Got a radar detector ticket in VA

And no points on her license back here in NJ. Sorry to hear about her problem with the cops. After all, they are a revenue generating enterprise in most states, so no surprise they are wasting time pulling folks over for crap like this.

 

Congratulations! You're the only person in America to have gotten a ticket for a radar detector.

 

Did they pull you over for another reason first, or because they saw the detector in the windshield?

 

In VA, some LEOs have radar detector detectors. They have ways of finding you...

CW

 

Before stealth detectors, when I used to live in Virginia (DC has the same anti-detector-law too), I hid a detector in a small Kleenex box and velcroed it on the little hump of the back shelf of the 512BB. The wire, with a remote switch, was hidden going into the box and a tissue was sticking out of the box on-the-ready.

I was stopped a few times and claimed the car would occasionally set-off detectors because of some ignition problem. (Actually, my current Daytona does that now to my Valentine at certain RPMs.) The officer would eyeball me and the car and never found it.

One of the many problems with this approach is that one's girlfriend automatically reaches for that handy kleenex everytime they get in the car and you have to carefully replace the tissue after getting chewed-out by said girlfriend.

 

How much is the fine?

The radar gun people need only buy a Valentine every year and measure the frequency of the local oscillator, then incorporate a scanning reciever for the frequencies Val1 and a few others use. It only needs to work at 30-40 feet, as cars whiz by the median. Next it will be placed in red light cameras in our 'surveillance society'. As you pass by, it could pickup the RFID chip on cards in your wallet. Hmmm

Again, what's the fine amount?

 

Looks like I'm going to have to add Virginia to the list of "states" that I will never set foot in along with Oregon. I want to use a radar detector and pump my own gas and anywhere that has laws against either is too F'd up for me to waste time in ;-)

 

We had a Valentine seized by the Canadian cops outside of Montreal while headed down toward Michigan. They had no detector detector. We were in slow moving traffic through a construction zone and he eye-balled it and radioed it to another cop at the end of the construction zone. Just bad luck - didn't think they'd care enough to bother when just sitting there "protecting" construction workers.

Of course, while the Mountie was writing the ticket, we were already on the phone to Valentine having a replacement unit FedEx'ed to our hotel in Michigan. Net trip time without V1 <24 hours. We love Valentines...

 

$100?

That is not a fine.




Here radar detectors carry HUGH fines. They used to be el-cheapo 500DM fines.



Now, the fines are in the thousands of EU or so I have been told. You can even go to jail.

I do use one on RARE occasion, when I am in the City of Stuttgart, for example. Cameras are EVERYWHERE.

 

I wonder about the K40 in my new car. How would they know it is activated? The control unit is buried int he trunk somewhere and the indicators are two tiny LED's in the instrument cluster. The front and rear sensors in the bumper are all but invisible.

 

This is the law enforcement people. If they have enough probable cause (which is to say not much), they can hold your car by the side of the road, rip it up until they find the contraband, and not even say sorry if they don't find it.

 

It's the state guys that get the latest detector detectors. This continuous to be a catch up race between the radar detector mfgs and the state police. Although most states don't have a law against these units they all have detectors. Once again the mental thought process says if you own a detector then you will speed. Take a look inside a trooper car and it is amazing how much technology is in there. They know your speed coming or going even when they are driving down the road. They have license plate readers with a laptop readout of who you are and all of your info. Big brother was here years ago and continues to improve. The best protection you have is to drive within the law.

 

"File that under C.S."
John Milner

 

I have the same in-dash K40 set-up in my 550.
I leave it powered off while in Virginia (which is 90% of my driving since I live here).

VA State Police have radar detector detectors. Not all of them carry the technology, but quite a few.
So, if you power up your detector, they can spot it as you drive down the road.

I have no idea why Virginia continues to have an anti-radar-detector law.
It really is a bad law.
We have so many other conservative laws in the areas of gun shows, etc., it is surprising we have this stance on radar detectors.
It should be obvious that if the only other State that shares the same law is DC, then it is probably a bad law.

