So long as an individual is following the flow of traffic, everything moves nicely. It's when they are 20 mph above and jockeying for position, or 20 mph below in the left lane impeding traffic that they become a hazard. As most of you know I just returned from Germany where sections of the highway have no speed limits, and everything flows nicely.

My pet peeve is cell phones and texting. When did typing a letter while you're driving become a good idea? I've seen people weaving all over the place texting. They glance up occasionally and discover they're in the wrong lane. The city passed a hands free ordinance 2 years ago, and I still see people on cell phones constantly.

 

Im not sure how it is in TX, however I can tell you that (in PA) when laws are passed, they are not necessarily a reason we can stop a person. Example.... in PA, State Troopers can stop you for not wearing your seatbelt.... Locals (like my self) can not, I would have to find you not wearing your seatbelt as a secondary offense. Hands free laws/ordinances may just be the same.

 

I'd encourage it as a way of throwing chlorine in the gene pool, if only they didn't take out innocent people when they go.

And it's not just while driving. I took my family to a park yesterday. A ditzbang blonde was so busy on her cell she was walking SIDEWAYS, and I had to jump in the grass to not run into her.

 

No, they did PSA's in the beginning to the effect that you would be stopped and cited if caught.....and a number were. The local TV news had a few of them whining on camera about how it "wasn't fair" etc etc. I guess the fines or the odds of getting caught just aren't big enough yet.

 

Slow traffic drivers on the left or fast lane should receive a hazard violation
ticket. 95% of them in California have out of state plates.

So, if you visit Southern California and feel guilty on keeping up with the traffic
at 95 MPH ensure you drive on the right lane. Please pass the word to all
family, friends and your local trip coordinators.

 

i wish thats how they drove here i swear the people try to drive under the speed limit.

 

Back to the original question:
I love my Valentine 1. It has saved my bacon a dozen times over the years. I've also gotten stopped (but not ticketed) several times when it was on duty....so a radar detector is only an assist, not a sole protection.
I often drive my Vette cross country, and maintain a speed of 90-95 mph for miles on end when out in the middle of nowhere, USA. I DO stay extremely alert at all times, even though the V-1 is powered up.

 

Couldn't have said it better. Another bit of advice: Look behind you before you open it up. I was in my cruiser and this guy with a S-10 pick up (that obviously had a V8 in it) punched it and did a burnout right in front of me. When I pulled him over, he had that "I've just been sodomized" look on his face. I told him nice truck, but save the burnouts for the track and let him go on his way. I think that shocked him even more!

 

LOL, thank you, and I know "the face..."

Suprising how often LOOKING AROUND, would save people from being stopped. The best was driving our unmarked... becuase its a Mercury Gran-Marquis...

People seem to never expect it because its RED....

 

Pete, even Ripley would not believe that one.

Another thing to consider in California, the courts will recognise the expertise of a traffic Officer and take his/her word on estimated speed.

 

So do I. Many times in my youth, I displayed that face as I stared out the window of the humorless officer writing the ticket.

Radar detectors are great, but any of them have their limitations. And my question is this....in this day and age, do you REALLY need to speed? Hell, there is a 500 mile stretch of I-10 from eastern El Paso county to near San Antonio that is marked 80 MPH. Most interstates in New Mexico are 75 MPH....how much faster do you really need to go? I loved the autobahn, but German drivers are by and large a responsible group....Americans, not so much. Some yes....but there are large group of folks that really shouldn't be driving AT 75 mph, no less above it.

OK....I'm old enough to remember when the federally mandated 55 MPH was implemented in 1974, and it sucked. Big time. NOBODY obeyed it, and it put the travelling public and the police at unnecessary odds with each other....and it did NOTHING to save fuel. Before this went into effect, there was no such thing as a radar detector. Few police even had radar....lines and stopwatches. And it spawned an industry of counter measures that's still proliferating today...and as mentioned before, detection and counter detection feed off each other.

Is there really a "best" radar / laser detector today? How are they differentiated? False signals, detection, range? I haven't owned one since the early 80's.....and given what I've learned in the last 3 pages of this thread, they sound like....well, a waste of money. JMHO of course.

