[Official] What's the Best Radar Detector?

Phimosis

I've never owned a radar. I've thought about it on occasion, but in the end decided not to because I was afraid it would make me lazy and complacment, just driving around speeding and not paying attention, rather than being situationally aware. Then when you get popped with laser, poof! Instant ticket.

Anyone ever get tickets while running a V1? If so, how many? If it doesn't ever fail you, I would get one. But if the system fails on a routine basis, then I've just got a false sense of security and am asking for trouble.

theDreamer

That is how I look with my V1, it is just an added tool to help increase my eyes in finding things. I keep myself alert and aware, but the V1 can pick up on situations much farther than my eyes will ever see, and with the limited rear view it helps in picking up things from behind that I will miss.

It is not 100% full proof, if the officer does not have his radar on pinging then he will just ride by without you knowing unless you stay aware. The worst situation for me is I turn my V1 off when driving with certain people, I know it bugs them and I do not speed with them in the car, but I must remember to turn it back on when they get out.

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eddieconfetti

its preference. v1 and the escort 9500 are both great. the thing i like about escort 9500, like par4bmw said, is the blocking of false alarms and also red light detector. i like the how the v1 shows where the signal is coming from. but if it came down to choosing one, i would get the escort. unless you have enough money to buy both and use both of them.

armensti

placed an order for the V1 on sunday and it should be here by wednesday if not tomorrow. 422 all together. 399 for the radar and 23 for the shipping. for some reason they didnt charge me tax

semtex

They didn't charge you tax because they're in Ohio and you're in CA. No big mystery there.

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jyhighsky

own both the V1 and 8500 X50 Passport Escort [blue]. Recommend passport especially around where i live, hills and turns. passport seems to catch it around turns and hills better. as for distance, KA bands are caught faster through my 8500 X50 Passport Escort than my V1 and amps up quicker. I own both, have both mounted hahahaha. V1 is extremely convenient when it shows the arrows. But I figured, if you get a K or a KA, who cares where it's from, just slow down. Can't go wrong with either. But if I had to choose, Passport Escort.

spearfish25

I just bought the Passport 9500ix. It's incredible. Excellent detection range and the integrated GPS is worth its weight in gold. It learns false alerts and automatically blocks them. Thus, I rarely get a false reading in my regular route. If it goes off...I'm hard on the brakes. It also reminds you of redlight cameras which has probably paid for itself already in that respect alone.

Shunya

gotta agree with everyone else. it's gotta be V1

nightfire

V1 those arrows are a life saver!

white92

But how do you guys detect when I run VASCAR?

semtex

We don't. No electronic counter-measure is 100% foolproof, esp. against non-electronic tactics. Electronic counter-measures should be treated as a supplement, not a substitute, to paying attention, being alert, and using good ol' common sense.

__________________
"There are no small accidents on this circuit." -- Ayrton Senna
316.8whp & 248 ft/lbs (Dyno Dynamics) | 319whp & 256 ft/lbs (DynoJet) (04/23/10)
Stillen G3 CAI, CBE, Pulley / F.I. LTH / GTSpec Ladder Brace / Setrab Oil Cooler / UpRev-tuned by Forged Perf.

white92

Well said semtex. It's amazing how many speeding tickets I've written to people with radar detectors. Radar, lidar, vascar. Most of the time, by the time you know we're there it's too late.

FWIW- My radar stays on "hold" until I see someone flying.

Vascar rocks too, it's great when people pass me on the interstate. Gotta love an unmarked Hemi Charger!

wstar

Well, "unmarked" is relative. Usually I'm pretty good at picking those out, there's usually some tell-tale signs, but sometimes they aren't obvious until you get close.

I've gotten 3 radar tickets with my V1 in the car (and avoided many, many others). Two times it was because I had turned off the V1 while working on the car in the garage, and forgot to turn it back on (it's hardwired, and I usually just assume it's on - one was very recently, my only 370Z ticket). The other time was a really smart well-prepared cop with some flavor of instant-on Ka radar. He positioned himself about 1/2 mile past a hill that you can't see over on the highway, and he was waiting and not using the gun until he actually saw an obvious speeder crest the hill. So there was no early warning, but I saw him on the side of the road a split second before he lit up the radar (and sent my V1 going going berserk) and luckily I managed to bleed off a lot of speed before he got a lock. It was still a pretty heavy ticket, but it could've been much worse if I hadn't spotted him and started reacting before he pulled the trigger.

Nothing is fool-proof, but a V1 has definitely cut down on my rate of tickets in the long term. I've been seeing more and more radar/laser enforcement around Houston the past year or so. I'm guessing this is economically motivated by the city's budget in this economy, so I kinda treat it like a semi-randomly-enforced road tax, and my V1 is my tax professional that helps avoid me getting screwed too bad. It especially feels that way when you see them randomly pulling cars out of 80mph traffic (in a 70) repeatedly, when nobody's really being unsafe at all. It's like shooting harmless fish in a barrel.

Of course it would be more ideal if traffic enforcement would focus on actually targetting the rarer truly unsafe drivers regardless of speed, and let speeders off if they're not doing anything that's clearly unsafe. From a god's-eye rational view, it's pretty clear to me that me (being an experienced and attentive driver) in my car (which is exceptionally-well maintained by me personally and designed for this kinda stuff) doing 90-110-ish in little to no traffic is far safer than someone who doesn't really know how to drive to begin with, isn't paying attention to conditions and other drivers, with brakes that haven't been serviced in 3 years, going the speed limit in the fast lane while trying to gulp down a starbucks and jabbering with someone on their cellphone. But unfortunately officers don't have a god's-eye view of every situation, so I guess they do what they can, mostly. I just wish more of them would at least try to be rational about it, instead of being ticket-vending-machines.

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thispecialk

isnt radar detector illegal also in some state?

molamann

Virginia, Washington D.C, and military bases.