Vampire detectors

[Wild Will]

It's not possible to visually see a radar trap before it sees you, and you're stuck with a fat ticket, traffic school or an insurance increase. On the curvy backroads where I live, the highway patrol exist for one thing - revenue for the state. Good luck, Prince Charming, talking your way out of that. A better solution, unless you're a compliant rider and never exceed the posted speed limit, is to invest in a proper detector, or as I'm fond of calling them, a Vampire Detector. Why? Because these badged denizens of the roads are there to suck the life blood from my poor, honest wallet. That's why. One speeding ticket can pay for the detector, so why chance the extra points and all that? Mine is a Valentine 1. It's sat in a little black box under the beak of my '96 R 1100 GS for 5 years so far, and never skips a beat. It has saved my speedy ass more times than I can recall. It has saved the sorry speedy asses of more of my pals than I can remember either. It is a dashboard icon that I regularly genuflect before, as it watches over my license and the contents of my wallet, better spent buying my mates' a round at rides end than filling the coffers of the county or state.
Mine is installed in a plastic "hobby" box sold in deveral sizes by Radio Shack. Radar doesn't have to be out in a direct line of sight to function properly. One pal has his under the bulbous tank of his GS where the ABS used to dwell before he ripped it out. Anyway, the box is bolted below the beak, wired so it's hot when the key is on, and the signal is fed directly to the tiny speakers in my Arai, which fit handily behind the removeable cheekpads. I always wear ear plugs, the soft foam type that attenuate over 30 decibels, and I can plainly hear the warning and immediately pull the front brake where my finger has it covered always. The signal feeds through the small remote audio adapter Valentine sells. An audible signal is faster than a visual signal, and it's cheaper. The speakers were removed from a set of headphones sold at K Mart, which work really well for under $20. Andy 'Stich
Goldfine sells nice coiled extension wires that stay out of the way nicely.
I also use a detector in my truck, minus the remote audio.
I don't leave home without it, and I cover a lot of miles, to the tune of five or so sets of expensive tires every year. Caveat Emptor!

[Promethean]

I just merged your posts by mistake (should have deleted the dupe). Apologies.

[Dallara]

Hey, Wild Will...

I'm with you!

I run an Escort/Passport 8500 with a Marc Parnes hyper-brite LED display (so I can listen to tunes on my Etymotic ER-6 'phones on long rides), and I also use the 8500 in my cage, too.

http://r1150r.smugmug.com/photos/25426454-M.jpg


(BTW, I rarely, if ever... run the Magellan GPS shown, and I will have a Garmin Streetpilot 2730 rigged up for my new 2006 Yamaha FJR-1300 when it arrives, along with a set-up for the radar detector, too)

I have been using radar detectors since the first Autotronics "SuperSnoopers" back in 1972, and so many since then I can harldy count 'em all... more SuperSnoopers, Fuzzbusters, and nearly every model of Escort ever made (still even have to original big Escorts, along the ultra rare Escort DSP, which is still the best I have ever used on X and K-bands, period), not to mention a Valentine One along the way, too (my stepson has it now).

Wouldn't leave home on a trip without one...

(I sort of have *diplomatic immunity* around town here)

Cheers!

Allan (Dallara -NACD)

[Wild Will]

Dang me, Allan, we can't get such "coverage" where I live. They won't even take a bribe! That's why I've fondly (not) called the highway gestapo "vampires". They can smell a tax paying, insured, road-legal fellow's wallet from a mile away. ONE mpg over the limit means a painful ticket with accompanying, damning points on your record. Ugly biz, that. So, leveling the field is just a prudent act. Lots of cops with "control issues" are to be found in the Golden state. Some real nice ones too; don't get me wrong - I just never get stopped by them!
Your cockpit looks the business! A pal and I were plying the asphalt along the snaky Klamath River last year after a rain storm, and he was watching the white water and missed sighting the 6" rock he nailed with both FJR wheels. Both were bent, flattened, and we had to remove the caliper to even roll the bike off the highway. He didn't drop the bike, and was mighty proud of that, but he did get to ride "bitch" all the way back to San Fran, and was mighty disturbed about that. He couldn't understand why I wouldn't let him pilot my GS. The FJR was in the shop until new eheels arrived from across the Great Pond. Wonderfully smooth machine, that. But expensive to have towed the 300+ miles back to SF.

[Dallara]

Well, Will...

The "coverage", or *diplomatic immunity* I speak of doesn't extend very far outside the county I live in, and fortunately it doesn't involve anything like a bribe.

