Modern Cars Wreak Havoc on Radar Detectors

https://www.thedrive.com/news/modern-cars-wreak-havoc-on-radar-detectors-heres-how-escort-adapts

by PaulHoule • 11 months ago

62 96 11 months ago

thedrive.com

steve_gh• 11 months ago

...or you could drive sensibly within the speed limit.

gwbas1c3• 11 months ago

What fun is that?

That being said, "speed culture" varies a lot from state to state. Where I live it's assumed and expected that you will speed, and in other areas you can get a ticket for going 1 over.

The legal and cultural ambiguity means that someone who is unsure of the real, enforced, culturally-accepted speed limit may want to use a radar detector.

rogerrogerr• 11 months ago

Yup, in Idaho you’re pretty much expected to do +5. I swear they figure out the proper speed and subtract five from it. Going the speed limit will get you run over.

devilbunny2• 11 months ago

Make the speed limit sensible, and I will.

I don't speed in Europe because 130 km/h is a perfectly fine limit; I've driven faster on uncontrolled Autobahn segments, but I'm not bothered when there is a limit. 65 mph on the NJ Turnpike (and only on the southern part) is not.

yugioh32• 11 months ago

65mph is plenty fast. going beyond 70/75 is diminishing returns in the safety of other drivers, not to mention worse greenhouse emissions.

a crash at 80+ is so much worse than one at 65. and American highways are not the Autobahn. different design and engineering.

dangus3• 11 months ago

That limit is completely reasonable on the NJ turnpike especially considering that the cultural norm is to go 5-10 mph over. American speed limits are determined with the expectation of drivers going over. In other countries the limit is more literal.

No cop is going to ticket you for going 70-75 on the turnpike.

seanmcdirmid• 11 months ago

Sometimes the speed limit is set to lower the accident rate on a particular piece of road. Like those 30 MPH curve warnings on a mountain road. Even in straight shots the amount of traffic could make 80 MPH significantly more dangerous than 70 MPH.

HeyLaughingBoy• 11 months ago

...on the long (9 miles to the next town), straight county road just by my house with a 50 mph speed limit that sees maybe 1 car per minute on average. There's a reason that the average speed there is 65mph+

bsder• 11 months ago

Then set the limits properly at the 85% mark. And ban speed limit fines from going into local coffers.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF2• 11 months ago

Dare I ask what the 85% mark is?

m463• 11 months ago

http://m8y.org/bloomcounty.jpg

The_President2• 11 months ago

There are back roads out there that drop 15 mph at the state line with no population around for miles. Detectors offer peace of mind for travel at a leisurely self-determined rate.

marssaxman• 11 months ago

Which one is it, driving sensibly or driving within the speed limit?

Spivak• 11 months ago

Yeah the internet it weird about speed limits for some reason meanwhile the moment you drive on real roads in the US you lean very quickly, even explicitly if you did in-cars in driver's ed, that the posted speed limit is the minimum.

dmd• 11 months ago

There are roads here that “feel” like a 35 or even 45mph road. The speed limit is 7. Yes, 7. It’s purely for local revenue.

vasco• 11 months ago

Can of spray and a night off and they all become 70

gwbas1c3• 11 months ago

If anyone's still reading this: As I read this, I think it makes more sense for the police to replace radar with a high-resolution camera and a computer that can determine speed of vehicles.

Any thoughts on that?

EA-31672• 11 months ago

It's hard to find exact stats because of how procurement and statistics works across jurisdictions, states, etc... but from what I CAN find it seems that LIDAR is more common than Radar these days. Over the whole country it looks like a slight majority lead for LIDAR, but in some (quite populous) states they almost only use LIDAR (PA for example had 93% of their tickets come from LIDAR, and I believe most of the rest used speed cameras or 'clocking' rather than RADAR).

Sources:

https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/TR/Transcripts/2018_00...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar_traffic_enforcement

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/lidar-sp...

toomuchtodo• 11 months ago

LIDAR can't be used in motion, the LEO has to be stopped to be pointing it. Your laser detector will warn you, but it's already too late at that point; my two cents is using Waze/Google LEO alerts is state of the art at this point (until someone starts multilateration of patrol cars using their radio RF emissions and SDR networks).

netsharc• 11 months ago

It's fine... if you're fine with constant video surveillance.

