radar detector users encouraged to read this
 

he guys, im not sure if any of you are aware of this, but i had a recent experience with speeding / radar detector and thought i would share. so i was cruising with a buddy, who was doing 80 in a 70 on the interstate, and he got pulled over. his radar detector never went off. the cop gave him a ticket and told him that he was picked up by a blimp some 20,000 feet in the sky. i read his ticket, and it specified, "radar by aircraft". mind = blown. now i dont know what kind of detector he had, but he was convinced that it was a great one, even after his ticket, and im not sure if these aircraft only monitor the interstate, but i just wanted everyone to know so that maybe this post can save someone some money. peace

Yes, speed detection by aircraft is very common and been used for many years. Your radar will not pick it up because usually they are not using radar but points on the road to track and calculate speed. The only plus is there is required to be a sign in the area usually:
http://photo.accuweather.com/photoga.../f5d075910.jpg

wow, they need to catch A LOT of speeders to keep a blimp in the air just for speeding... lol wat a waste of money.

Our tax money :icon18:

no wonder our government is in the sh!tter..

right. leave it to louisiana to waste tax dollars. oh, no sign that i noticed btw. not suprised, all the law enforcement and politics are crooked here

I don't think this made it's way to illinois yet....

I agree with above regarding tax money wasted. Plus 10-15 over on interstate is reasonable i thought.

my first ticket was from one of these but the guys in a small cesna. A good indicator on the interstate is these long white lines that stretch from left to right of the road and they are in series of 3's every few hundred feet. After I noticed this I slow down as soon as I see them and start looking at the sky. Ive only ever seen them actually doing this 3 times in my 15 years of driving but it does happen! Hate it cause they will put like 10 state troopers just past it while they rake in the money for their monthly dues.

I feel like you guys are trolling. This isn't real, is it?!?!?

Oh it's real

Good tip :tup:

Yes, this is very real.
It is not very common though, but if you are ever driving and see large white lines then it might be an area they do it.

Waste of money. How do they justify aircraft of any sort looking for speeders and then have to send a officer to get you. So roughly you have two maybe three people, one blimp, and a car trying to catch a speeder that was only going 10 over. Yep I agree with you guys. Absolutly a waste of tax dollars that doesn't even pay itself back.

In GA it seems you have to be doing 15 over for them to pull you over. If they do your in deep ...... Super speeder is what they call it. Double the fine.

Radar and laser dectors are really just junk electronic gagets. Currently none of them really work.

Radar detectors 25-30 yrs ago did help drivers and give them time to slow down, but with the advent of pulsed radar, K band and now laser & radar hand held instant on units. The cops will nail you every time.

Best way to avoid the tickets is to not speed to much over the speed limit, most cops will tolerate 5 mph over the limit, but start at 7-14mph over the cop will usually ticket you.

You have to rememeber that cops are really salesmen for the court system, the only reason for issueing speeding tickets is to generate revenue.

Recently there was a very informative example of how the cops around las vegas and california border set up speed traps on the SPEED CHANNEL. The cops described themselves as setting up like NAZI UBOATS in wolfpacks. One cop will clock the speeders and they will have 4-6 chash cars to go after them. In Nevada I see the cops setting up this trap all the time and often , they will have a cop stationed on a bridge overlooking the highway and having the case cars on the on ramps, where the on coming drivers never really see them till its to late.

Other tactic cops use is the stalking method, where they come up from behind you, slowly tailing you waiting for you to do someting wrong or speed up and turn on they radar or laser units for older models, that is why its always good to keep checking whats in your rear view mirror. Keeping an eye out for a MOVER or someone closing really fast on you from a far distance.

Yes it's true.

They have this here in Ontario. My friends gf got caught coming back from Cornwall and a policeman will pull you over and indicate the helicopter caught you doing X speed. :thumbsdown:

:facepalm: First of all, I'd like to quickly say that I totally disagree with EVERYTHING you say above. You have absolutely zero clue what you are talking about. None. Radar detectors totally work if you are smart enough to know how to use them as an AID, not as your weapon. But I digress and that is a topic for another thread. You want to steal this one, go ahead, but these radar detector threads always go bad. You and I will not agree, so no point derailing this thread. I'm done on this. :tiphat:

Now back on topic, where has everyone been for the last 50 years? Ticketing by air has been going on since at least the 60's, and I know that for a fact. My Mom took flying lessons with a cop back in the mid 60's and he used to tell her about it. My Dad got busted twice by air cops in the 70's, and I myself got nailed by it about 3 or 4 years ago on I-70 going to Columbus. I was under the impression that most of the time they use small planes, but I have also read that helicopters and blimps are used. Blimps make perfect sense because they travel so slowly and can easily carry more than just 2 or 3 people. In a blimp there could easily be 6-8 cops up there tracking cars all at the same time. It also allows the ground cops miles and miles to wait for you. They can stand along the side of the road and just point to cars as they pass to pull over. One ground cop can give 5 cars tickets boom boom boom, without ever even clocking them.

