GEICO (think it used to, or still may, stand for Government Employees Insurance Co.) has also spent a fair amount of time lobbying for radar detector prohibition, now the law in 4-5 states, I think. That's one reason I've never requested a quote from them.

Jim

You know what would really get me? (Hope no HP buyers are reading this...) If it was a Japanese or a German car. Like a VW or a Honda or a Toyota. So far, the one common denominator is that the government vehicles always come from the USA.

This will most likely never happen. The government almost always buys products made in the USA. I found about this from someone who works for Agilent. The government is switching to their main competitor because Agilent is moving production outside the US.

I may be giving the Washington State Patrol more credit than they deserve, but I've since been told that this particular, humbling spot north of the army firing range is Yakima County's #2 or #3 revenue source (WA counties get a cut of the take of WSP tickets inside their county), and part of me had to admire just how totally I'd been had. You drive uphill with the ridge blocking the view to the southwest, across a couple of ravines that give you some brief views (rather that give the spotter a view), then pass under a county bridge (the starting mark for the trap) right out into a full exposure to the southwest (now heading downhill, dang). At 80, you're over the 1/4-mile trap in 8-10 seconds even if you wise up and start slowing.

Pity the gent who had been slipstreaming us (in an Aerostar van of all things), didn't slow, and got clocked at ~100.

Parts of the Grapevine in southern CA seem like a good setup for this kind of thing.

Jim

Ouch, I still haven't seen pickups in CA. There's a lot of Broncos, but no actual pickups. That'd get me for sure, as I deliberately skip over pickups when scanning.

Haven't you been around 580 near Vasco Rd. I've often seen one parked in the center lane of the overpass, just watching the traffic go by. I see it there in the mornings because that's my exit. I seem to remember it being tan w/white marked doors.

--Glenn

Truth is, if I'd slammed on the brakes when I first saw him behind me, he wouldn't have been able to pace me in time and wouldn't have had a good clocking. Depending on the cop, they usually won't write you up unless they're sure the clocking is ironclad.

Sounds like what happened to me once. I was going 65 in 45 mph zone (it'd have been safe at 80 - three lanes, perfectly straight, middle of the night so no other cars around) when I saw somebody catching up with me from behind. Couldn't tell if it is a cop but slowed down anyway, without touching the breaks. By the time he caught up I was only 5 mph over the limit. He pulled me over but I got away with a warning. He must have seen me fly past him earlier but I guess he didn't get an accurate clocking.

Borislav

I'm not saying it's wrong to write tickets to speeders. The HP does a good job of keeping the peace on our freeways, and they perform a necessary function. I wouldn't have things any other way. The fact that they keep me on my toes is a good thing.

I don't know, Tony. The amount of mental processing you devote to identifying HP cars could be better spend on looking out for traffic dangers... It obviously does help a bit by forcing you to look around you at all, but I doubt that taking it to extremes is a good thing.

Borislav

The amount of mental processing you devote to identifying HP cars could be better spend on looking out for traffic dangers... It obviously does help a bit by forcing you to look around you at all, but I doubt that taking it to extremes is a good thing.

It's not like that at all. The fact that I'm keeping my eyes open and looking all around at all traffic means that I'm paying MORE attention to what's going on around me.

Somebody back me up on this one.

___________
Tony Fabris

: Instead of slowing to 55, I thought that slamming on the brakes would have been too guilty-looking

My trick: Use the e-brake to slow down at that point. It isn't great for the brake. but you can gradually slow down without turning on your brake lights thus alerting the officer that you are, in fact, trying to slow down to avoid a ticket. Of course, this only works effeciently with those who have the pull-up emergency brake, rather than the kind under the dash that you apply with your foot, or pull out a handle to engage.

(O|||||O)

Returning somewhat to the original question... I used to have a Valentine-1, and while using it I never got a ticket. However, the damn thing would be going off all the time, even in the "advanced logic" mode. Then, when I once valet parked my car, the valet stole the V-1. Grrr... Since then, I haven't replaced it. I've found, instead, that my car is a more quiet, calm place without the damn V-1 going off all the time.

Instead, my current strategy is that on local roads that I know well, I know all the places that I tend to see cops and just drive slower there. And, when I'm somewhere I don't know, I try to keep my speed close to the "average" speed of drivers around me. Consider I-45 from Houston to Dallas. The speed limit is 70mph. The average speed is probably 85mph, and if you only go 85, you'll have 18-wheelers blasting past you. I've done this drive both with and without the V-1. In practice, with enough road traffic, somebody way up front tends to see the cop and will slow down and you'll be thinking "why is the traffic slowing down here?" until a mile later you see the speed trap. The V-1 had much less value than I would have thought.

Admittedly, I had a lot more fun driving on the autobahn when I was in Germany where I could focus my attention purely on safety issues rather than scanning for police. When I'm back home, I've just forced myself to generally drive slower as I get no joy in fighting speeding tickets.

My trick: Use the e-brake to slow down at that point.

Oh yeah, I'm very familiar with that trick, and in fact, that's what I did. My mistake was that I e-braked gently to 65 instead of slamming full on the brakes and slowing to 55. I allowed him to clock me at 65, thinking, "He won't write me for 65". Well, he did. He knew I'd slowed to 65 from something higher than 65, and attempted to get me to admit to what speed I was going. I admitted nothing, and simply said, "I didn't think I was going that fast." So he wrote me for what he clocked me.

If I'd done the exact same actions except chosen to slow to 55 instead of 65, it would have been different: He would have pulled me over and tried to get me to admit my speed. But without a solid clocking on me, he would have been forced to either let me off with a warning, or take his chances that I'd challenge the ticket. I think this particular guy was smart and wouldn't have written me without an ironclad clocking.

Oh by the way, another advantage of using the e-brake (besides the lack of tail lights) is that your car doesn't "nose dive". Dead giveaway.

Kids don't try this at home: You should never do the e-brake trick in a panic. It should only be done gently. If you lock up the rear wheels, you could spin the car. Not a good thing.

___________
Tony Fabris

Related trick: in a manual transmission, just downshift and let the engine slow down your car. This must be done smoothly to prevent your car's nose from diving, making you look guilty. Of course, an officer can state, clearly, that he saw your brake lights go on. He can't state quite as clearly that he saw your car dip forward...

Blimey, do your cops in USA take speeding more seriously than the UK? I guess so.

Down our motorways at least, ive seen marked police cars a few times, but ive never "seen" or been pulled over buy an unmarked on a motorway. The general consensus with most of them from what i can gather, is they dont care if your speeding down an empty motorway, but they do care if its a dual carriageway with blind corners etc.

I was stuck behind a car doing the limit (30) down some normal roads around Lightwater, got to a dual carriageway, rinsed it up to 100. I noticed the car i had over taken was following me a bit closely.. "i bet its a police car" i think, so i slow down.
It was of course an undercover car. fortunately the officers (2 of them, you need 2 in the uk i think) explained to me they did not have a calibrated speedo, and they didnt have any camera equipment so it wouldnt stand up in court that i was doing "around 90" (which would have been a 3 month ban for me..). However, im begining to doubt they didnt have a calibrated speedometer, as from what i can gather all police cars, especialy traffic cops, do.

It was an undercover blue 2.2 litre vauxhall vectra if your wondering. Nowadays i look for the undercover traffic cop cars by seeing if theyre fastish cars that are relatively cheap, and have lots of aerials on their roof.
Theres also lots of Subaru Imprezzas around as undercover traffic cars now. Scary. You can tell by the aerials.

The worst is driving down the A3 towards london. Its layed out as a motorway (3 lanes, 70 limit), but they treat it like a plain 3 laned road, and 80% of my journeys down it involve a police car.
Then theres all the speed cameras they like to put up. Highly irritating. Initialy all the revenue went to the government, but now they are planning / starting to give the revenue to the police force involved so they are trying to put as many up as possible in hidden places to make money out of it. Before, they couldnt afford to fill them with film, but now they can make a profit, so they do.
Scum.

I think i got done doing about 70 in a 60 on a camera on wednesday.. i hope there was no film in it.

When i can afford myself GT3 / Ferrari, i will afford to have james bond style changing liscence plates at the back. Push a button, have plates saying "HAR HAR" or something, and zoom past the cameras.. trace that. Push button again to return to normal plates when your out of the camera area.

Hmm..

There is some company here that gets a list of everybody that got a ticket from a camera, either intersection or speed. Then they sell the person a plastic polarized cover that goes over the plate. You can't see the plate unless you are directly behind it, and the glare is really bad, so the flash can't see it.

You wouldn't believe how many of those things are around...

Of course, an officer can state, clearly, that he saw your brake lights go on. He can't state quite as clearly that he saw your car dip forward...

The braking thing isn't important if he writes you up. If you challenge the ticket in court, the only thing that counts is whether or not he clocked you at the speed he wrote you for.

The only reason I don't want to look like I'm slamming on my brakes is because I don't want to piss the cop off. If he thinks I've been driving in an unsafe manner (as opposed to just speeding), he's more likely to want to throw the book at me. Basically, if he sees me slamming on my brakes, it will reduce my chances of talking my way out of the ticket.

In any case, if you think it will avoid a clocking, never hesitate to apply maximum braking. That's the lesson I learned.

___________
Tony Fabris

Then theres all the speed cameras . . .


Yeah, you can't talk you way out with a camera, though some have found interesting alternative solutions (don't try this at home . . . .)






Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

In reply to:

---

In any case, if you think it will avoid a clocking, never hesitate to apply maximum braking. That's the lesson I learned.

---

This is third hand and probably unreliable, but I'm told that radar guns do a "plausibility check" by comparing multiple fixes.

I'm told that if the target is changing speed too quickly, the gun assumes it's a bogus reading and won't report a speed. 0.5G was mentioned as a threshold.

I know I can exceed 0.5G braking quite safely in my cars...so braking hard might even save you from radar.

-Zandr

-Zandr
Mk.I #0150 10GB
RioCar #010101243 10GB (96GB here I come...)

Airplanes are also very ironclad.

Not in CA, they're not. California has some very interesting laws on the books:

40801.  No peace officer or other person shall use a speed trap in

arresting, or participating or assisting in the arrest of, any person

for any alleged violation of this code nor shall any speed trap be

used in securing evidence as to the speed of any vehicle for the

purpose of an arrest or prosecution under this code.



40802.  (a) A "speed trap" is either of the following:

   (1) A particular section of a highway measured as to distance and

with boundaries marked, designated, or otherwise determined in order

that the speed of a vehicle may be calculated by securing the time it

takes the vehicle to travel the known distance.

   (2) A particular section of a highway with a prima facie speed

limit that is provided by this code or by local ordinance under

subparagraph (A) of paragraph (2) of subdivision (a) of Section

22352, or established under Section 22354, 22357, 22358, or 22358.3,

if that prima facie speed limit is not justified by an engineering

and traffic survey conducted within five years prior to the date of

the alleged violation, and enforcement of the speed limit involves

the use of radar or any other electronic device that measures the

speed of moving objects.  This paragraph does not apply to a local

street, road, or school zone.

There's lots of language following 40802 (a) (2) that defines local roads, training requirements for use of radar, &c. And 40803 and up say that speed trap evidence is inadmissible in court, witnesses testifying on the basis of speed traps are incompetent, &c.

40802 (b) can be useful for beating a radar ticket. But it's 40802 (a) (1) that's interesting here.

Basically, what this means is that in CA, even aircraft have to pace you. That's why you see Cessnas flying low and parallel to the road, rather than orbiting at a higher altitude with a stopwatch like you do in other states.

On twisty roads, they don't have a chance. Otherwise, there's a fair amount of room to argue that the aircraft cut corners, &c. Note that since winds aloft can't be determined with any great precision, they have to time themselves against ground objects. (I suppose they could use GPS) Obviously, aircraft will work pretty well on I-5.

Of course, IANAL, YMMV, and YGMGOE.

-Zandr
Mk.I #0150 10GB
RioCar #010101243 10GB (96GB here I come...)

But US drivers aren't accustomed to roundabouts....I have a friend that works in an office building next to the roundabout, and it surprises and confuses everyone who tries it for the first time.

There's one neighborhood in Santa Cruz where the locals were trying to cut down on thru traffic. When the speed bumps didn't slow people down, they added roundabouts. (a round island in the center of what was a 4-way intersection)

Had the opposite effect on me...I love the slaloms.



-Zandr
Mk.I #0150 10GB
RioCar #010101243 10GB (96GB here I come...)

It's not like that at all. The fact that I'm keeping my eyes open and looking all around at all traffic means that I'm paying MORE attention to what's going on around me.

Somebody back me up on this one.

I'll back you up.

You're right, though I'd argue that you probably spend more time watching your mirrors than would be ideal for safety.

Some interesting statistics here:

Our favorite radar-buying insurance company commisioned a study to prove that radar detectors are evil. They compared the collision rates of drivers who had purchased radar detectors with the general population, obviously hoping to show that anyone who owned a radar detector was a menace to society.

Result? Detector owners had 30-40% lower collision rates than the general population.

Another study looked at relative speeds and discovered that collision rates were lowest for cars that were travelling 2-3mph faster than the average for a given road. I think the conclusion here is driving your mirrors is a bad thing. (It only gets me in trouble at the track, that's for sure. )

Continuing the counterintuitive trend, a friend of mine is tracking the DMV records of students that attend high-performance driving schools (schools at tracks). He's seeing a ~90% reduction in collisions compared to the general population. Maybe we should stop giving out drivers licenses in crackerjack boxes?

Rather than replying again and again to this thread, I think it's just time to plug the National Motorists Association, which I think of as the driver's equivalent of the EFF. (And what AAA used to be, before they sold out and became an insurance company.)

-Zandr
Mk.I #0150 10GB
RioCar #010101243 10GB (96GB here I come...)

Your point is a very good one. There's a price to be paid for having all that sensitivity. I have an older detector that I did not bother rewiring into the new wheels, and, while I've been thinking about a V-1 or other detector, I start asking if I really want to add another $400 temptation for somebody to smash my window and/or do I want yet another piece of hardware to tote to/from the car. I'm thinking no. If I parked in a secured garage my analysis might be different.

About a decade ago I was obliged to make a hasty 3-day trip from Boston to Seattle and that (admittedly older) detector went off about 200 times during the trip. I encountered precisely zero real radar traps, however. I just started leaving it off more and more (as I grew older!!).

Another angle: on the occasion of getting paced and ticketed at night a few years ago, the young WSP trooper leaned in the passenger side window, took a good long look at that detector, and wrote me up for the full boot. Having that baby up there does tend to limit the ability to feign innocence. If I install a detector, it may well be one of the overpriced hardwired units (even with their reduced effectiveness) that I would not have to haul out of the car every night (or when valet parking!) and that would not be so obvious to troopers and/or car prowlers.

I used to be a lot more commited to exceeding the speed limit by significant margins, but much of this was when a 55 MPH limit (on highway sections now posted at at a more appropriate 70) could lead you to lapse into a coma if closely observed. To Tony's point, I do think that speeding, to some extent, helps thoughtful people stay on their toes -- check overpasses, check on-ramps, look for planes, scan big, generic sedans, etc. I still do it now and again, but more and more I find it gets tiring. I've also developed a slightly more relaxed philosophy. If I get a ticket every 1-2 years, I just roll with it; I just try to save those occasions for out of state. As I told the cop in New Jersey "Hey, a ticket every year or two helps confirm that you're still alive". He laughed.

Finally, on the vehicle paranoia front, a good friend who commutes daily in Seattle on I-5 reports several sighting of WSP in a white Volvo wagon in one of their fave spots northbound under the bridge at North 145th. no idea about the "buy 'Merican" issue. Perhaps this was a seized vehicle?