FridayoLeary• 11 months ago

welcome to the UK.

gwbas1c3• 11 months ago

There's a huge difference between a network of cameras on a road, versus a device that an officer has to set up and take down.

stefan_• 11 months ago

Its like the dumbest product manager meme. “Humans use eyes for this right, why can’t our gadget?” “It must work at night? Oh we will just use a thermal camera” “Pixels in an image are not all from the same time instant? We will just pay 10x for a global shutter camera”

The list goes on and on and on. No, they will not just be replaced by whatever is producing loose AI facsimiles of the real world in a smartphone.

adgjlsfhk1• 11 months ago

you can also just use a normal rolling shutter camera at a higher frame rate and blur the frames together.

foxglacier• 11 months ago

Average speed cameras exist and are basically that. ANPR at two locations and measure the time it took you to get between them. It's actually more fair because an occasional accidental overspeed won't get you but continuous speeding will.

SoftTalker3• 11 months ago

It's been done manually for decades. Read about VASCAR[1]

Yes with modern cameras and computers I would think it should be pretty doable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VASCAR

The_President2• 11 months ago

Lotta miles using radar detectors -- they detect 3 different bands of radar and some "detect laser." Radar detectors are great insurance, and more useful on the open highway than they are in town, but I've not seen a vehicle give off Ka band emissions that wasn't law enforcement. I have noticed that newer Honda cars set off the K band, which is also used by a lot of the cheap lightpole "your speed" I've seen. Very rarely still I will see X band speed radar being used in the middle of nowhere where the cop cars are older.

Radar detector users just learn to ignore the X and K band alerts while simultanously learning a subconscious quarter second brake reaction time based on the Ka band noise.

dreamcompiler3• 11 months ago

Exactly. I haven't encountered a cop using X band since the 1990s. All X band signals I see now are door openers at grocery stores.

And yeah, a K band zap in the middle of nowhere usually means there's a Honda nearby.

burnt-resistor2• 11 months ago

Last time I had a detector (a remote Bel Pro RX75 Plus with laser jammer that works), I turned off X band because of incessant false positives. With just K and Ka (and laser), almost all detection were legit.

Radar detectors on the windshield look dumb, clutter the windshield, and encourage ticket-writing by offending some cops with fragile egos. Remote detectors or go home.

aussieguy1234• 11 months ago

These detectors have been illegal in Australia for as long as I can remember. But with apps like Waze and TomTom Amigo, I probably don't need them. I can see where all the speed cameras are and police get reported on the map fairly quickly (I also contribute to these reports, let's subvert government power together)

dreamcompiler3• 11 months ago

There are quite a number of areas in the rural US where there's no cell coverage. In these places Waze won't help you, but radar detectors still work.

kjkjadksj2• 11 months ago

What are the odds a cop is taking up a radar position in a place without cell service today? These guys famously play Pokemon Go and other games on call.

yugioh32• 11 months ago

good. speed kills. off highways, speeding is particularly dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers.

unshavedyak• 11 months ago

I just wish cops would actually do that more frequently. My local interstate is basically only trapped during a small window a day, easy to memorize.

I don’t blame people for speeding when we care so little as to actually monitor and enforce. Especially when it’s easy to automate.

LtWorf• 11 months ago

If you've ever driven in italy you know that velocity is normally measured in a 100km/h road, right after a 20km/h sign that was there for no other reason than to fine people. For bonus points the sign can be hidden behind a bush or can be so old and faded nobody knows what it says.

Dylan168076• 11 months ago

I'm pretty sure the context here was not off highways.

nathanaldensr2• 11 months ago

No, speed differential kills.

margalabargala• 11 months ago

When someone is talking about speed in a car, they are always talking about speed differential, vs the earth.

rafram2• 11 months ago

If the person in front of you has to brake hard or swerve to avoid an obstacle, your speed differential with them can very quickly become equal to your speed.

If there’s a stationary object on the road, your speed differential is always equal to your speed.

In many circumstances that cause deadly accidents, speed differential vs speed is just pedantry.

