Hi I teach radar and laser for my service and have been since 2005. First radar and laser are two different ways to do speeding enforcement. Radar is not vehicle specific. Laser is vehicle specicfic. A properly trained laser operator can get a reading in 1/3 of a second - no detector I know can work that fast. Most lasers ranges start at about 600 meters (600 yards roughly) and go out to about 6 km ( about 3.6 miles). In excess of 100m (100 yds) even with an orange and yellow reflective safety vest you can't see the officer yet or make her/him out clearly and since the person is speeding they have even less time to assess what is out in front of them. My opinion - a laser detector is a waste of money.
With radar if you have a properly trained operator, they work the set in stand by mode till they see a speeder and then turn the set on and try and get a lock. In standby mode the radar set does not transmit any radio waves so there is nothing to detect. If you have a good operator they will probbaly get you 85% of the time. The value in a radar detector here is if the officer runs the set on all the time or was trying to track someone else then your detector will pick up the waves before the officer sees you and it works. Most mobile radar sets these days can track two vehicles simultaneously in stationary mode and the cruiser also if you are moving.
The particular set I use tracks the strongest signal which is usually the closest vehcile to me and my set also then displays the fastest vehcle in the pack in the direction I tell it to watch. Most modern radar sets can tell which way the car/truck is coming and you select the direction you like.
Most traffic officers have sets with radar cones in their front and rear windows so it doesn't matter which way or direction you are coming from you can be tracked if you are parallel in travel to the cruiser in either direction.
Everything hinges on the radar operator being well trained enough to operate properly so it is a hard question which way to go detector or not as far as radar goes. The best comment I have know of for speeding was made by a member of the judiciary up here who apparently said " we all speed just usually to the level we can afford". In Ontario, on our super slabs, the limit is 100 but it is opennly acknowledged the average speed is about 120.
Also in realtion to detectors your local laws are important to. In Ontario if
we
have the grounds to search for your detector we can search anywhere in your vehicle including disassembly if warranted and we don't have to restore your vehicle back to its original state just like a customs inspection at the border. In a cage it is usually easy to spot the detectors
but in a bike that has no obvious signs of a detector, removal of tupperware would be the logical first step.
The first question in my mind would be how fast do I need to get there and
what am I willing to pay for that.
Rod
