The search for weapons of speed detection is getting harder
For a wondrous two-year window of virtual immunity, you could drive your Ferrari as fast as it could go on the highway in the mid-1970s. That was immediately after the expensive and sophisticated Escort radar detector replaced the low-tech FuzzBuster in the arsenals of drivers looking to sniff out a ticket-book-wielding Smokey Bear. In response, radar gun makers added an "instant-on" function to radar, effectively hiding its presence until its beam was fired at a prospective speeder. The arms race continues to escalate more than 30 years later. Will highway drivers ever enjoy electronic immunity again?
Good news for cops in 2006 is the decline of radar as a measurement technology, replaced by new, lighter and more accurate and nearly impossible to detect laser devices. Laser gun sales now make up 30 percent of the speed enforcement electronics market, substantially higher than the 10 percent lasers had in 2004. The other 70 percent of the speed-measuring weapons sold to police departments across the country are mostly the smallest, lightest version of three types of speed radar in use.
Carl Fors' Speed Measurement Laboratories is the United Nations of traffic. It's been around since the beginning of the long battle. Engineer Fors has been a consultant for the Car and Driver magazine tests of the mid-'90s, the standard of their time for consumer detector testing. More recently he has supplied test data for Motor Trend. So he's friendly with the drivers. He's also assisted the manufacturers of the radar and laser guns and other devices designed to ticket drivers; and the bulk of his business is to train cops around the country how to catch speeders with radar and laser guns. Not only does he fight on both sides of the battleground, he also gathers research on highway motorist behavior for a few universities.
Every year Fors gathers the leaders of both sides of the conflict for a testing summit, inviting the makers of the newest weapons of speed detection and the producers of radar detectors and other countermeasures. This test is timed to be published before the International Association of Chiefs of Police annual conference, which this year is in Boston in October.
Fors' testing occurs on deserted roads, mostly free of stray electronic pollution, outside El Paso, Texas. Speed Measurement Laboratories hired nine off-duty police officers trained to operate the radar and laser guns, and the company was paid by the detector manufacturers before the test began to independently test their detectors.
Laser is invisible
The reason laser guns also called LIDAR, for Light Detection and Ranging are rapidly gaining popularity is simple: They cannot be detected until after they have already made a speed measurement. That's because a laser beam's width is considerably smaller than a radar beam's.
And the reason they've become so popular with cops lately is because laser gun makers have designed small units, units that can get a reading through a windshield, and even a unit that's the size of a pair of binoculars. Laser guns are also sporting cameras that deliver a digital image of a car, its license plate and the speed it was traveling. "Where operated," says Fors, "plead-guilty rates approach 100 percent with laser cameras."
All of the established brands of radar detectors also have laser detectors built into them. Fors and crew tested 13 of the most advanced of these detectors in this year's annual test against the latest police radar and laser guns. What he discovered is when a cop aims a laser gun at a vehicle's front license plate instead of the windshield area where a detector usually sits, the detectors would often not detect the laser signal at all. When a cop aims a laser gun at a car in front of a detector-equipped car, the detector won't pick up the signal. This strategic battle is a win for the cops.
"Expect a laser gun in your driving future," Fors says. In addition, the color of the car used to have an effect on early laser guns, but not anymore. Fors tested black cars and white cars, and found that the latest laser guns measure speed as effectively for both colors. Cops are trained to aim the laser guns at highly reflective license plates and headlights in the 17 states that do not require front plates.
Countermeasures
Two technologies exist that can impair the laser's operation. Fors tested a product called "Laser Veil," which is a mostly clear liquid that is painted on the headlights and other reflective surfaces on the front of a vehicle.
In his testing, the distance at which a laser gun could get a reading of a car that had Laser Veil applied was shortened from 28 percent to 61 percent. In one test, for example, the Kustom Signals' Stalker LZ-1 laser gun's capture distance was reduced from 1,213 feet to 486 feet, a significant invisibility cloak for drivers. Laser Veil is not cheap, at $90 for a 5-ounce bottle, which will treat a car eight to 10 times. Since it needs an ammonia treatment and a high-pressure wash to remove it, it won't come off in the rain.
Shooting back
Using the second of the two laser-defensive technologies, the drivers shoot back. Fors' team tested two laser jammers, which are called "Laser Blinder" and "Lidatek Laser Echo." These devices consist of deck-of-cards-sized transmitters that mount on the front of the car near the license plate, and a small control box that mounts inside the car. Both jammed the six top laser guns currently used by police.
"There are no federal laws prohibiting the use of a laser countermeasure," says Fors, meaning that for the moment, the drivers are winning this battle. Two of the six laser gun brands advertise that they can tell when they are being jammed, but in Fors' testing, only one did so successfully. Jammer buyers beware, too: Fors notes that the Laser Blinder he tested that jammed laser successfully came from a Danish company, but another device with the same name from New Zealand did not jam the laser gun effectively.
Radar still most popular
Virginia, Washington, D.C. and most Canadian provinces have outlawed radar detector use, and all states have outlawed the devices in commercial trucks. The likely reason is because the detectors work.
One reason cops like radar is that it can be used while the patrol car is moving, and because of its wide beam it doesn't need to be aimed very precisely. That also means it's easy to sniff out when it's being used. And that's the trick: Radar detectors need to pick up when instant-on radar is being used on a car far out in front, because it is otherwise off most of the time. Fors favors a two-mile warning and a one-and-a-half-mile warning to determine the ability of a detector to find a radar beam being shot at other cars.
Cutting to the chase, the best detectors in the test are from Bel, Escort and Valentine, followed by Cobra and then Whistler; and these brands are also traditionally the top scorers in the annual test. This year every detector Fors tested could sniff out all bands of radar at a mile and a half.
Effective radar jammers were made in the 1990s, which led to five states specifically banning their use; and there is a federal law that any device that intentionally interferes with any licensed radar gun may not be sold in the U.S. This has prevented jammer producers from expanding their research and development, and therefore the jammers that are currently available are not effective, regardless that they're illegal.
Detector detector detectors
Since 1995, trucks have been forbidden from using detectors in any state, yet Fors estimates that about 10 percent use them. "This issue has become a true cat-and-mouse game with detector makers and enforcement equipment makers," says Fors. Police departments in states that outlaw radar detectors and in Canada have been using four types of detector detectors in differing levels of sophistication. After the first radar detector detector, the detector makers shielded and altered frequencies to avoid being detected. "Then it became humorous as the radar detectors could detect the radio frequency leakage of the radar detector detectors before the radar detector detectors could detect the detector. These radar detectors became Radar Detector Detector Detectors," Fors muses.
At his annual test, Fors found that the Bel, Valentine and Escort detectors were undetectable in some cases, and were detected by the police detector detectors at maximum distances of about 150 feet. That means a savvy detector user can just turn off the detector whenever a cop is in sight. That's a small win for the drivers.
The most effective combination for motorists would be one of the two effective laser jammers, one of the three top-performing radar detectors and headlights painted with Laser Veil, which is today's top technology to avoid tickets.
source:http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=116259#2
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