Modern Cars Wreak Havoc on Radar Detectors | Hacker News Reader

Modern Cars Wreak Havoc on Radar Detectors

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62 pointsPaulHoule96 comments

Lotta miles using radar detectors -- they detect 3 different bands of radar and some "detect laser." Radar detectors are great insurance, and more useful on the open highway than they are in town, but I've not seen a vehicle give off Ka band emissions that wasn't law enforcement. I have noticed that newer Honda cars set off the K band, which is also used by a lot of the cheap lightpole "your speed" I've seen. Very rarely still I will see X band speed radar being used in the middle of nowhere where the cop cars are older.

Radar detector users just learn to ignore the X and K band alerts while simultanously learning a subconscious quarter second brake reaction time based on the Ka band noise.

Exactly. I haven't encountered a cop using X band since the 1990s. All X band signals I see now are door openers at grocery stores.

And yeah, a K band zap in the middle of nowhere usually means there's a Honda nearby.

Last time I had a detector (a remote Bel Pro RX75 Plus with laser jammer that works), I turned off X band because of incessant false positives. With just K and Ka (and laser), almost all detection were legit.

Radar detectors on the windshield look dumb, clutter the windshield, and encourage ticket-writing by offending some cops with fragile egos. Remote detectors or go home.

Instead of radar, more and more places are installing ANPR (aka ALPR) cameras here. They measure how long it taked you to drive between two locations, if it's faster than the speed limit, the fine will find you. Tiny Belgium already has more than 5k ANPR cameras.

Predictably, the system is being (ab)used for all kinds of monitoring and tracking on top of speed enforcement. And in a certain sense, all those irresponsibly fast drivers with radar detectors are partially responsible for the further erosion of privacy on the road.

It sure doesn't sound like those systems were built to go after irresponsibly fast drivers.

That was their original intent, but of course, once you have a dense network of cameras that can sort of reliably track individuals, people find all sorts of other uses for them.

You're sure it wasn't largely to milk fines from people going slightly over? What was the initial threshold for fines? What is it now?

Irrelevant. Speed kills. Slower is better.

1. If you're calling my first question irrelevant, the one about why the system was installed, then why were you the one originally making claims about that, and using it to blame certain people?

2. "Slower is better." is a stupid half argument. Speed limits are a tradeoff between the benefits of going fast and the benefits of going slow. If it wasn't a tradeoff then the speed limit would be walking speed everywhere on every road.

1. If people drove the speed limit, there would be no need for privacy invasive traffic cameras. The blame there does lie squarely with the people who can't seem to get that, and who keep killing and maiming thousands of people every year.

2. There are very few benefits to cars going faster. If you want speed, trains are much more efficient at high speed. Fast cars are wasteful and dangerous.

Cars being limited to walking speeds in cities would be great. But failing that, I'm happy with the local groundrule: 30km/h if there's no bike path, 50km/h if there's a raised bike path, and 70km/h if there's a bike path that's separated from the road by at least 1 metre.

There will always be "good reason" for the invasion of privacy. If you didn't actively oppose their use, you're also to blame.

The speed limit is not set at exactly 1 below irresponsibly fast.

Are all these cameras in cities? Are there any on separated highways?

Nobody is milked. The rules are simple and trivial to follow. Those that are fined are really asking for it.

An upper limit is not the desired and accepted speed everybody needs to aim for.

> An upper limit is not the desired and accepted speed everybody needs to aim for.

I agree entirely. But while you seem to be thinking about the situation where the speed limit is higher than the natural safe speed range people would intuit without a sign, often it's significantly lower. That's a bad way to design roads and speed limits. In pedestrian areas restrict the roads more, and in non-pedestrian areas let people go a good pace on straight dry roads.

> Nobody is milked. The rules are simple and trivial to follow. Those that are fined are really asking for it.

How much over is your threshold for "really" asking for it? If it includes people going 2-3 over then I very much disagree.

This is easily managed by hiding your license plates. I haven't shown my real license plate in years (It has a ping identity sticker on it) and no plans on doing so, it's to protect my own privacy.

Protecting ones privacy comes with the incidental side effect of making it difficult for society to penalize one for not abiding by the rules.

Bank robbers wear ski masks for similar privacy concerns.

Also apparently ICE agents in the US.

Then society should do something about the invasion of privacy happening everywhere. Take Flock camera systems in Colorado as an example, Colorado has been trying to limit access to ALPR data to only municipalities within the state for immigration related cases. The state has even went as far as creating a law. Loveland police department gave federal officials (ICE, DEA, ATF) access to states ALPR data, completely bypassing the law on the books. Data like this has been weaponized and if you can't see it, not sure how I can help you.

How does this work? I’d like to avoid tracking but stay within the law if possible.

It doesn't.

It just means that they've not gone at a speed sufficiently egregious for a detective to be handed the packet to work out the vehicle's true identity.

Hiding your license plate will almost always be considered an offense, but is it one cops actively care about? Luckily in my state I vary rarely see cops on the road making my risk much lower. In the case of getting pulled over, its a $75 dollar fee in Colorado that I am happy to pay, it won't change my behavior.

You can also leave your cell phone at home. Disable anything broadcasting from your vehicle, like bluetooth, wifi, and onboard cell connectivity for telematics. Remove the RFID chips on your car rims (assuming you have a recent model vehicle). Remove TPM sensors from your wheels (A lot of them have part of your vehicle VIN in the packets). Tint your car windows... and remove anything that is unique, like stickers off your vehicle. Partially are completely block your license plate from being read by ALPR's.

Do all of those and you're not as trackable as you are not doing them today.

I remain amazed that Seattle doesn’t do this for the 99 tunnel that goes under the city. People routinely fly through there at like 40 miles over what the limit is - and due to a bus lane addition going northbound, they exit the tunnel at a high rate into some very varied traffic.

The tunnel is a toll road that’s photo enforced. Should be an easy ticket in the mail if your enter and exit time are way too close or something.

(I’m guessing it might be the age old “can’t prove it was you driving” defense?)

> can’t prove it was you driving

They don't have to if it is a civil infraction. As I understand it, in many jurisdictions a camera ticket is a fine but no points. They just say "the owner of the car is responsible for who they allow to drive it" same as insurance liability.

At least in WA state there’s a “it wasn’t me” option to contest and the thing will just disappear.

This is what I was referring to, yes.

In Germany you get the fine with the photo where the face of the driver is very visible/recognizable 99% of the time. Even in villages have this type of cameras so they can't be expensive. Oh you get fined for driving without a seatbelt too.

The solution there is to drive a British car.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1081607/Speeding-pu...

This is where we have privacy laws. :)

Ah yes, the Shaggy Defense

Civil infractions are a giant end run around people's rights when you're talking about these size fines. They can't push it because if they do that risks ending the gravy train.

Because if they did it people would vote for it to be changed.

Do you actually live in Seattle, or are you just drive-by commenting?

Seattle is very vocal in one direction while often voting in the other. The idea of cameras for catching speeding/etc is not a new concept here and is seemingly one the public is letting police do more of.

good. speed kills. off highways, speeding is particularly dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers.

I just wish cops would actually do that more frequently. My local interstate is basically only trapped during a small window a day, easy to memorize.

I don’t blame people for speeding when we care so little as to actually monitor and enforce. Especially when it’s easy to automate.

If you've ever driven in italy you know that velocity is normally measured in a 100km/h road, right after a 20km/h sign that was there for no other reason than to fine people. For bonus points the sign can be hidden behind a bush or can be so old and faded nobody knows what it says.

I'm pretty sure the context here was not off highways.

No, speed differential kills.

When someone is talking about speed in a car, they are always talking about speed differential, vs the earth.

If the person in front of you has to brake hard or swerve to avoid an obstacle, your speed differential with them can very quickly become equal to your speed.

If there’s a stationary object on the road, your speed differential is always equal to your speed.

In many circumstances that cause deadly accidents, speed differential vs speed is just pedantry.

Yeah! It's the pedestrian's fault for not already moving 45 MPH before they got run over!

I was momentarily confused because where I live "Off Highway" has a specific legal meaning - meaning not on public roads, e.g. on dirt trails or in a farm field.

https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/OHV

I don’t speed off highway. On highway though when traffic is light, visibility is good, I don’t see the big deal with going 70 in a 60. The detector gives me peace of mind so I can focus on what’s relevant rather than playing “find the cop” or, worse, going the speed limit and falling asleep. :)

Improper and reckless behavior kill, not speed per se. Going the speed limit around a blind curve without sufficient stopping distance or going faster than one's headlights are dangerous. There is no universal rule except don't drive faster or riskier than your or your vehicle's capabilities or endanger others.

in most of Europe these detectors are forbidden, I tend to drive within the speed limit, much safer

Not to mention cheaper ;)

Over here in Finland I can't even remember the last time I saw actual policemen with radars monitoring traffic. It's all cameras these days, making detectors like this highly useless. They were a thing in the 90's or so.

All of that noise is K band and soon to be spread out across 77 ghz, outside of the bands being used by law enforcement (for now). If you take high velocity seriously, I recommend getting a Uniden R9 and a ALPriority Laser Jammer system. Then add in a dedicated android tablet running Highway Radar, you'll be a hard target to target. Also get a pair of binoculars (bonus points if they're thermal).

