ANSWERS: 3
  • Radar detectors do not work, period. its a sales gimmick for people to make money. the new lasar radar frequencies cannot be detected by radar detectors. Law-abiding citizens should not worry about the police using radar, i agree. but, these good citizens are not the only ones using the interstate system and state highways. Working radar one sunday morning, a vehicle came through a construction zone (45 mph) at 124 mph. his radar detector did not sound the alarm, because of lasar radar. this citation cost him $1,200.00, plus court costs. Many states have banned radar detectors, others have not. maybe, their state legislators are not newly informed that detectors do not work. maybe, someone should tell them.
  • in my county, Lee county Fla, I would respectfully say that law enforment does not follow the traffic laws they are sworn to enforce. For example many times switching lanes with out singal turns, exceeding the speed limit without the emergency light on or siren for that matter. I sincerely doubt they are above the law. It is a double standard and hypocritical. I still feel like it is the state money making racket. We all know that some accidents are caused by slow drivers blocking the left lane and impatient drivers trying to pass them.
  • Here are a bunch of reasons why legislators won't ban them. * Statistics have shown that drivers using radar detectors actually have fewer accidents than drivers without. * Even law abiding drivers may speed by accident every now and then. The detector going off reminds you to check your speedometer. I know people who have gotten tickets for going 1 mph over the limit. While most officers have more brains than that there are some overzealous dodos out there. * Police can sometimes slow down traffic just by randomly pointing a radar gun somewhere. * Banning radar detectors is not a very popular idea with most citizens who drive and won't bring a lawmaker much support at election time. There are quite a few reasons for citizens to object to such a ban as well. While excessive speed can be dangerous (like going 124 mph in a construction zone) a rather large number of speed limits and speed traps have very little to do with safety and more to do with fund-raising. Consider these facts: * There is a well known spot on a major highway near me where the speed limit drops 10 mph for no apparent reason. The local municipality that controls that stretch of the highway has an officer posted at that spot to ticket drivers who don't slow down. The town has set up a whole court system just to handle tickets from that spot. Since it's a small town and the police officer and judge are well acquainted you have a 0% chance of fighting those tickets. Since most ticketed drivers are travelers from other areas, most don't even bother to fight them. This kangaroo court scheme is the town's primary source of income giving new meaning to the term 'highway robbery.' There are many other municipalities that use this tactic as well. Safety is totally irrelevant here. A radar detector in a place like that is simply self-defense. * Speed limits are incredibly inconsistent. If the limits were truly based on safety there would be much more consistency between speed limits and road conditions. I've driven on narrow, rural, two lane (two way) highways full of curves, hills and bumps with truck traffic that is sometimes wider than the lanes where the speed limit is 55. There is a parkway near me with two wide lanes and a big shoulder in each direction and a 100 foot wide median with trees and grass which is relatively straight and yet the posted limit is 50. Almost all drivers will admit that driving 50 on that stretch is tortuously slow. Very few actually actually keep the limit. Yet the local parkway authority is unusually aggressive in ticketing speeders. They too have their own kangaroo court system so you can't beat a ticket no matter how unfair it was. The systems serves no safety purpose whatsoever but is purely a fundraiser. Logically, if this was about safety, how can it be safe to drive 55 on a narrow two lane road but unsafe to go over 50 on a wide straight highway?!? There is another highway near me where the northbound speed limit is 65 but the southbound is 55 although the road conditions are identical. Look around you at the different speed limits on different roads and try to come up with some safety-related reason to explain differences. Good luck. If speed limits are going to be used to shake-down motorists, at least let them protect themselves with radar detectors. As for safety? You don't need radar to figure out that a guy doing 124 mph in a 45 mph construction zone is going too fast. It should be pretty obvious to the naked eye and that guy should get a fat ticket for reckless driving regardless of his exact speed.

Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC

Answerbag | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy