First ticket in SRT today..new type Laser?

Thanks for the info kingnate. I'm still considering getting some kind of radar detector just for the added warnings up ahead. Any opinions on the Escort Passport 9500ix? I did read up on Radar Roy's site and it was very informative.

 

There are two choices. Valentine 1 or Escort. I happen to be a huge Escort fan myself. The 9500ix is the nuts. I think the 9500i series performs the same as the 8500 series but adds the GPS functions. I find the ability to be able to block all the known sources (store door openers, fixed "your speed is ...", etc.) around town to be a huge benefit. The only thing the Valentine has that the Escort doesn't is the indicator arrows. After you use a detector for a while you can tell where the source is coming from without the arrows anyway.

 

I have always thought the valentine's were over priced for the performance. In comparisons I have seen they barely edge out the escorts and I mean barely. I am running an escort 8500 and I friggin love it. Works great. The 9500 blows it out of the water plus you can download maps of all of the traffic cameras around town so you don't get caught off gaurd.

No problem man.
The best thing to do is use radar detectors as confirmation, not rely on it completely to warn you. You should always be looking as far ahead as you can as well as watching traffic patterns. That will typically give you a little bit earlier warning than the detector. At least Half the time I have already spotted the cop and are slowing down when the detector starts to really ramp up (i.e. not a false alarm).

Every ticket I have gotten was when I wasn't paying much attention far ahead and just relying on the detector. Haven't had a ticket in 8 years and my driving has not changed much.

 

About 99% of the radar out here is short range (and mostly instant on). K, Ka, etc. So they have to pull the trigger before you can detect it. If it's short range instant on and they're pointing it at you then a detector is basically an indicator that "yes, he pulled the trigger and you're busted". The value is that there is most often other traffic on the road that they're clocking within a 1/4 or 1/2 mile of you and you pick that up. Like the cop sitting just over the hump. Moving radar has to be on all the time. In more open situations you can detect further away than they can clock. Of course with short range radar that difference is pretty small and if they use a trigger they don't pull it until you're in their range. Radar scatters and bounces off of most everything. Laser does not scatter much and bounces off of less things. When you detect radar, about 10% of the times it's aimed specifically at you. When you detect laser, about 90% of the times it's aimed at you.

A detector will more than pay for itself if it saves you just one single time.

Oh, you'll probably want these too .

http://www.countryjoycrafts.com/350Z/escortmount.htm

http://www.invisicord.com/index.html

 

I got nailed today too! ugh!!! 130 in a 45. I know, I know...

It was a construction zone and I nailed it coming out of it. I didn't see the cop on the on-ramp beside me. He was cool though. I say cool because I didn't go to jail. He just told me to pay or go to court. I don't know what I'm gonna do at court but I guess I'll see.

 

he was in a good moed that day.

 

Hell yah he was in a good mood, he just bagged a big ol fine for his jurisdiction. I doubt bouncing people in the pokey is encouraged at the moment. Some locales cant afford jack, much less a new inmate.

 

Wellll....
You all have pretty much answered my qoestions.
Radar is on my street to work quite frequently but this Laser was the first.

The cop was pretty "dry" in converstaion....jus straight "by the book" conversation...
I could tell he was uncomfortable in conversation when I questioned about the type of detector he was using
because my Escort was silent coming out if the turn.
So I just did my "Yes Sir", "No Sir" responses and was done.

I just wonder why my Escort never acknolwedged anything.
I have an email to Escort but have not heard back yet.


..

 

You might try a laser shifter: www.passportsr1.com/zr3.htm It is designed to sku the instant-on lasers. It can operate on it's own or plug into and incoorporate with many escorts and belltronics radar detectors.

 

Well if there was not any scattered light (or not enough) then your radar detector doesn't know any better and will stay silent.

That is probably the first jammer type device I have seen that actually uses laser diodes. Looks pretty promising I wonder what they run.

 

maybe the cop was just lying and guessed that you was going that fast. there is no way in the hell a cop is going to let u off that easy.

 

The cop was on the true....I saw him putting the gun away as I pased him, and when I checked my speed I was going almost exactly 57 as he said. It just pissed me because I am rarely going that fast on city streets. I usually do about 5 miles over, which would have had me at 45 and a "Should I or Should I Not" thought in the cops head.
Except on the freeway.... Then I just run slightly ahead of traffic flow speed. I believe that if you run with the traffic you will run into the problems caused by traffic. Of course in Cali this usually you are doing a tad over 80 on the freeway.

I got my answer from Escort today. Kind of vague.
Essentially the laser's beam is so small that my detector was not exposed. They recommend mounting the detector low in the window (looking across the top of the hood) not high.
Then you look over the web site and see tons of them mounted under the rear view mirror.

So I guess I will be screwed fo detecting Laser...Or I will have to give up my bitching "Country Joy Crafts" mount and my "Invisicord".
I guess I could get a longer "Invisicord" and get "Country Joy Crafts" to make a mount with a 2 foot long mounting brace.......lol

That was always strange to me.....A place named "Country Joy Crafts" selling radar detector mounts. But I gues it is a craft for having joy while driving in the country.



...

 

i got mines mounted in the middle of the wind shield.

 

Eh, leave it where it is. Any detector it only going to save you from laser maybe 10% of the time? maybe 20%? So it's nice to know that it might pick it up when they target the guy in front of you but it's probably not going to happen often enough to justify relocating it.

Also, they're probably saying move it down because that would put it closer to what they're going to be targeting with it. That makes sense if you're trying to pick it up when they target YOU directly. Of course if they're targeting you then you're toast anyway. You're hoping to catch reflections which are less likely to be at some specific height.

Same for the radar. If they're not targeting you then putting the detector down on your dash board cuts off a lot of it's field of "view". Think about a beam bouncing off a guard rail. It's going to be traveling upward. If it's on the dash it might not see it where it would if you had it up by the mirror. I think up at the top of the windshield is the ideal location.

 

I got mine on Ebay for $300. dont worry about the pro install recommendations its easy to DIY plugs right into my belltronics STI driver also