Lawrenceville denies it's a speed trap - HOT TIP $80 RD

[4phun]

Lawrenceville denies it's a speed trap

By BEN SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/12/06

Some Lawrenceville drivers keep an eye out for the patrol car and a hand on their wallets.

Perhaps with good reason.

Read the story at this link
http://makeashorterlink.com/?T227658CC

TIP

Since Radio Shack is closing a lot of its smaller stores in this area at the end of this month they are offering steep discounts on some of their merchandise. You can buy a $200 cordless Radar Detector which is actually fairly good for $80 plus tax today if you can find one at a closing store.

This is actually a pretty nice detector but it has two downsides. The laerts are very soft audio. I hear you can send it back and have them turn the audio up with a modification. Second the blue display is hard to see in bright daylight. I solved this since it is cordless by mounting it up above the rear view mirror where the display is shaded to my vision. The alerts are easier to hear there also.

Link to 1788 manual - right click and save as to download PDF

http://www.007radardetectors.com/whistler_1788_manual.pdf

Cordless RD Review
http://www.radartest.com/article.asp?articleID=10055

Combine this detector with its blue display and the BCD396 with its blue display its is pretty neat driving at night in the metro area.

 

[pfish]

After spending quite a few hours (100+) in ridealongs with my local police department, I can safely tell you that a radar detector isn't going to do any good. I played around with running radar alot, and a majority of the people we stopped had radar detectors. The reason for this is, you simply press a button to activate the radar. It isn't scanning all the time. Therefor, a radar detector isn't going to detect the radar unless its scanning. By then, your already caught and the speed is locked on the display.

Save your money and buy something else.

 

[b7spectra]

I've done ride alongs as well. Unless the officer is running the radar full time, all it's going to take is (as said above) a quick hit of the trigger and you are dead meat. The easiest thing to do is just DRIVE THE SPEED LIMIT and you won't have anything to worry about. With the exception of a school zone, you have almost 9 mph grace on your speed. Mostly, people who complain about the speed traps are the ones who get caught speeding and then they say it's a "speed trap". I haven't had a speeding ticket in well over 20 years, I guess mainly because I OBEY the speed limit laws. ESPECIALLY in po-dunk towns in South Georgia!! Oh well.

 

[ReceiverBeaver]

I agree. Fools and their money are soon parted. However the closing RS stores may be good for some other bargains.......ah.....let me rephrase that. RS closings are bargains for society.

and don't forget all the little podunk towns of north Ga. too

 

[batdude]

uh huh

i use a valentine one radar detector.

i drive 10-15 over the speed limit REGULARLY on I-95.


i don't get tickets.


the smart(er) drivers know how to pace themselves and not leave themselves wide open for a potential hit with radar by following a few steps...

#1 - stay out of the left lane if the center or right lane is clear...use the #1/hammer lane for passing only

#2 - find a "rabbit" and pace them... let the moron get the ticket 1/2 mile in front of you.

#3 - watch the 18 wheelers - they know when to slow down.

#4 - maintain 100% focus on the road. no cell - no drinks - no stereo or radio/CB/Ham blaring. (this alone makes me 100% SAFER than mr. moron driving 65 in the hammer lane)

#5 - don't drive excessively over the speed limit in traffic... simple rule - don't pass more cars than are passing you (see rule #2)


i would add that most (?) cops that I encounter (FHP traffic enforcement mainly) leave their K and Ka blaring full bore all the time...as does FDOT. Valentine one gives 2-3 miles worth of warning on those idiots - who I am convinced leave their radar on solely to make 90% of the detector users slow down - and that DOES work.

will valentine or any "smartass" radar detector user beat the lone car ambush in town? Or a LIDAR attack? Probably not.

You have to drive smart.



doug

 

[greateratlanta]

I will partially agree with some of the responses. There is no way to beat a well trained

radar operator. The truth of the matter is that most police officers are under the

assumption that all radar detectors are crap and don't work. Therefore, they are prone to

leave them on all the time when driving down the road. A $50 Radio Shack brand or cheap

Whistler detector will not give you the range needed to detect K or Ka band at any

significant distance, but a top of the line Escort X50, Valentine V1 or Bel RX65 will. I

purchased an X50 a year ago to see if it was worth all the hype. Since owning it I can

honestly say I don't speed. I realize now just how frequently you pass police cars going the

opposite direction shooting towards you. This is enough to slow me down, not to mention

it is unsafe and costly to speed to begin with.



