First ticket in SRT today..new type Laser?

Well.... today I was coming out of work, where the driveway is in middle of an S-Turn, and noticed a car coming thru the turn a little fast. So I got on it to get out of this way. Afetr I was in the clear I just took my foot of the pedal to come down to a "reasonable speed".
The I passed a cycle cop. 57 in a 40....crap.
Starngest thing is my Radar Detector never responded. I have an Escort 8500 and it has picked up Laser several times before.
Granted he was using laser and I probably would not have been able to slow down in time anyway, because he was shooting pople right after the turn. But the fact that my Radar Detector wa silent was odd.
I asked him what type of radar he was using and he said something like it was some new small laser, I forgot the nickname he had for it, "speed-o-lite" or something like that. The ticket says "Laser 457". I assume the 457 is tracking number on laser or is it model?

Is their a fairly new type of Laser?


...

 

Bummer man. I got a totally chicken shit ticket tonight myself.

 

When it rains....it pours. SoCal ticket disease.

 

what happened to you cam?

 

Could be the wave length the laser is running at. 457 would be in the blue range which would make the wavelength smaller than the usual red and green lasers typically found in LIDAR. Good news is the shorter wavelength is going to lower the acquisition range so you may be able to get out of the ticket.

When is comes to lidar the only thing a radar detector is going to tell you is, you're about to get a ticket.

 

I would call/email Escort and ask them (or check on their site). They'd know.

It's also likely that he nailed you at very short range. Beam at that range is probably going to be smaller than a pencil width and they target the license plate. Then there may not have been any surfaces around conducive to getting the (difused) ricochet back to you.

 

Sorry to hear about that... any ticket SUX!

 

Yea....right when I was shopping for a better car insurance plan.

..

 

please let me know sum thing. i useing the escort 9500i. sorry about the ticket my friend.

 

With tax revenue at all time lows, your friendly local police are being pressured to write more tickets...

 

I have an email to Escort to see what they say.

 

You are close but just a bit off. There are a few surfaces on a car besides the license plate that will give a good reflection especially since when the beam hits the car it is at least a foot in diameter depending on aquisition distance. If you want to get an idea (not definitive just an idea) of reflection points on your car go to a very dark spot and take a picture of your car with a flash. The reflections you see will be similar to what the lidar sees.

 

They must have found some reflecive surface. I am not running a front plate.....



..

 

Most are trained to shoot the headlight since every car has one. could even be the grille its amazing what becomes reflective at different wavelengths.

 

My buddy has been using a radar/scrambler from Rocky Mountain Radar (model#RMR-C430) and he swears he blew by a few CHP with there radars - he said as he passed them kinda slowing down he could see the officer taping the side of the radar like there was some kind of malfunction. So im gonna give it a shot and if it works for me i will be purchasing one real soon....

 

If the officer was correct saying he was using the blue laser then that scrambler wouldn't have done a damn bit of good. From what I can tell it is set up to detect and scramble 904nm not 457nm.


As for your buddy speeding by a CHP officer I am going to go ahead and call BS on that. Most officers are trained to observe a cars speed fairly accurately and then verify with radar or LIDAR. Its why in every court case the officer starts with " I observed the vehicle doing XXmph and verified with radar/lidar. "


You best defense against laser is your eyes, you can see farther than they can acquire you unless you are just obscenely speeding and at that point you just have to accept that you gotta pay to play.

 

Besides that. I think Rocky Mountain jammers are basically a scam

 

They do seem a bit shady. Judging by the size my guess is they just put a cheesy IR LED on it which will do pretty much jack shit.


Now a cool way to defeat lidar would be to coat you license plate in an anti-reflective coating and the headlights/tail lights. Of course the hard part would be getting the light out of them while still keeping them non reflective. :hmm:

 

I never said he was speeding by the officer, but "Blew by CHP as he kinda slowed down" So your saying any radar detector is just a waste of money? Also what does those numbers mean (904nm / 457nm)?

 

When it comes to lidar yes detectors don't do much but let you know you are getting a ticket. The only time a radar detector is worth it is if you get lucky and they shoot the person in front of you and you happen to pick up some of the reflections that is pretty much the only time you will get a warning. They work well for rf (radar) because rf tends to scatter everwhere as it spreads out light does not do that.

You may be thinking that well this is a scrambler too. Most scramblers use high output IR (infra red) LEDs unfortunately are at a slightly different frequency than the IR laser. So you may get some disruption at long range but the lidar can easily punch through that as you get closer.


The numbers are the wavelengths of the lasers in question. nm stands for nano meter which is the length it takes for the wave to travel one complete cycle.