip. You can't shoot it through a car window very well either and it actually requires the policeman to DO the speed detection, because he has to physically aim the unit at your car. No more sitting there reading the paper and waiting for the radar gun to beep and tell you to put your coffee down and chase somebody down.

Valentine's information page on LIDAR...
http://www.valentine1.com/moreinfo/Laser.asp

Valentine's information page on RADAR...
http://www.valentine1.com/moreinfo/RadarFAQ.asp

 

[I.P. Freley]

Little angry, aren't you?

Since you are in such a tizzy about my "so-called laser guns" comment, you should read your own link, which says "LASER BASED INFRARED". If you want to cut such a fine hair, go right ahead, but it says so right there... INFRARED.

I also never said "not being detectable", but I guess you just wanted to read what you wanted to read (just like the "laser" part). I said the detectors are USELESS, as in by the time you pick it up, it's probably already too late. They'll pick up the beams no problem, but LIDAR is not subject to as much of the beam diffraction or reflection that the detector manufacturers would like you to believe they are. If you pick up a bona-fide LIDAR alert, the chances are about 99% it's aimed at YOU, and you are already busted. If they want to pick you off at that point, they will.

As for instant-on, sure, you can pick it up much farther out if it's aimed at someone else, but how do you know? You could think it's just a "false". If you slow down every single time you get an intermittent warning, you would do better off just driving without one.

I also never said that the LIDAR is foolproof, but again, you just wanted to holler at me, I guess. All systems have their shortcomings, and the LIDAR guns are subject to the limitations you mention. The cops using this system are pretty easy to pick out once you are close enough, because they are either out of the car or sitting there perpendicular to traffic, aiming the gun out an open window.

I guess you entirely missed the point of the post, which was to make a few observations... Not to publish a scientific paper on traffic speed measurement.

In any case, the easiest way to avoid getting a ticket is not to buy a Valentine One... It's to be smart and avoid the behaviors that will get you stopped in the first place. My version has worked pretty well. I have been detector-free since the mid-90's, and I've not been stopped once (after getting as many as three tickets in five years when I DID have a detector, and the best on the market at that).

What you do is up to you.

 

[ShawnC]

Laser is actually jammable too, legally in most states too. But myself I don't speed enough to see the saving on the $700 system.

 

[I.P. Freley]

My understanding, possibly faulty, is that jamming equipment is illegal in every state...

And I have yet to see a single study by a respected lab or other source that has shown jammers of any kind do any more than, at best, reduce the detection range by a marginal amount.

 

[ShawnC]

Active radar jamming equipment is banned by the FCC. The passive stuff doesn't work and is banned in a couple of states.

There are no FCC rules against laser jamming, and as such is only banned in the same states the ban the radar jamming equipment.

 

[I.P. Freley]

If it's not banned, my guess is that it has been shown not to work.

It's worth too much money to the various Municipal Fundraising Departments (aka- Your Misallocated Officers of the Peace) to allow something that would interfere with "speed enforcement"!

On a related note, do CT, VA and DC still have anti-detector laws? I seem to remember that one of them rescinded their law...

 

[WrightAvia]

I'm not angry, just curt.

Anyway, a LIDAR alert can be gotten by scatter...just like a RADAR alert can come from scatter. Done that, been there, doing it tomorrow, bought the T-Shirt.

When the man is in the hole and points his little money maker at the car in front of you and you get the backscatter...you have been alerted. I have gotten radar backscatter off of guardrails and semitrucks. You have to be alert. If you aint watching the tailights of the cars ahead of you and keeping one eye in the mirror, looking for the state patrol aircraft, using a speeding car in front of you on the highway as a "RADAR PICKET"...you'll lose.

I can make it all the way from Knob Creek, Kentucky to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 7.5 hours and my passport brand lidar/radar detector is in the big red tool box out in the garage. Don't need it. Just the MKI MOD"0" EYEBALL.

As for not speeding...hahaha. When I can get behind a couple of FIBS that are going 85 on the interstate for several hours...I'm a happy guy.

I put 15,000 miles a year on my car just commuting to work and any weekend can guarantee me 250-500 miles of driving, keeping up with friends and relatives. Probably to the tune of total of 35,000 to 40,000 miles a year and I average one speeding ticket about every 5 years. Good alert driving? or just lucky?

 

[I.P. Freley]

Aha, I didn't say "don't speed", just don't speed so egregiously that you are a likely target.

You also made my point for me about how spending so much time spying the landscape for the coppers gets fatiguing. Zeroing in on taillights ahead, staring in the mirror, scanning the sky for patrol planes (!! What about watching the ROAD??), etc. makes a long trip even longer.

Like I said, you have your method, I have mine. Eventually the law of averages will catch us both, no matter what we do. It's the trip back from the 7-11, half a mile from home, when you're sipping that Big Gulp and not paying attention that'll get ya...

 

[ShawnC]

The reason why it isn't banned is that most governments have better things to do than ban little jammers.

Regardless like I mentioned the $700 price tag is a little too much for something that in it's usefull life of 2 years (the time it will take for some newer technology to come out) it doesn't help me much.

I have heard of Car and Driver testing them and they are found to be effective, but then again the cop and just switch over to radar and clock you that way.