 

 

Well, all I know is that there's no doubt in my mind my V1(s) (I have one on my R6, one in my vette, one in my denali, one in my wife's envoy) have saved me at least one ticket yearly, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars in fines and legal issues/costs over the past 8-9 years I've used them. I also have no doubt that if a V1 had been my first purchase after that of my first car, I'd have gotten less than 1/3 of the tickets that I did.

It's not even that I go around hauling *** all the time, to be honest. I like to run 5-10 over the speed limit in most areas, which is "going with the flow" a lot of the time. I have never even hit triple digits on my crotch rocket.

Usually around here, they are not ticketing "the guy driving through traffic", they are ticketing whoever is the first to come around a certain bend or over a certain hill in the fast lane that gives a number on their readout more than +4 of the posted limit. They love the "trap" around here, although thankfully they don't do it a lot any more, I may see them running one or two a week locally but I remember as a teenager I'd see 10 times that number in a given week.

I also remember they used to have a mid 90's chevy lumina all blacked out that was an unmarked patrol car, and he wreaked HAVOC on the locals for a good couple of years. He would park in church or business parking lots or even on the side of the road in residential areas with all the other cars but he was running speed. Even had standard (non government service) plates on it, which I never understood the legality of. Apparently after many hundred letters to the governor's office the car was taken out of service finally.

 

When speed limits on main roads are 45-50mph, there is a reason to speed. PA road limits are absolutely ridiculous

 

I second that we have a road here it goes from 45 to 65 within 50 feet.

 

Perhaps if enough people contacted your D.O.T. (or your equivalent) and requested a study on that section of road, the speed limit could be changed. Not all that uncommon for a section of road to have a limit that is too conservative, and I've seen them changed before.

 

I'm the Highway Safety officer in my precinct and I've been shooting speeders with my radar for a while now. My handheld radar unit is only on when I depress the trigger so these detectors will only alert the driver when I'm already shooting it. But before I can shoot you with radar, I have to do a visual estimation of your vehicles speed. I'm trained to estimate vehicles speed to within +/- 5 mph of your actual speed. Then I shoot the radar to confirm my speed estimation. The NYS vehicle traffic law also enables me to write a speeding ticket based solely on my estimate of your vehicles speed (most states have the same), but I don't do that.

Laser/Lidar operates the same way as my radar unit does. It's only on when the officer depresses the trigger. But with laser/lidar the officer looks through a scope and aims the laser at one car at a time. The laser emitted is only 6 inches thick, so if your detector is chirping it's too late.

As far as radar jammers go, either I never encountered one or they just don't work.

I never had a bad experience with fellow Vette owners. Usually we talk "Vettes" and then go our seperate ways. Just know when to do it, and when not to. I give motorists up to 20 mph over the limit, above that you are rolling the dice.

Be safe out there.

 

For many states to get Federal highway funding, they have to adopt or at least emulate the Federal Highway Administrations, MUTCD, or Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. The Fed Green Book of Highway Design has recommended speed limits.

Many states have 'statutory' speed limits for designated highways, roads and streets depending on how many lanes there are. For example, California has a statutory 65 mph speed limit for a four lane highway and 55 mph for a two lane highway. This can be changed upwards or downwards depending on physical attributes of the location, prevailing speed of traffic and other factors.

The study is commonly called an 'Engineering and Traffic Survey'. In California, to reduce the statutory speed limit, a survey is mandatory. You can request this from your County or State Transportation Department. There are very specific practices in developing a proper survey. You just can't change the speed limit, 'just because'.

I know, because I fought a speeding ticket at a local a!r farce base, that had a 60 mph limit on a four lane highway that ran through eight miles of empty desert. It took a year and a half, but I beat the ticket, because they couldn't produce the survey and specifically told me, that they weren't required to conform to the Fed MUTCD, even though the D0D said they had to. They dropped the case, but I'll bet they're still writing up poor bozo's on that long lonely stretch of highway.

 

I have an Escort 9500ix Blue and I love it. Most of the time both the Sherrifs Office and FHP drive around with Ka on I have picked them up at 3 miles, been very lucky on the laser as I usually see them before they target me

 

That's why radar is only useful if you've got a rabbit. My dectector will pick it up when they hit the guy in front of me, allowing time to slow down. Simply having a radar isn't any good.