With the local police it stems from knowing quite a few of them personally of high rank, and for servicing their bikes and many of their cars for years. None of them get a discount (and they can't in their position or it could look like a bribe...), but they often get a bit of preferential treatment in the form of their vehicles often going to the "front of the line" if it's a quick repair... I also donate to some of the various funds and charities the police department supports.

With the Sheriff's department ir doesn't hurt that my Dad (in addition to his own businesses) was also an appointed Deputy Sheriff, and I know the local Sheriff and most all of his high-ranking deputies, including his Chief Deputy. Sheriff's are elected here, too, so it helps to support your pick in each election, and I have been fortunate enough (or just plain lucky enough...) to back the winner the past few years.

With the DPS (Texas Department of Public Safety - i.e. our Highway Patrol) locally I am pretty lucky, too... As I used to help teach their motorcycle and ATV classes when I was a motorcycle dealer. Some of the officers I got to know then are now high-ranking department heads here now, so I get a lot of leeway there.

But hey... That said, once I get out of my local county or a couple of surrounding ones I am fresh meat for the DPS and other local constabularies, so I run whatever electronic countermeasures I can to try and get an edge. Hell, often I run my little Uniden BCT-12 scanner (which they don't make any more, unfortunately) in my cage if I am in a REAL hurry. It works like a champ and helps a bunch if you are doing hyper-velocities.

We don't have much laser down here so I don't worry much about that, but there is a new wrinkle here in Texas that slows down guys like you and me...

The state likes to put out these lighted signs on little trailers all over the place... They have a radar unit on them (K-band) that takes your speed and displays it on the sign as you pass. Often they deliberately *pulse* these so it appears to be a cop turning his radar on and off. They also put out a HUGE signal, so your detector starts going on and off a long way off... They move 'em around a lot, too, so I am constantly slowing up when it is unnecessary, and you don't know it's them until you are right on top of them... They're annoying as hell...

But, you best pay heed to 'em, as one of the little tricks the DPS and local agencies use is to hide their cruisers a bit behind these friggin' signs so they can tag and bag folks who think "Oh, it's just one of those signs..." and blow right past 'em. Another trick the DPS has become fond of down here as of late is the "two car stretch"... They run two cruisers about a mile or so apart, with the first spraying out lots of signal, while the second stays warmed up, but not shooting his instant-on... The radar detector users get the first signal, slow down, see the cop go by and then speed up after they pass him going the other way... About that time - BRAAAAAAAAP - the second guy tags and bags you with a burst of Ka instant-on and you're toast.

Fortunately motorcycles are a small target, and harder for them to get a *lock* until you get pretty close. Often I do see the DPS cruisers before they light off their instant-on's when I am on my bike.

Hey, it's a pretty good game, actually... And I kind of enjoy it. Unfortunately most all of the DPS officers you run into don't see it as a game, and don't have a sense of humor about it. They'll write you cool and calm as a cucumber.

Cheers!

Allan (Dallara - NACD)

[DarthRider]

Allan -

The Keller (Hooterville) PD had one of those radar trailers on my street a while back. Naturally I got lit up on my way in from work, about 40 in a 20 zone, nothing big.

But then I thought hey, free BMW speedo checks! And spent the next half hour or so checking speedo VS radar at various "landmark" speeds, like 20, 30 45, 55, 65, 70, 75 and figuring out the "curve" of the well known intentionally fast BMW speedos. Then just for fun made a run at 85.

It was OK though..my neighbors already think I'm crazy.

Dave

[Promethean]

Allan,
I read somewhere that one of the more recent GPS units (Probably the Garmin) would have speed trap alerts. You could just program in a location of a known speed trap and the unit would warn you when you're approaching the waypoint. Might be an interesting combination of data from speedtrap.org and the Garmin that would likely save mucho dinero. :D

[Dallara]

Hey, Promethean...

I appreciate the idea, and on the surface it sounds good, but in reality it isn't an issue for a few reasons.

1.) At least with the parts of Texas I spend most of my time driving through away from home, the Speedtraps.org's data is mostly quite dated and often doesn't even apply to how the roads are configured at this time.