While I have seen signs along the road saying air speed enforcement area, they don't have those in Southwest Ohio. No signs, just the white marker lines every certain distance (like 1/4 or 1/2 mile or something like that) along the side of the road. You've all seen those, right? From what I know, they use the lines, their eyes, and a stop watch to see how fast you are going. If there is some new fancier device, then I am unaware of it. I'm sure with technology the way it is though, there is probably some I-phone app to do it for them instead.

I can't wait until there is an I-phone app that tells us drivers the exact location of cops with radars and police planes so we can slow down in advance. :driving:

i find my radar detector protects me from speed cameras more than anything else these days (and there are a ton of those where i live). most cops in MD who are clocking speeders are using LIDAR (aka laser), and if your detector lights up for laser, you are already ******.

thats lame :-(

bonzo, im sure you are right. probably been going on for a long time. i dont speed enough to worry about it, but i rarely pay attention or get updated on worldly happenings, as they usually depress me and almost never affect me lol. well im glad most of you know about it. that was the purpose of my post. hope yall are driving safe anyway!

I dont agree with this at all either... My junk electronic gadget has saved me MANY times. However I do agree with bonzo that you have to use it as protection, not a weapon and still use your head when driving..

Thanks for the post, because frankly, I'm surprised by how many are already chiming in not knowing about this. If there are more our there, then now they'll know. So thanks for enlightening us all for different reasons, intentional or not.

Cheers! :tup:

:iagree:

Bonzo, they already have the drunk driving zone one for the iPhone and I know of a few radar ones that are out there but not on a usable level yet. The main thing is getting data and being to overlay it on a useful map, but I do know this one is getting some buzz: App Store - RadarActive Speed Traps

Good info on the Speed Channel thing, but the rest of your post is actually very very wrong. There are numerous websites which test the radar detectors to see which ones do work. Many of them, the higher price ones, have shown to outdo many cop tactics, especially with GPS technology and full 360 degree awareness. Plus throw in the understanding of how k band and laser frequency work and you now have systems which rebound the signal in an unusable manner for the cop negating his ability to track your speed.

Exactly. Pay attention to the sides of the road. If you see widely spaced, white lines, an operator in an aircraft can observe how long it takes your vehicle to travel from one line to the next. A simple calculation will decide your fate. Speed = distance/time. They've been using this for many years and on some roads there are even signs posted to warn you, although some may be fraudulent just to serve as a speeding-deterrent.

I'm fairly certain that using aircraft and points marked on the road is considered entrapment.

Also, here in AZ the Dept of Public Safety (who runs Highway Patrol) has a whole fleet of what they call Radio Cars. The Radio Cars are everything from Chrysler Town n Country minivans to Crown Vic, Camry, 4Runner, and a few other random cars. These people just cruise around and radio in to regular patrol units when they see something. DPS also has a freaking Winnebago.

plus relying on some guy up in the air (chopper, cesna, blimp, hot air balloon, 747) pushing a stop watch... how accurate can that be?

not very

Oh, you hadn't heard? Going to the police academy instantly makes you better at even the most mundane tasks! :p

Seriously though, I believe they have some sort of mechanism to account for that. I think they record your "speed" across multiple sets of markers, and average it. That should take out much of the "error".

Okay, let me educate you on what a REAL radar detector can do. Here is my V1 in action:

032 - YouTube

Valentine 1/HUD - YouTube

So...ditch your POS and get a real detector and your outlook might change.

You cannot jam radar legally. That is an FCC violation. You can jam LIDAR, though, and the excuse is that your system is meant as a parking aid, which is complete BS, but the legal loophole works for the manufacturers.

lol @ hiding your camera so the cop doesn't see you recording :icon17: definitely not worth the hassle.

I was new to filming the popo then, lol :roflpuke2:

Correct, most systems focus on LIDAR but there are some which disrupt most radar and then you can flip it off after you slow down.
Which I have seen done and the average cop will just think it was equipment malfunction but you get the occasional one who knows better.

FCC violations are no joke. I would rather get the traffic citation. The only way to legally jam radar is "passive jamming" like RAM coatings, etc.

Well to be a FCC violation, the frequency must be licensed to the Law enforcement County/City/State using it. I highly doubt that the radar frequency they are using is licensed. Just saying..

Friend of mine mentioned some type of clear coating you can paint your vehicle or maybe it was just the front that's supposed to fracture laser beams and make it impossible for them to get an actual reading on you, anyone heard of this ? Can't remember the name of it. He did say it was quite expensive to do as well and said there was a huge fine if you got caught using it.


'09 F.I. CBE/HFC-Stillen Gen3,Setrab+, SpeedBooster, Tune +ModBod

Veil, and there is no fine, but it will stain the **** out of your paint. It is only minimally effective, if that. It's meant to give you another 1/4 second or so to jam the LIDAR.

exactly, and I can't imagine this method of enforcement would be easy to prove in a court of law. Does a patrolman have to pull you over and give you the ticket or can they just mail one to you?

So, let me get this straight - protecting the safety of the public is a waste of tax payer money, hmmm.... so why have law enforcement at all?

...and let me guess, you are an angel in comparison???

Dang it Dude! You Cracked the Code!

... sort of like just buying a sports car makes you an instant race car driver you mean?

Just one word: WOW... :bowrofl: :rofl2: