Car Radar, Laser Detectors

A radar detector, sometimes called a fuzz buster, is an electronic device used by motorists to determine if their speed is being monitored by a radar unit. more...

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To do so, police bounce a radio wave off of a moving vehicle with a radar gun that determines the vehicle's speed by the Doppler-effect-moderated change in the wave's frequency. Most of today's radar detectors detect signals across a variety of wavelength bands – usually X, K and K_a (as well as K_u, in Europe, also recently approved for use in the U.S).

These devices should not be confused with ones that use GPS technology and a database to warn a driver who is approaching a speed camera location, as is done in the FoxyTag collaborative project.

Newer speed detection devices use pulsed laser light, commonly referred to as LIDAR, rather than radio waves. Modern radar detectors have been modified to alert to the infrared light emitted by such LIDAR guns. LIDAR detection, however, is not nearly as effective as radar detection because the output beam is very focused. While radar's radio waves can expand to 85 feet across at 1000 feet from their source, LIDAR's light beam expands to only about 6 feet. Also, a police officer targeting a car will most likely aim for the center mass or headlight of the vehicle and, because radar detectors are mounted on the windshield away from the beam's aim, they may not alert at all. Lastly, with such a focused beam, an officer using a LIDAR gun can target a single car in close proximity to others at ranges of up to 3000 feet.

While many companies advertise that their radar detectors can 'scramble' or 'absorb' radar and LIDAR (such as Rocky Mountain Radar), many or all of their products do not affect radar and laser signals in any way. If such products do transmit any type of radar scrambling pulses, they are highly illegal. Actively transmitting on an FCC licensed frequency without a license is a violation of FCC regulations and a felony. LIDAR jammers are legal in most states and are regulated, much like police LIDAR guns, by the FDA as Class I laser devices.

Despite the advent of LIDAR speed detection, radar remains more prevalent because of its lower price relative to LIDAR equipment and the amount of radar equipment already in service. Popularity of LIDAR speed detection is on the rise, though, as costs decline, ease of operability approaches radar, and existing radar equipment reaches its end-of-service life and is rotated out of service.

Popular radar detector brands include Beltronics, Cobra, Escort, K40, Valentine One, and Whistler.

Legality

In some countries and areas, such as those listed below, using or possessing a radar detector is illegal and may result in fines, seizure of the device, or both. These prohibitions generally are introduced under the premise that a driver who uses a radar detector will pose a greater risk of accident than a driver who does not. However, some research has found that the opposite is true. The 2001 Mori report suggests that radar detector users posed a 28% less risk of accident.

Read more at Wikipedia.org