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Are Radar Detectors Now Useless?

EXEA189

EXEA189

Ready to race!
Location
Rocky Mountains
I read this article below by Doug Demuro sharing his opinion about modern radar detectors vs WAZE. I wondered if anyone agrees or disagrees?

I had one of the original Escort models when I drove a 1983 911SC Targa. It's been retired long ago, and I never replaced or updated it. Today, I use WAZE exclusively and I have to say that I agree with this article.

Interesting that the article refers to the false positives generated by new car collision avoidance, lane departure and adaptive cruise control systems. Anyone experience this?



http://www.autotrader.com/car-news/radar-detectors-are-useless-now-263012?LNX=SOMEDOUGENPOST
 
BlueHen

BlueHen

Drag Race Newbie
Location
Delmarva
They are not useless against radar.

You really want three things for ultimate protection:

1. A good radar detector.
2. A good laser jammer.
3. A crowdsourcing program, such as Waze.

I use #1 and #3 above at all times. I am still vulnerable to laser. Waze works great in populated/higher traffic area, and at times when more people are on the road. It is nearly useless to me, however, on my morning commute, because that is at 4am on a 50 mile stretch of rural two-lane road. There is simply not enough crowdsourcing in that scenario to provide any decent benefit.

Another benefit to a detector such as the Escort Redline, is that it is invisible to radar detector detectors. So, when I drive through Washington DC, Virginia, or parts of Canada where radar detectors are illegal, I can still use it without being in fear. I just relocate it onto the dash so it's not conspicuous. You can also segment the bands and turn off K band to avoid the false alarms the author mentions. Pretty naive article really.
 
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EXEA189

EXEA189

Ready to race!
Location
Rocky Mountains
Local and State police here use LIDAR so traditional detectors are aren't much help. Waze/crowd sourcing is the most effective traveling the main corridors along the front range with average traffic counts over 100,000 (2016 data http://dtdapps.coloradodot.info/otis/trafficdata) I'm wondering if anyone experiences the ghost signals or false positives from collision avoidance, lane departure or adaptive cruise control?
 
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BlueHen

BlueHen

Drag Race Newbie
Location
Delmarva
EXEA189 said:
I'm wondering if anyone experiences the ghost signals or false positives from collision avoidance, lane departure or adaptive cruise control?
Click to expand...

Yes I do, all the time on K band, with my Redline. When I'm on my regular commute, I turn K band off because there are no police depts running K band. On new roads though, I turn K back on and just suck it up. It's an annoyance, but they go away quickly and don't have a buildup, so you can quickly tell they're not a cop.
 
BlueHen

BlueHen

Drag Race Newbie
Location
Delmarva
Btw, Beach Camera (an authorized Escort dealer) just dropped the price of their Redlines on Ebay to $350.
 
MeltedSolid

MeltedSolid

Autocross Newbie
Location
San Francisco Bay Area
Car(s)
'15 Golf, e36 328i
I met the people who made Waze about a week after google bought them. They were very drunk and very happy...
 
scrapin240

scrapin240

Drag Racing Champion
Location
IzzaGolf
Car(s)
Golf
BlueHen said:
They are not useless against radar.

You really want three things for ultimate protection:

1. A good radar detector.
2. A good laser jammer.
3. A crowdsourcing program, such as Waze.

I use #1 and #3 above at all times. I am still vulnerable to laser. Waze works great in populated/higher traffic area, and at times when more people are on the road. It is nearly useless to me, however, on my morning commute, because that is at 4am on a 50 mile stretch of rural two-lane road. There is simply not enough crowdsourcing in that scenario to provide any decent benefit.

Another benefit to a detector such as the Escort Redline, is that it is invisible to radar detector detectors. So, when I drive through Washington DC, Virginia, or parts of Canada where radar detectors are illegal, I can still use it without being in fear. I just relocate it onto the dash so it's not conspicuous. You can also segment the bands and turn off K band to avoid the false alarms the author mentions. Pretty naive article really.
Click to expand...
I Agree. Also, if you're the first in line after the police has setup camp you're vulnerable since there was no reports before in Waze.

I had a Redline, and it was great, but I started ignoring it in the city because it would always go off with false positives. I use my Uniden LRD950 and that has worked well for me in the 60% city/40% highway usage.
 
BlueHen

BlueHen

Drag Race Newbie
Location
Delmarva
scrapin240 said:
I Agree. Also, if you're the first in line after the police has setup camp you're vulnerable since there was no reports before in Waze.

I had a Redline, and it was great, but I started ignoring it in the city because it would always go off with false positives. I use my Uniden LRD950 and that has worked well for me in the 60% city/40% highway usage.
Click to expand...

I have a newer Redline, so I segmented Ka band to get rid of Ka falses from cheap Cobra detectors. K falses are indeed an annoyance as the OP linked; however, they can be mitigated significantly by using Auto mode instead of Highway (Auto lessens K sensitivity but doesn't affect Ka) and turning TSR On (which helps with any roadside K sensors and some vehicle BSMs by delaying K alarms by about a half second). I considered turning K completely off, but I worry about running through a small town outside my regular commute that might still have a K gun. I have X turned off completely. I know that NJ and OH supposedly still use it, but I have never seen it where I drive.

In my particular scenario, especially the morning drive which is 50 miles of open rural driving where I may be the only car a cop sees, I want absolute maximum Ka detection range, which the Redline provides so long as you don't have RDR turned on. The invisibility to Spectre detection is the other plus for using in DC and Virginia. The Redline and the STi Magnum are the only two that are invisible. Escort needs to coome out with a Redline360 pronto: best of all worlds, GPS and invisibility.
 
MeltedSolid

MeltedSolid

Autocross Newbie
Location
San Francisco Bay Area
Car(s)
'15 Golf, e36 328i
BlueHen said:
Waze was made by Israelis, no?
Click to expand...

They are based both in Israel and Palo Alto which is in the south bay area. I met the team from Palo Alto.
 
BlueHen

BlueHen

Drag Race Newbie
Location
Delmarva
EXEA189

EXEA189

Ready to race!
Location
Rocky Mountains
BlueHen said:
Just finished reading it. Excellent article. For professional speeders like me, a good detector is one layer in a multilayered defense, along with Waze, good judgement, and a laser jammer system which I still need to get! After the clutch and IS38!! :D
Click to expand...

You called it correctly when you said it was a "pretty naive article" and Alex Roy called it "Amateur."

I especially enjoyed his reference to "buying used condoms in Las Vegas." LOL:eek:
 
The Fed

The Fed

Old Guys Rule
Location
Florida
A LEO can always write you up for careless/reckless driving or weaving in your lane. All your electronic software and hardware won't help you then.
 
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