I certainly do not drive like I used to that's for sure especially with gas prices as they are. I use my V-1 mostly on the long trips. She picks out the man with his radar on every time. My longest pick off with the V-1 was over 2 miles in Fla once. My unit is going nuts and I'm driving and driving wondering where they are. Sure enough tucked away there they were.

 

Have one. Don't use it.
When I do want to play a little, I watch the drivers in front of me and look for sudden braking which tells me that there may be Laser with my name on it up ahead.
I also let the idiot that wants to go faster than me, pass me and I pace him (or her) for a while.
And if I get stopped because I was going a little faster than I should have, being a retired Deputy has its benefits although I haven't had to us that card yet.
I have gotten puller over by guys that I used to work with but they were just killing time.

Bottom line, once it detects them chances are they already gotcha.

I generally set my cruise at 5 over. Call me boring

 

well all the best for all is dont speed NOT!!! or get a good atty i dont have a single ticket on my record yet and i enjoy driving my vettes as fast as i can on wide open no traffic roads which seem to be the fav of highway patrol..... that said they think ticketing you for speeding out in the boondocks is more important than traffic control in the city neighborhoods where its needed... if not get a jammer they work well!!!!

 

Whoever says radar detectors don't work has obviously never had a good one. I got pulled over twice within two weeks of buying my vette and then bought a V1. Been 8 months and I haven't been pulled over again. Only reason you might be screwed is if you're by yourself on the road. Oh and if you get one make sure you get an invisicord. Just plugs right into your mirror harness and eliminates that cigarette lighter hookup.

 

You do have the right to see the certificate of calibration that they are SUPPOSED to keep with the detector HOWEVER it might **** them off and any chance of getting off with just your hand slapped is over. Besides knowing when it should be calibrated might be an impossibility.
It's best to challenge it in court and have (or suggest to) the person making the call (not always a Judge) to see when it was last calibrated. They vary from type of device used and deemed by the manufacturer how often it is calibrated.

Good luck.

 

These topics are always a hoot.

On the one side you have the cops all weighing in "No detecor works.. I will get you Mr Speeder"... and then you have the all the Ned Flanders weighing in "Uh... just don't speed.. and drive the limit neighbour"....

And in the middle are all the rest of us

The reality is that nobody ever said a DETECTOR was a way to BEAT the radar gun.

It is simply a way to alert YOURSELF to the presence of a LEO working trafiic (actively or passively) and it you should keep an eye on your speed.

If the LEO is going to tail you and lie about your speed, radar detector or not, you will be getting a ticket - for those cases you can only hope Karma will catch up with him later.

I have been out in the boonies enjoying the car and found myself in that 90mph+ zone and have a blip on the detector... pullld the speed down to the speed limit of 70 and within a mile or so the LEO appears... another useless ticket prevented.

It is also important to drive with common sense - I always run at or below the speedlimit in and around town/urban surface streets - and out in the boonies never crest a hill above the limit.

Now about which radar detector is a decent tool - I have an Escort is each car.. a friend has the V1 and other than the "arrows", we were always alerted to the same signals everytime.

 

A radar detector is a TOOL that if USED PROPERLY will HELP TREMENDOUSLY at reducing your chances of getting speeding tickets.

The problem is that most people think radar detectors are cop detectors and will alert you of 5-0 in the area, which is not the case.

Here is what I tell everyone when I tell them how to be smart about using your radar detector:

1) First and foremost have it mounted properly, if it's aiming at the dash or the sky it's not going to work very well.

2) NEVER be the fastest car on the road. This is just asking to get a ticket regardless of what you have. If you are blowing away traffic a radar detector wont do anything for you.

3) Always make sure you have some cars in front of you. The reason for this is that (hopefully) the police will radar one of the cars before you and that will set your radar detector off so you can slow down.

3) Know the different bands and what they mean. MOST LIKELY X and K will not be a cop, but some police do use K band. X is almost always a grocery store and K is either a store or one of those stationed radars police put up to get you to slow down. Ka is almost ALWAYS the police and if laser goes off, chances are it's a mistake (hopefully) or you just got nailed.

4) Mind the rule of two's. What this means is that don't be breaking two or more laws at once, or expect to pay the consequences. For example: if you are speeding a little bit that's one thing but if you are speeding AND street racing someone else, you are bound to get nailed.

5) If you do get pulled over, turn your radar detector off, or hide it, just make sure it's not in the visibility of where police can see it. From my experience they HATE people with radar detectors because they assume you are constantly breaking the law if you have one, which is generally a fair assumption.

 

I have the whistler pro-58 in all 3 cars.
Works great and costs less than 100 bucks

Here is a link to a site that tests them and rates them

http://www.radarbusters.com/

 

I agree, save your monry.

 

Save your money bro. Laser is just too quick. Stay in the right lane.

 

Steve,

Not to disagree with you, but in CA, any peace officer has the right to refuse to allow anyone to see calibration records, or for that matter, any other records associated with RADAR or LIDAR. They also are not required to allow anyone to see the RADAR or LIDAR readout, whether for their safety, your safety, or whatever reason. RADAR, LIDAR, and operator (the officer's) records are subject to rules of discovery through the court process and are therefore, available only via subpoena, unless the officer or his agency are willing to provide such records to you outside rules of discovery (there is no prohibition to doing so if an agency allows it).

