Do you invest in a radar detector?

[rojoracing53]

I think Alex and I are excess electronic kindred spirits

Every time I go on a group ride with new people it goes like this.

Stage 1: is that a 250 (said with a smug tone)
First regroup
Stage 2: IS THAT A 250! (Said with a tone of disbelief)
Second regroup they take a closer look
Stage 3: holly ****, do you have enough wires on this thing

At this point I've learned to just roll with it.

[adouglas]

Originally Posted by Alex

Plenty of room on the RT:



Mounted it on a stalk on my older RT (and K):



On my R6 from a few years back; crowded with GPS + radar:



On my ZX-12R; put a remote display in the dash to put it more into my line of sight. Still wasn't a great solution; Rojo is right that without an audio alert in the helmet, you might miss the alert for the few seconds that would have been necessary to save you.

[Kevin2109]

Originally Posted by codestp202

I've seen the tpx, does it really work that well?

Its not as good as the competition, but its okay from what ive used in the past and what other friends use (in cars mind you) The TPX is nice because its waterproof, has the bright red LED's to warn you (yes you see them, extremely well) And I can turn k and x band off, thats nice. If you are looking for the BEST radar detector, nothing beats the "Valentine One". I know a lot of people that do high end street races (gumball 3000, couple crazy vegas runs, ultra high end street racing basically) and they all run the Valentine One

[dfox]

Originally Posted by codestp202

I understand that, but you are also missing the fact that these high end detectors are now gps-enabled and are constantly being updated with speed traps

I'm sure my phone can do that for a lot cheaper.

I have 1 ticket in 13 years of driving, and I don't drive my motorcycle or wrx like a granny. The 1 ticket happened when I had a radar detector, but was hit with laser.

they give a false sense of security, and tricked myself into retaining my speed in a situation that I normally would have slowed down (upcoming on/off ramp).

[ChaoSS]

I used to run a detector in my truck, just got way too many false positives, you would get positives every minute or so driving through town on the freeway. Maybe better on the open highway, but still too many false positives, you start ignoring it.

And I don't know what kind of equipment different departments have, but I know that CHP has units where they just sit in their car, and sensors around their car give them radar that is basically 360 degrees. If you have line of sight, they know how fast you are going, and their units can track every target that they can pick up and differentiate them for the police officer.

[Whiskey]

Originally Posted by Alex

This isn't the case. The radar is more than sensitive enough to pick out a motorcycle from well out of sight range. The limiting factor is in fact that sight range, as the LEO needs to be sure that they are tagging the correct vehicle. The radar units all have features to pick out the fastest target as well, not just the strongest one; so a speeding motorcycle coming past a slow moving truck is still vulnerable to showing up correctly on the radar unit's display.

Heard one from a bike cop who runs the local advanced training group;

Local cops used a radar gun up until a couple of years back, it took 3 seconds to fully register the speed, but one of their favourite tricks if they were in the right location & heard something fast coming down the road was to fire it non line of sight.

their favourite spot for it was a road by one of the country estates with a wall around the grounds, following a long sweeping bend that they knew bikes would take advantage of. firing the radar off the wall had it bounce around the corner & come back with an accurate speed.

They can't do that with their current laser.

[eXstasy]

Originally Posted by ChaoSS

I used to run a detector in my truck, just got way too many false positives, you would get positives every minute or so driving through town on the freeway. Maybe better on the open highway, but still too many false positives, you start ignoring it.

Agreed. Once you get used to it, you might as well not have it at all. I think having one also makes you prone to letting your guard down since you are given a false sense of security.

[massacremasses]

stop using crappy Radar detectors and you dont get false alarms hardly ever.

[Alex]

It's not quite that simple. V1 is generally considered the highest quality unit available. But it has a ton of false alarms, unless you disable X-band completely. All of those highway speed sensors are X-band, so you get hit with those every few miles all the way up 880 and 101. X-band is barely used for traffic radar in California (most use K), so many people do disable it. But - there are going to be those middle of nowhere towns with 20 year old radar equipment in a decrepit sheriffs car, that may still be using X, that you won't pick up if you've disabled it.

The directional arrows on the V1 along with the sound cues allow you to quickly determine whether the alert is one that you need to worry about. But that's not the same as never having any false alerts.

[Soujyu]

I've used the Escort Passport 9500xi on my motorcycles, and it works pretty well for my purpose. However, as more and more police departments in the Austin area use laser, it pretty much renders it worthless. Also, it isn't waterproof like the TPX, which got me into trouble once (the unit completely went berserk and I had to quickly disconnect the power cord while going down a sweeping curve at 70mph).

I've been thinking about rigging up one of the Blinder or Laser Interceptor laser jamming units, but I simply haven't had the time.

[massacremasses]

Originally Posted by Alex

It's not quite that simple. V1 is generally considered the highest quality unit available. But it has a ton of false alarms, unless you disable X-band completely. All of those highway speed sensors are X-band, so you get hit with those every few miles all the way up 880 and 101. X-band is barely used for traffic radar in California (most use K), so many people do disable it. But - there are going to be those middle of nowhere towns with 20 year old radar equipment in a decrepit sheriffs car, that may still be using X, that you won't pick up if you've disabled it.

The directional arrows on the V1 along with the sound cues allow you to quickly determine whether the alert is one that you need to worry about. But that's not the same as never having any false alerts.

You know how there is the three sets of "logic" I think they call it? I used the middle one. I only ever got pulled over because a cop was pacing me. Never did I get caught from one using radar. Granted Im careful as well. But I did not get very many false alarms with that little "L" setting. or part logic or whatever.. This is V1 of course I used a cheaper one before and always got false alarms.

[Ben M]

For those of you who use radar detectors and whatnot for daily riding, do you keep it on your bike at all times? I would think it would be quite a hassle to take it off every time you went into a store or something. Or maybe you guys just live in nicer areas than I do!

[Alex]

Originally Posted by massacremasses

You know how there is the three sets of "logic" I think they call it? I used the middle one. I only ever got pulled over because a cop was pacing me. Never did I get caught from one using radar. Granted Im careful as well. But I did not get very many false alarms with that little "L" setting. or part logic or whatever.. This is V1 of course I used a cheaper one before and always got false alarms.

I use it in the little "l" mode as well. I guess it comes down to what to define a false alarm as. It goes off for areas that I know are not police radar. But I know exactly what they are, and they are consistent. It rarely goes off and I wonder if it's real or not, as it does give enough information to quickly determine the threat.

[ChaoSS]

Originally Posted by Alex

I use it in the little "l" mode as well. I guess it comes down to what to define a false alarm as. It goes off for areas that I know are not police radar. But I know exactly what they are, and they are consistent. It rarely goes off and I wonder if it's real or not, as it does give enough information to quickly determine the threat.

Back when I was running radar detection in my truck (and this was several years ago) I would get positives in certain areas, I'm pretty sure there were security systems in the area that were setting it off.


And the cops know that, too. You would have 3-4 places along a road where you always get the detector going off, and there are no cops, and then, once a month, there's a cop there. And you are ignoring the alarms you are getting, of course, because they are coming from something other than a cop.



I was running a cheaper unit, though, but certainly not bottom of the barrel. Since then I've slowed down, I almost never speed, simply because a speeding ticket could possibly cost me my job, and it's been that way for a while.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by ChaoSS

And the cops know that, too. You would have 3-4 places along a road where you always get the detector going off, and there are no cops, and then, once a month, there's a cop there. And you are ignoring the alarms you are getting, of course, because they are coming from something other than a cop.

That's exactly the situation where the extra cash for the V1 is worth it. You can tell the difference between the ones you've seen before and a new one, by tone, direction, and strength.

[Soujyu]

Originally Posted by Ben M

For those of you who use radar detectors and whatnot for daily riding, do you keep it on your bike at all times? I would think it would be quite a hassle to take it off every time you went into a store or something. Or maybe you guys just live in nicer areas than I do!

Yes, I do take it off and stuff it into my helmet (which I also take with me).

[massacremasses]

Originally Posted by Alex

I use it in the little "l" mode as well. I guess it comes down to what to define a false alarm as. It goes off for areas that I know are not police radar. But I know exactly what they are, and they are consistent. It rarely goes off and I wonder if it's real or not, as it does give enough information to quickly determine the threat.

Yeah I think I always had one on the 5 driving down to Imperial Beach.. It was a store or something, but it would go off then stop pretty quick.