That being said, I can easily detect a constant on radar signal on K or Ka by over a mile.

Also, I can usually get at least 3/4 of a mile of warning for Ka instant on. Most people who

own detectors have not done there homework. A detector is only as good as the person

who operates it. They figure that you just purchase a cheap detector, plug it in and have

immunity to radar. If you truly understand radar and how it is operated one could easily

avoid most tickets (note: I am not condoning speeding!).



I would venture to guess that most of the individuals you pulled over with detectors had

the detector pointing up to the sky or down at the hood. Proper placement is everything

and for radar the consensus is the higher and more level you can get it the better. Owners

have to become familiar with what falses the detector and what is actually a threat. Most

owners get so used to it going off that the treat any beep as a false alert. Since X band is

almost entirely obsolete in GA, except for some rural counties, I have turned X band

completely off. This leaves me with K, Ka and Laser to deal with. Whenever is alerts to any

of these bands I start looking to see where it is coming from. I would say that about 45%

of the time I get an alert I watch some lead foot ahead of me get pulled over. Then all I

have to do is sit back and listen to the scanner. Lasers is almost impossible to detect due

to the physics behind it. If you get a laser alert and you were speeding you might as well

just pull over. There are a few laser jammers out there that actually work (Rocky Mountain

Radar excluded). They are very costly and overkill if you ask me. The bottom line is that

there are several detectors that work very well when operated correctly, but the safest

and smartest thing to do is go the speed limit.

 

[crayon]

jezee greateratlanta .. what a glob of text dude.

In the future, could you please break your post up into paragraphs for us? I would really like to read what you have to say, but it is just not worth the effort presented like that.

Thanks!

 

[greateratlanta]

Sorry about that, I didn't realize it was so hard to read. I hope that is better now. I usually try not to write a book, but kinda got carried away.

-Clayton

 

[Drifter]

I'm going off on a bit of a tangent here.

I don't have a radar detector anymore since they are illegal in VA, but my old detector had "SWS" built in. Man do I ever wish that had caught on! It would have been (would still be) so nice to get into a slowdown and have that thing light up with "accident-right lane blocked" or "emergency vehicles approaching-clear left lane" or "All lanes blocked, use nearest exit" so that you had some clue as to what was going on and how to respond (get out of the right lane, take the nearest exit, whatever).

But it never caught on <sigh>. For a while my SWS detector would go off when the Wilson Bridge was up saying "Warning, bridge is up" but eventually they stopped transmitting even that.

Back on topic, we had a place here in Falls Church, VA where the speed limit was 35 and then it dropped to 25 for 100 yards (that's right, for one football field) and then went back up to 35. Every Sunday they used to line 'em up.

 

[SLWilson]

Speed Traps !

We had one of those in southern Ohio. Little village of Athailia in Lawrence County. Along Ohio State Rte 7. They'd arrest you for ONE MILE over their 35 MPH limit !!!! They're GONE now. Out of business. BUT, just in case they slip back out of the woodwork, I run 30 MPH through their little speed trap !!!! Steve/Gallia County, OH....A county ABOVE the speed trap !!!!

 

[crayon]

Sorry about that, I didn't realize it was so hard to read. I hope that is better now. I usually try not to write a book, but kinda got carried away.

Thanks for the effort, but really, normal typing with paragraphs is all that is needed.

 

[buttsrob]

I dunno guys. I've gotten 2 speeding tickets in 3 years here in the Savannah area...and BOTH times I was going less than 9 MPH over the limit with cars (and an 18 wheeler once) passing me.

The bottom line here is this. If you have out of state plates or a military sticker you are a prime target.

I went to court to fight the first ticket - because there is no possible way the GSP trooper had clear LOS THROUGH the 18-wheeler at me. The trooper didn't show but the judge DENIED my motion to dismiss. After dragging it out for 3 more months and running up against my impending deployment to Iraq I finally paid a (bloodsucking, local) lawyer $600 to "settle the case". I never had to appear in court. My insurance never went up. The lawyer quoted me a fee and told me the case was settled BEFORE he even talked to the prosecutor.