Now, as for RADAR/LIDAR detectors, depending on the type of RADAR being used and in the case of most LIDAR units, detectors will not assist anyone in avoiding a ticket. The only way one might escape being stopped and cited is with a sensitive enough unit, which happens to detect the presence of a nearby unit which is being used by an officer to support his/her observations of another speeding vehicle - - not yours. The reason most detectors will not work with newer RADAR devices - - these devices are always on, just not transmitting. When an officer observes a speeding vehicle and establishes in his/her estimation through proper observation and tracking history, that the vehicle in question is speeding, they will use the RADAR to verify and confirm their observation. By activating the RADAR, its transmitter is turned on and will yield an immediate reading. By then, even if a good detector goes off, the officer will already have the vehicle's speed displayed on the readout.

However..........if an officer happens to leave the RADAR in constant transmit mode, a detector could well save someone from a citation.

 

And this the entire point of owning a RADAR detector.. because that momentary blip will be detected by the RADAR detector in your car if you are within a mile or so - everytime

It is up to the driver to now decide whether or not to keep their speed in check as they have now been alerted to presence of a LEO working traffic.

Why is this concept so hard for the anti-RADAR detector brigade to understand?

I am willing to go out on a limb here and say NOT ONE single RADAR detector user with even an OUNCE of common sense expects to be able to speed at 100mph everywhere and then simply hi tthe brakes when the RADAR detector goes off as the LEO point their RADAR gun at them as they speed toward the cruiser parked at the side of the road.

So - I HAVE to ask why is it that every LEO and anti-RADAR detecor person seems to think thats the way the devices are used???

Just to repeat - we use the device to ALERT us to LEO's working trafiic ahead of us.... then we check our speed to make sure we are not speeding and that there is no chance that Mr Revenue Collector is going to try bust us for going 10mph over when we KNOW they are working traffic, have seen the blips on the detector and have slowed to 5mph below the limit.

I have often done this - and as I crest the hill at 5mph below the limit, am being lit like a Christmas tree by the RADAR and I simply roll past the speed trap at 5mph under.... many times they will roll up and stay behind me with their RADAR painting me the entire time.

HELLOOOOO - I know you are there, I have a RADAR detector and I know you are painting me.. are they hoping I will suddenly jump to 10mph over give them an easy ticket for the trouble?

 

good points RC 45!!!! just keep a good traffic atty on ur favs on the cell!!!!

 

V1 - Hands down.

I was on a cruise (in Mexico ) with a vette club in which I am a member where the V1 saved all 30 of us. I was doing at least 170mph at one point in the cruise and had the cruise control set at over 100mph. The 3 lead vettes had V1s that picked up a big speed trap / road block (I'm sure someone called them on us) where one of the LEOs zapped a car a head of us. When we got to them we were going a comfy 75mph like nothing happened and I gave them finger as I went by. I'm sure they were pissed, sitting there with the "once the detector goes off I got ya" mind set. Suckers.

 

" I gave them finger as I went by"

Why?

 

Escort and Valentine both have made great detectors over the years. I've had both.. Your eyes are the best radar detector period.. People don't realize it, 99% of us drive drive like a horse with blinders on.. Your focal point needs to be 15 seconds ahead of where you are while driving this way when you come close to a hill or curve you will see cars hit the breaks(cops) well before you get there. The Key is to SCAN your ENTIRE field of vision Also pay attention to traffic going the opposite direction.. Someone will flash their lights letting you know a cop is ahead. Check the top of bridges and over passes.. Cops radar from these places and have backup further down the road. These are a few habits to get into for everyone.. Cops around here in Dallas do random shots with the radar gun on/off between shots.. NO radar detector will defend you in these cases

 

Absolutely correct. The radar calibration documants are on file with the court and copies are not carried in the police car by the officer. Again, as stated in my previous post. The court has accepted the tuning fork as a valid calibration of the radar unit, as long as the radar gun was alibrated with the tuning fork at the start and again at the end of the officer's shift and was operating correctly.

 

I have a Cobra 9950 and although it hasn't been mentioned, it works very well. Picks up so far away, sometimes I think it's a false alarm... but then there's LEO over the next hill.

 

My hatred of the boys in blue runs real deep and I choose to express that towards them every chance I get.

This goes for patrol officers only and not detective level officers as they bust real criminals.

Once they stand up and denounce things like photo radar they will get a little more respect to name one issue.

 

Radar detectors and some law enforcement officers get the bad rap when either the detector doesn't work to expectations or you receive a ticket for a really bogus situation. By bogus I am meaning doing say 35 in a 40 and the officer is going to stick to his guns and give you the ticket. If all it meant was that you have to pay a fine...ok thats fair, you wanna play your going to pay and the ticket will reflect upon how bad you were in the wrong (how fast over the limit you were). But thats not the case, in most states your insurance SPIKES a lot more then the ticket you just had to pay. This plus you may or may not lose your license! Iam sorry but can you say double or triple jeopardy. You have that happen to you more then a few times in a year and I think anyone will agree....you are going to get a different point of view toward law enforcement. To serve and protect suddenly turns into, to annoy and give a citizen a hard time.

For me I use a Valentine One ONLY AS MY BACKUP. I drive smart and follow all the laws that keep me safe and the people around me safe. If I feel that I am traveling too slowly and a situation arises that makes me nervous, Iam sorry but I get out of that situation as quick as I can....whether its breaking the speed limit or not. Case in point: ever drive along 2 semi trucks one on each side of you and 1 looks like the tire is going to blow at anytime? This may seem like a 1 in a million chance, but when you live in the south its like as common as finding a honda on the road. There are no inspection laws here in TN so all crappy piece of junks can be on the road. Their tires bald, bumpers falling off, doors duct taped to the frame and most of all semi's that have bent rims or tires that blow out at 70 mph and can take out a car along side of it like a missile.

So with that...this is why I have a radar dectector....its to keep me safe from those law enforcement situations that come up that nobody really thinks about. I definitely value my life more then the police officer who just wants to pull me over cause he has to.