I haven't had a speeding ticket since 2018, before I had my tools. Just this week I was averaging 120 mph across Utah, turned my 11 hour trip into 8 hours.

My understanding is that in most jurisdictions a laser jammer is a magic device that transmutes a speeding ticket into a complementary trip to jail

https://www.automoblog.com/are-radar-detectors-legal/

Speed tickets are very unequally enforced. Last time I saw speeding enforcement plotted on a map, most states were broadly the same of hardly any enforcement. However, Ohio was the striking standout by iirc a full order of magnitude to the nearest peer.

That has been the pattern for years; before people demolished the Cannonball run record during COVID, getting through Ohio clean was one of the biggest challenges.

These detectors have been illegal in Australia for as long as I can remember. But with apps like Waze and TomTom Amigo, I probably don't need them. I can see where all the speed cameras are and police get reported on the map fairly quickly (I also contribute to these reports, let's subvert government power together)

There are quite a number of areas in the rural US where there's no cell coverage. In these places Waze won't help you, but radar detectors still work.

What are the odds a cop is taking up a radar position in a place without cell service today? These guys famously play Pokemon Go and other games on call.

...or you could drive sensibly within the speed limit.

What fun is that?

That being said, "speed culture" varies a lot from state to state. Where I live it's assumed and expected that you will speed, and in other areas you can get a ticket for going 1 over.

The legal and cultural ambiguity means that someone who is unsure of the real, enforced, culturally-accepted speed limit may want to use a radar detector.

Yup, in Idaho you’re pretty much expected to do +5. I swear they figure out the proper speed and subtract five from it. Going the speed limit will get you run over.

Make the speed limit sensible, and I will.

I don't speed in Europe because 130 km/h is a perfectly fine limit; I've driven faster on uncontrolled Autobahn segments, but I'm not bothered when there is a limit. 65 mph on the NJ Turnpike (and only on the southern part) is not.

65mph is plenty fast. going beyond 70/75 is diminishing returns in the safety of other drivers, not to mention worse greenhouse emissions.

a crash at 80+ is so much worse than one at 65. and American highways are not the Autobahn. different design and engineering.

If anything, American highways are wider and straighter than the Autobahn.

But they are less well maintained and with fewer safety features, built to a lower cost per mile.

Being straighter is actually bad for safety (highway hypnosis).

You’ll find long stretches of interstates with no guard rails as well as state highways with direct intersections with rural roads.

The energy (damage) of a crash is proportional to the square of the speed. Therefore a crash at 80 units per hour has over 1 and a half times the amount of energy, and thus one and a half times the damage, as one at 65 units per hour.

That limit is completely reasonable on the NJ turnpike especially considering that the cultural norm is to go 5-10 mph over. American speed limits are determined with the expectation of drivers going over. In other countries the limit is more literal.

No cop is going to ticket you for going 70-75 on the turnpike.

In my town you don't get a ticket unless you are going 10mph over, and this is on surface streets. They might be stricter in the 20mph school zones though.

> No cop is going to ticket you for going 70-75 on the turnpike

Unless it's the end of the month and they have to meet quota and blah blah blah... Australia seems to get away with ruthlessly enforcing ridiculously low speed limits. The correct speed limit, by your own comment, seems to be 75 (120 km/h) at least.

Sometimes the speed limit is set to lower the accident rate on a particular piece of road. Like those 30 MPH curve warnings on a mountain road. Even in straight shots the amount of traffic could make 80 MPH significantly more dangerous than 70 MPH.

...on the long (9 miles to the next town), straight county road just by my house with a 50 mph speed limit that sees maybe 1 car per minute on average. There's a reason that the average speed there is 65mph+

Then set the limits properly at the 85% mark. And ban speed limit fines from going into local coffers.

Dare I ask what the 85% mark is?

There was a rule at some point that the way to set a speed limit was to measure the speed of cars using that road, and set the limit so that 85% were under and 15% were over. I don't know how much this is actually used any more.

From a safety point of view the proper way to do it is to decide up front what speed limit you want on that road, and then design it so that drivers feel unsafe going over that speed. If you have to have a sign telling drivers to slow down, you designed the road wrong.

That's the basic standard for a traffic survey, which is sometimes required for enforcement. California has a speed trap law that prevents accepting radar evidence of vehicle speed unless the speed limit was set by a recent traffic survey, on a local road or school zone, or the limit is 65 for cars and 55 for trucks. Maybe some other exceptions.

I 100% agree on build the road to result in the behavior you want. Speed limit signs have some effect, but narrow lanes are much more effective.

http://m8y.org/bloomcounty.jpg

There are back roads out there that drop 15 mph at the state line with no population around for miles. Detectors offer peace of mind for travel at a leisurely self-determined rate.

Which one is it, driving sensibly or driving within the speed limit?