Bratmon• 11 months ago

Yeah! It's the pedestrian's fault for not already moving 45 MPH before they got run over!

trenchpilgrim• 11 months ago

I was momentarily confused because where I live "Off Highway" has a specific legal meaning - meaning not on public roads, e.g. on dirt trails or in a farm field.

https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/OHV

whoamii3• 11 months ago

I don’t speed off highway. On highway though when traffic is light, visibility is good, I don’t see the big deal with going 70 in a 60. The detector gives me peace of mind so I can focus on what’s relevant rather than playing “find the cop” or, worse, going the speed limit and falling asleep. :)

burnt-resistor2• 11 months ago

Improper and reckless behavior kill, not speed per se. Going the speed limit around a blind curve without sufficient stopping distance or going faster than one's headlights are dangerous. There is no universal rule except don't drive faster or riskier than your or your vehicle's capabilities or endanger others.

elric4• 11 months ago

Instead of radar, more and more places are installing ANPR (aka ALPR) cameras here. They measure how long it taked you to drive between two locations, if it's faster than the speed limit, the fine will find you. Tiny Belgium already has more than 5k ANPR cameras.

Predictably, the system is being (ab)used for all kinds of monitoring and tracking on top of speed enforcement. And in a certain sense, all those irresponsibly fast drivers with radar detectors are partially responsible for the further erosion of privacy on the road.

Dylan168076• 11 months ago

It sure doesn't sound like those systems were built to go after irresponsibly fast drivers.

elric4• 11 months ago

That was their original intent, but of course, once you have a dense network of cameras that can sort of reliably track individuals, people find all sorts of other uses for them.

technick4• 11 months ago

This is easily managed by hiding your license plates. I haven't shown my real license plate in years (It has a ping identity sticker on it) and no plans on doing so, it's to protect my own privacy.

maest• 11 months ago

Protecting ones privacy comes with the incidental side effect of making it difficult for society to penalize one for not abiding by the rules.

Bank robbers wear ski masks for similar privacy concerns.

mixmastamyk• 11 months ago

How does this work? I’d like to avoid tracking but stay within the law if possible.

Klonoar3• 11 months ago

I remain amazed that Seattle doesn’t do this for the 99 tunnel that goes under the city. People routinely fly through there at like 40 miles over what the limit is - and due to a bus lane addition going northbound, they exit the tunnel at a high rate into some very varied traffic.

The tunnel is a toll road that’s photo enforced. Should be an easy ticket in the mail if your enter and exit time are way too close or something.

(I’m guessing it might be the age old “can’t prove it was you driving” defense?)

SoftTalker3• 11 months ago

can’t prove it was you driving

They don't have to if it is a civil infraction. As I understand it, in many jurisdictions a camera ticket is a fine but no points. They just say "the owner of the car is responsible for who they allow to drive it" same as insurance liability.

potato37328422• 11 months ago

Because if they did it people would vote for it to be changed.

wolfi1• 11 months ago

in most of Europe these detectors are forbidden, I tend to drive within the speed limit, much safer

devilkin• 11 months ago

Not to mention cheaper ;)

rwyinuse• 11 months ago

Over here in Finland I can't even remember the last time I saw actual policemen with radars monitoring traffic. It's all cameras these days, making detectors like this highly useless. They were a thing in the 90's or so.

technick4• 11 months ago

All of that noise is K band and soon to be spread out across 77 ghz, outside of the bands being used by law enforcement (for now). If you take high velocity seriously, I recommend getting a Uniden R9 and a ALPriority Laser Jammer system. Then add in a dedicated android tablet running Highway Radar, you'll be a hard target to target. Also get a pair of binoculars (bonus points if they're thermal).

I haven't had a speeding ticket since 2018, before I had my tools. Just this week I was averaging 120 mph across Utah, turned my 11 hour trip into 8 hours.

cowthulhu• 11 months ago

My understanding is that in most jurisdictions a laser jammer is a magic device that transmutes a speeding ticket into a complementary trip to jail

nathanaldensr2• 11 months ago

https://www.automoblog.com/are-radar-detectors-legal/

kjkjadksj2• 11 months ago

Speed tickets are very unequally enforced. Last time I saw speeding enforcement plotted on a map, most states were broadly the same of hardly any enforcement. However, Ohio was the striking standout by iirc a full order of magnitude to the nearest peer.

secabeen• 11 months ago

That has been the pattern for years; before people demolished the Cannonball run record during COVID, getting through Ohio clean was one of the biggest challenges.

Modern Cars Wreak Havoc on Radar Detectors

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