In the local justice system here you are going to pay SOMEONE...either the County or a lawyer.

My reaction.... I bought a radar detector. A GOOD one. There is a VAST quality difference between models and manufacturers. I bought a Belltronics RX65. I get lots of hits at LONG distances...and so far no more speeding tickets. (I'll probably get one on the way home ) I recommend that you do your research if you're buying one.

I agree that it's best not to speed but at the speed the traffic is flowing around here it's really not safe to creep along at 55 MPH.....when the semi trucks are blowing by at 75-80! And not getting pulled over for it! If you're the only car on the road drive the limit!

I think, when the traffic is heavy on 2-lane roads, you have to find a happy medium and, given my experience with the GSP, you have to drive smart and protect yourself with electronic countermeasures. Now I'm going a comfortable 5 MHP UNDER the posted limit whenever I pass one of them.

Finally, like a scanner, a radar detector is simply a radio monitoring device. It just happens to be a non-communications monitoring device. Because of this it fits well with my hobby too. Speed limit or no speed limit I just enjoy "seeing and hearing" what's going on in the electromagnetic spectrum around me.

 

[dhutsell]

L'ville uses lasers not radar for fixed speed enforcement. In my opinion L'ville doesnt do enough speed enforcement in its city.
I am a cop and I use both moving and fixed radar for speed enforcement. By the time someone with a radar detector realizes I am tracking their speed with radar I already have their speed before they can even react. And when they do finally react I can use the fact that when they saw me they hit the brakes. I then use this fact in court to show that they slowed down becuase they knew they were speeding and attempted to correct it.
Bottom line is no matter what detector or equitpment you use your still getting a ticket when you speed. Even if you jam my radar signal I can write a ticket on my visual estimate (which ive done before and won). Every officer I know gives 10 to 20 over the speed limit before they even stop a car. The best way to get out of a ticket is to drive at least close to the speed limit.

 

[ReceiverBeaver]

Hi DH,

I support law enforcement and am glad you guys and gals are out there. Well your speed enforcement duties may get easier over time. As gas prices go throught the roof, many folks will slow down to save gas. In time only the rich folks who don't care will speed and that will cut the number of speeders down.,,,ya think?

Take care RB

 

[radio10-8]

Radar detectors vs. bad drivers

It feels like I have issued more tickets from cars "passing" me! Yes, I am in the #2 lane on the freeway at 10-15 over the limit. (So I don't cause a traffic jam of people behind me.) YES, people have passed me! Now speed limit is 65mph. I am driving at 75 mph. Driver passes me is doing at least 80mph. I speed up to match their speed for a long enough distance that I could testify to in court if I had to. After a minute of this we have traveled over a mile and I initiate a traffic stop. When I use radar, I notice that most cars drive 5-8 mph over. I personnaly don't mind that. I have a 13 mph over the limit. Most speeders are on the cellular phone talking even as I ask for their information they are still chit-chatting away. In my book you will drive away with a yellow piece of paper signed by both of us of you decide to talk on your cell phone while I am trying to talk to you. We even have a box to check on our accident forms. TALKING ON CELLULAR PHONE Y/N

 

[crashcrew]

Radar detectors vs. bad drivers

It feels like I have issued more tickets from cars "passing" me! Yes, I am in the #2 lane on the freeway at 10-15 over the limit. (So I don't cause a traffic jam of people behind me.) YES, people have passed me! Now speed limit is 65mph. I am driving at 75 mph. Driver passes me is doing at least 80mph. I speed up to match their speed for a long enough distance that I could testify to in court if I had to. After a minute of this we have traveled over a mile and I initiate a traffic stop. When I use radar, I notice that most cars drive 5-8 mph over. I personnaly don't mind that. I have a 13 mph over the limit. Most speeders are on the cellular phone talking even as I ask for their information they are still chit-chatting away. In my book you will drive away with a yellow piece of paper signed by both of us of you decide to talk on your cell phone while I am trying to talk to you. We even have a box to check on our accident forms. TALKING ON CELLULAR PHONE Y/N

..and this is very typical of the "law abiding" citizens. I've encountered it many times myself.