Jim

Boston, where I grew up, has a lot of "rotaries", especially on the old MDC "pleasure" roads that inadverdently became main commuter arteries. Rotary users there are divided into two rough groupings: 1) Unwitting innocents who somehow (correctly) believe that vehicles (theirs) already in the rotary have the right of way but who have too high a degree of social sensitivity to enforce their right of way. and 2) well-honed sociopaths who know that vehicles (theirs) entering the rotary do *not* have the right of way but who consistently manage to obtain it by strictly avoiding any semblance of eye contact with drivers in Group 1.

Jim

To Tony's point, I do think that speeding, to some extent, helps thoughtful people stay on their toes -- check overpasses, check on-ramps, look for planes, scan big, generic sedans, etc.

I still don't understand how checking overpasses and looking for planes helps traffic safety.

Borislav

I still don't understand how checking overpasses and looking for planes helps traffic safety.

It's not that, specifically.

My point is: In order to speed and not get caught, you need to be on your toes at all times. You can't take your eyes off the road, you must constantly scan your surroundings, and you must be sensitive to the movements of all the vehicles around you. You also have to drive with the focus on where you're going to be instead of where you are, i.e., keeping your attention on the area of road up ahead of you.

What's dangerous is someone who speeds and doesn't do those things. Or heck, even someone who drives the speed limit and doesn't do those things. That's why I'm glad there's a Highway Patrol.

And to scan for airplanes, you don't stick your head out the window and stare straight up. Airplanes will generally be seen with your attention focused on the road ahead of you. They fly very low over the highway. You should be able to see them without taking your eyes off the road.

Checking onramps is a good thing for safety, anyway, if you're in the right lane. It allows merges to happen more safely.

___________
Tony Fabris

They must be in Hemel Hempstead and High Wycombe ?

MK2 Red S/n 949

Hemel is one of them, but to be honest I couldn't remember where the other one was...

__
Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

Damn! I just got my first ticket (ever, I'm only 19) three hours ago. I'm a good, safe driver, and I'm usually the carefully alert speeder that Tony just described. Tonight, however, I was thinking about how I had just forgotten something back from where I had left, and it was 2 am and no one was on the road, save one policeman in a dark side street waiting for me. The ticket was for 48 in a 35 (mph), which should be $145 + insurance, but I can probably get out of it by taking 6 hours of defensive driving (plus court costs). I think this might have been a situation when a radar gun would have saved me, unless the policeman was using the instant-on type.

What’s the worst about it is that I'm pretty convinced that this small city routinely sets ups speed traps as a revenue producing stream that preys on motorists passing thorough. That kind of pisses me off. Oh well.

- John

30 GB - Mk2a (Rio Car) - BLUE

You can't take your eyes off the road, you must constantly scan your surroundings, and you must be sensitive to the movements of all the vehicles around you. You also have to drive with the focus on where you're going to be instead of where you are, i.e., keeping your attention on the area of road up ahead of you.

Greetings!

Isn't this one of the reasons that the empeg has the feature of not booting into a visual mode??? So that you don't smash into a tree or another car?

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (96GB Smoke)

Isn't this one of the reasons that the empeg has the feature of not booting into a visual mode??? So that you don't smash into a tree or another car?

Nice try, but you can't get us back on topic that easily.


___________
Tony Fabris

What’s the worst about it is that I'm pretty convinced that this small city routinely sets ups speed traps as a revenue producing stream that preys on motorists passing thorough. That kind of pisses me off. Oh well.

Road Tax.

I hate the way they set up traps just after the speed changes on the freeway from 100kph to 90 kph. usually the trap is just 200m past the sign so unless you're familiar with the road you'e likely get caught.
I got done easter last year coming into a town on the Pacific Hwy. There are these strage signs with '60 ahead' in the 100 zone and then 200m later they have the 60 sign. I didn't see the 60 and got caught, $180 + six points.
But there is a way to beat the system. I was able to over pay the fine and they send you the refund of the balance. I have the check filed somewhere and havent lost the points as the accounting program doesn't subtract the points until your balance returns to $0.

So far so good

Murray 06000047
I don't think, therefore I am not.