2.) Stationary radar traps, unless they are using some of the new tricks like hiding behind the trailered radar signs, are not much of a problem if you have a good radar detector. Those guys are usually checking so many cars that even if they have frequency-skipping, instant-on Ka you get lots of warning long before you get to where they are... Like the guys who operate on I-35W north of Ft. Worth (heading out to Texas Motor Speedway) sitting on the overpass. With them I often get warning blips as much as 3 miles before I get to where they are. Even the LEO's who use stationary laser around Belton don't present much of a threat if there is some traffic to act as *picks*... Besides, constabularies are usually moving stationary traps around pretty often so you would sometimes be slowing down when you didn't need to be.

3.) Moving radar units are the REAL threat, particularly if they have the "latest and greatest" frequency-hopping and shifting, instant-on, ultra-quick Ka equipment... Those not only don't have to be on but a second or so to get a good *lock* but they also frequency skip so fast that it's hard for the detector to latch onto a signal through its filters. If they aren't *shooting* (or "taking pictures" as we are fond of saying down here) cars up ahead of you then you are dead meat, period, detector or no... Don't ask me how I know this only too well. :037:

Fortunately these new Ka *guns* are pretty scarce right now, but growing in numbers every day. In Texas X-band is all but gone and obsolete. Only a very, very few small towns still have X-band radar. Even those trailered radar signs are all K-band. K-band is used by about 90% of the cities and municipalities, with early Ka taking about another 6%, leaving new Ka and those X units combined about 4%. Texas DPS uses about 75-80% K-band, with about 5% being the latest Ka-band units, and the rest earlier Ka... The ultra-fast, frequency-shifting Ka radar is by far the most deadly, and it is the one that gives detector manufacturers fits. From all indications it will be very, very hard ot *beat* for some time to come. However, I have faith in the radar detector manufacturers' ingeninuity, and no doubt they will find a solution to the problem. Of course, by then the radar gun makers will have moved on to some newer technology, too... But fortunately then they have to sell it to the constabularies, and so it takes quite some time for newer technologies to become mainstream.

Like I said before, it's a game... between the radar gun makers and the radar detector makers... and against the LEO's and the speeders. And actually all quite fun, IMHO.

Your best defense? A good, state-of-the-art radar detector and constant vigilance. I find that being vigilant due to exceeding the speed limit makes me stay on my toes and pay far more attention to the road ahead than if I am just cruising along at the speed limit... So, in my mind speeding is sort of a *good* thing, as I devote all my attention to the road, the area around the roadway, the cars around me, and the ones approaching the other direction, too... And with far more awareness than when I am poking along at the limit.

One other thing... Getting to *know*, and trust, your radar detector is vitally important. They are all a little bit different, and seem to each even have a bit of their own *personality*. You really have to *actively* use them for them to be effective. I am so used to my Escort 8500 that I can tell almost with 100% accuracy when it is actually a cop with radar or one of those signs or other radar "noise"... I can even spot an older "dirty" radar detector that spews out radar energy itself. You learn the detectors sounds and how to interpret them, but you really have to pay attention to one when you first get it and learn it intimately. Once you have one *down* you can really start to *play the game*, and with great success. Add to that (if you have had to spend as much time on the road as I used to), you have to sort of use your intuition... You can almost *feel* where a radar trap might be, or what sections of road are most likely to have LEO's working in packs with radar. Trust that intuition, your sight and other senses, and know and trust your radar detector and you are almost invincible...

But remember, I said ALMOST invincible! If you play the *speeding game* enough, and with high enough stakes (read that as "well over the speed limit"...), sooner or later the *house* (the other side - i.e. the LEO's) is gonna' win a hand or two. You can tilt the odds actually way in your favor, but even then you are stil gonna' lose a few.

But that's what makes it fun, and a challenge.

Cheers!

Allan (Dallara -NACD)

[Road Dog]

Allan -

The Keller (Hooterville) PD had one of those radar trailers on my street a while back. Naturally I got lit up on my way in from work, about 40 in a 20 zone, nothing big.

But then I thought hey, free BMW speedo checks! And spent the next half hour or so checking speedo VS radar at various "landmark" speeds, like 20, 30 45, 55, 65, 70, 75 and figuring out the "curve" of the well known intentionally fast BMW speedos. Then just for fun made a run at 85.

It was OK though..my neighbors already think I'm crazy.

Dave:058:

Hey Dave, those speed check wagons are calibrated worse that a BMW speedometer. FWI - They are often about 5+ mph slow to encourage the drivers to drive a little faster. I have run by several with the GPS on. Not all but more that half that I have checked were set slow.

Bill

[DarthRider]

Damn Road Dog, now I'm really confused!

Welcome aboard, RD! Hope we see you often...Beemerchick too!

Dave