Yeah the internet it weird about speed limits for some reason meanwhile the moment you drive on real roads in the US you lean very quickly, even explicitly if you did in-cars in driver's ed, that the posted speed limit is the minimum.

In the places where it’s like that, enforcement is lax and you’ll never need a radar detector.

In the other places, it’s very simple to sit in the right lane and you won’t be going wildly slower than the rest of traffic. There are always trucks and governed vehicles on the road that are going the speed limit that you can swim through the stream with.

I used to be in the camp of defending the legality of radar detectors, and really I don’t think they need to be legal, but at the same time the only people buying them are dangerous assholes who treat public roads like their personal race track.

It takes at least one ticket to pay off the investment which means radar detector owners intend to be repeat offenders.

There are roads here that “feel” like a 35 or even 45mph road. The speed limit is 7. Yes, 7. It’s purely for local revenue.

Can of spray and a night off and they all become 70

If anyone's still reading this: As I read this, I think it makes more sense for the police to replace radar with a high-resolution camera and a computer that can determine speed of vehicles.

Any thoughts on that?

It's hard to find exact stats because of how procurement and statistics works across jurisdictions, states, etc... but from what I CAN find it seems that LIDAR is more common than Radar these days. Over the whole country it looks like a slight majority lead for LIDAR, but in some (quite populous) states they almost only use LIDAR (PA for example had 93% of their tickets come from LIDAR, and I believe most of the rest used speed cameras or 'clocking' rather than RADAR).

Sources:

https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/TR/Transcripts/2018_00...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar_traffic_enforcement

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/lidar-sp...

LIDAR can't be used in motion, the LEO has to be stopped to be pointing it. Your laser detector will warn you, but it's already too late at that point; my two cents is using Waze/Google LEO alerts is state of the art at this point (until someone starts multilateration of patrol cars using their radio RF emissions and SDR networks).

> LIDAR can't be used in motion

To be clear, the reason for this is because the width of the beam requires aiming it like a sniper rifle, not because we can't compensate for operator motion.

Most speeding offences require the use of a speed measuring device to detect and 'prove' an offence. However, a number of jurisdictions have a separate offence where 'speeding' can still be charged, including 'in motion', without lidar or radar.

For example an officer following or pursuing an offender can apply a 'negligent' or 'wreckless' driving charge based in context of the officer's observations and evidence gathered, such as following or pursuing an offender well above the speed limit, observing the calibrated speedometer in the patrol car, without the use of a speed measuring device.

It's been a while since I've looked at it though some Australian police forces have a calibrated speedometer installed on the dash that reads out the vehicle's speed based from the rear differential[1], separately to the vehicle's 'stock' speedometer. The reasoning, I understand, is that this is more precise, as legally the stock speedometer can display a speed up to 10 km/h lower than actual (but not above).

[1] https://www.drive.com.au/news/inside-a-highway-patrol-car-th...

It's the other way around: the speedo can overestimate your speed but not underestimate it. If you follow the limits with an overestimating speedo, you drive under the limit. With an underestimating speedo, you end up over.

Oops, I got my words mixed up.

Anecdotally, when I pass those roadside speed alert signs, the speed they show and the speed on my speedometer is rarely more than +/- 1 mph. I think modern speedometers are pretty accurate, as long as the OE tire size is used.

That my experience too, the speedometer, speed my phone thinks I'm going, and static radar signs all more or less agree. Plus the only times I've been nailed for speeding, I was speeding, not "just kissing" the limit. Point being I don't think +/-1mph really matters in practice 99%+ of the time, it's usually getting tagged when being overconfident in the passing lane or something like that.

This is why I don't see LIDAR used much in the western US. Cops are lazy like everybody else and they'd rather fish with a net. Radar is a net. LIDAR is a speargun. It's too much work.

It's fine... if you're fine with constant video surveillance.

welcome to the UK.

We're all living in Amerika https://deflock.me/

There's a huge difference between a network of cameras on a road, versus a device that an officer has to set up and take down.

Its like the dumbest product manager meme. “Humans use eyes for this right, why can’t our gadget?” “It must work at night? Oh we will just use a thermal camera” “Pixels in an image are not all from the same time instant? We will just pay 10x for a global shutter camera”

The list goes on and on and on. No, they will not just be replaced by whatever is producing loose AI facsimiles of the real world in a smartphone.

you can also just use a normal rolling shutter camera at a higher frame rate and blur the frames together.

Average speed cameras exist and are basically that. ANPR at two locations and measure the time it took you to get between them. It's actually more fair because an occasional accidental overspeed won't get you but continuous speeding will.

It's been done manually for decades. Read about VASCAR[1]

Yes with modern cameras and computers I would think it should be pretty doable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VASCAR

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