We need to get this law changed. And also, get rid of the requirement for front license plates too.
Another law that I would change is the automatic Reckless Driving charge if you speed 20 mph or more over the limit.
Reckless Driving should be reserved to something more than just speeding.
.

 

Unless specifically shielded, ALL electronic devices give off an electronic sigature that is unique to its design.


With the right equipment, I can watch your TV and see what you are watching and tell you what make and model it is from a fair distance.


Unshielded/Poorly shielded Radar/Lazer detection is child's play.


Daniel, in your case the box itself and even the cables running to the indicators on your dash COULD emit the box's signal.

 

The V1's local oscillator, common to all superhetrodyne radar detectors, is what gives it away. In our tests against the Australian-made Spectre Mk IV RDD radar detector detector used by the Virginia State Police, it spotted an approaching V1 from 454 feet away. A departing V1 is easier, due to greater microwave leakage from its rear antenna: the Spectre spotted it from over 700 feet away. The K40 can be detected at twice that distance.

Rather than vainly trying to hide a windshield-mount detector, you may want to consider a remote model like the BEL STiR Plus. Aside from being built-in and invisible, it's undetectable by RDDs and it handily outperforms the V1—and every other detector on the planet, including the Escort Redline. And, with integral GPS, it's almost devoid of false alarms, another trait that can't be said of the 21-year-old V1. That same GPS, with its internal database, also warns of every red light and speed camera in the country, a useful bonus now that 22 states use those infernal devices.

For more on the subject you may want to check out http://radartest.com/BEL-STi-R-Plus-review.asp

 

Can anyone give me one good reason why a state would outlaw radar detectors? Or even laser jammers for that matter.

 

Outlaw radar detectors- to catch speeders

Outlaw laser jammers-

a) You have a right to recieve ANYTHING that is in the air. Decoding the signal is ILLEGAL UNLESS you have purchased the PRIVILAGE to do so.

b) You do not have a RIGHT to transmit, that is a PRIVILAGE requiring a license.

c) You will NEVER get the license to broadcast (or redirect) on that freq (laser) and an encoded signal on top of that.

d) to catch speeders


Make sense?

 

In early 1979, a Miami television station showed viewers a radar gun clocking a palm tree at 86 mph and a house at 28 mph. In the first instance, the reading was caused by panning the radar antenna and in the second, the radar unit was measuring the fan motor in the patrol car. The TV report prompted a court case that brought radar errors national attention.

A year later the National Bureau of Standards tested the six most popular police radar models, finding that all produced false speed readings in the presence of CB or police radios. Each of the two-piece units produced panning errors like the one that caught the Miami house apparently moving at 28 mph. All of the moving radar units were subject to "shadowing," causing some of the patrol car's speed to be added to that of the target vehicle (Federal Register, Vol. 46, No. 5, Jan. 8, 1981).

When the International Association of Chiefs of Police tested 24 radar models in 1983 and '84, the results showed that nearly all of the units were affected by temperature variation, five failed accuracy tests, four had unacceptably wide beam widths and three tended to provide inaccurate readings due to nearby police or CB radios.

Federal performance standards were proposed but never adopted during the Reagan administration. Instead, radar manufacturers promised to police their own ranks. From out perspective, things haven't improved. Police radar is as error prone today as ever, particularly with the widespread use of radar in the instant-on mode.

And the effectiveness of the manufacturers' self-policing policy came to light recently (3/89) when it was revealed that one radar maker sold thousands of units bearing fraudulent Federal Communications Commission certification.

Some of radar's shortcomings are readily apparent. Beam Width is one. Think of a radar beam as a cone - narrow at the radar antenna and widening as it heads for the horizon. Even the narrowest of radar beams - 11 degrees - is 38 feet wide when 200 feet down the road and 57 feet wide at 300 feet away. Some radar units transmit a beam as wide as 24 degrees. By the time a radar beam is several hundred feet from a patrol car, the microwaves are blanketing an area as wide as an expressway.

Now picture that expressway full of cars and trucks, and remember that traffic radar can't tell its operator which vehicle it is monitoring, or whether the target is approaching or traveling away from the police car. You quickly understand how great the potential is for misidentification.