Safe Speed Forums

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/index.htm?news_id=1504

I think they have lost the plot. If it can be proved that people that use camera detectors have fewer accidents then road safety is obviously not their priority. I also can't see the difference between someone using their eyes and slowing down for a speed camera and someone using a radar/gps detector. I think they have got confused with the laser diffusers which are already illegal and which actually prevent a speed reading been taken. Radar detectors don't stop the police or scams from taking speed readings at all.

As they are passive devices how is it going to be proven that you have one, especially if you have a kind that can be installed in hidden locations in the car with the radar/laser detectors out of view?

Radar detectors have been banned in Holland since 1st of Januari this year. The first courtcases about this prohibition will follow soon. Either 16th of July and maybe later, we will have our first courtcase. The defence has asked for postponing the case to september.

European legislation is one of the arguments, why prohibition is illegal. According to European law, "gathering information" is a (almost constitutional) civil right. Our dept. of Justice says radar signals do not contain information. Ofcourse, signal analysis is also prohibited as they prohibited all equipment *capable* of receiving radar signal in a moving car.

So now the fun is, to get all the radarequipment out off an old Quintezz and people start driving around with a piece of plastic. We have had a case where such a person was fined and his plastic was taken away from him. Also fun was a guy, builiding a plastic toy, looking just like a radar detector, for keeping his peppermints in. When he was stopped by the police, it was very hard for him to describe the looks on their faces.

Also, mistakes have been made. Someone got a fine for 250 Euro's because he left the plastic suckers attached to his window.

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www.beterveilig.nl

If they do this and people start to avoid camera routes even more you are going to be driving people onto b roads and unsuitable roads because the main easy roads have already been infested with scameras. Once even more people get banned the increase in people driving while banned is going to be phenominal. Criminalising the majority of drivers for their normal driving behaviour is just stupid.

If radar detectors do not transmit anything or interfere with the operation of the camera box in anyway how a) are they going to know you have one fitted if you stick the detector in the grille and b) get round the human rights legislation. Mind you they have totally ignored EU legislation on booze runs even though we are *legally* entitled to bring back as much booze as we like from Europe. There are no traffic police so how are they going to know? They can't even enforce a mobile phone ban while driving so I don't see how they are going to enforce bans on radar detectors. I also wonder how they can enforce speed limits when the vast majority of drivers speed and usually quite safely.

I think I might actually be bothered to write to my mp telling him in no uncertain terms if this legislation goes ahead ( I think they are also planning to screw up nsl roads by putting some stupid low speed limit on them) I and the rest of us motorists will not be voting labour. I am sure the tories will capitalise on this and say they wil overthrow it and become pro motorist. I don't want to do the unthinkable and vote tory (i'd rather be for the lib dems) but I don't think they leave much option.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 17,00.html

I like the way they assume that motorists can tell what limit they are in at all times. If that were the case then why don't they put the limit on the back of cameras and start signing 30 mph areas? If you are in somewhere strange it is quite easy to switch between limits and lose track of where you are, especially if there are overgrown hedges obscuring repeaters. I haven't been spending too much time looking at my speedo but I guess it must be time for me to start paying a lot more attention to it and the lollipops instead of looking at the road ahead.

The question is if radar detectors become illegal is there any other way of checking to see whether a camera is live or not? Can I legally have an led display in the back of my car triggerered by a gps detector with 'accident blackspot ahead' displayed?

What happens to those gps units with the laser detectors built in? Are they illegal too under this legislation or does it only apply to gatsos? Would it be legal to have the same led sign flash up 'laser detected' when it does? Would this apply under human rights legislation as it is merely flashing up information and any other person has legal access to?

I wonder what Paul Garvin thinks of this?

It needs to be made clear here that, according to the article in "The Times", there is no intention to outlaw the purely GPS-based devices (which would in any case be a legal minefield)

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I must agree with PeterE.

One of our collegea websites has a database with all speed camera's in it. Today, they provide GPS software, where the road user gets a signal in the neighbourhood of a speedcam.

Unfortunately, fixed speed cams is not the problem in Holland, mobile speed cams are. But there is already a system which provide GPS information about mobile speed cams.

Also, with detectors prohibited, the police have now an Australian device called "Radar detector detector". We're trying to find a solution to this problem while I write this. I am not involved in this proces and I cannot provide any information about it. We do know that the DSI system from Stinger is fully RDD proof! Still, we want to make the old and cheap detectors RDD proof as well!

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www.beterveilig.nl

So taking things literally, what we are being told is:

1. Cameras are installed at so called blackspots where there have been unusually high accident rates caused by speeding.
2. The cameras are painted bright yellow so everyone will see them and know to slow down and drive carefully because it's a dangerous bit. The ideal camera is one which never fines anyone, we're told.
3. Some conscientious motorists buy devices which give them advance warning of the cameras. They can check their speedos earlier, before they get to the dangerous bit, and perhaps spot a camera which has inadvertantly become obscured by vegetation.
4. Government threatens to ban said devices because motorists are avoiding fines by driving slowly through blackspots.

Taken together with reports of scameraship activity on motorways, enforcing a limit which is would be hard to defend in engineering or safety terms, and their general secrecy about accounts, one really has to suspect that some are in financial strife.

Could it be that most of the cameras don't make much money after six months or so, when all the locals know where they are? Vandalism claims a few fixed ones, mobile ones must be expensive to run anyway. Local authority blows profits endlessly moving signs around. Yet public relations expenses must escalate as the public gets ever more sceptical . . .

MY ARSE!

You reckon it's just the "Mk 1 eyeball" then?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Ahh, they moon at you then?

However, a radar detector would be a 'passive' device wouldn't it? Can such a thing be 'detected' using another device.

Paul, you used to be into electronics didn't you, how would it work?

Must be this:

From http://www.australianradar.com.au/news.htm (about half way down the page)

A superheterodyne receiver coverts RF (radio frequency) signals (radar transmit frequency) to an intermediate frequency (IF) by mixing the RF signal with the LO signal; the intermediate frequency equals LO frequency minus received frequency (IF = LO - RF). The LO frequency is different for each traffic radar band (X,K,Ka). Mixers are not perfect and leak some of the LO signal to (and out) the antenna. Some radar detectors may have a pre-amp or isolator between the mixer and antenna that should reduce LO leakage, but may not eliminate it. the old (and unreliable) crystal radar detectors (X band) cannot be detected by radar detector detectors (RDDs) because the crystal radar detectors do not have a local oscillator.

VG-2 Interceptor
Radar Detector Detector (RDD)
Technosonic Industries Ltd.
Missasauga, Ontario (Cananda)

The VG-2 Interceptor radar detector detector (introduced in the 1980's) measures microwave signals in the band 11.4 - 11.6 GHz (many X band detectors have LO leakage in this band) and is suppose to have detection ranges from 1/4 mile to 2 miles depending on the strength of radar detector LO leakage. Because the VG-2 has only one IF (one frequency conversion), the device is more susceptible to false alarms than a double frequency conversion receiver. Some radar detectors are capable of detecting the VG-2 LO leakage (a radar detector detects the radar detector detector).

Stalcar
Radar Detector Detector (RDD)
Stealth Micro Systems Pty Ltd.
Brisbane, Queensland.
Australia

Stalcar (introduced officially Feb 2000) is a radar detector detector (RDD) intended to pick up a large variety of radar detectors including the latest Bel and Valentine models. An audio alarm sounds when a signal is detected, and a bar graph display indicates signal proximity (range based on signal strength). The Stalcar is multi-band and uses a double down conversion receiver. The unit mounts to (inside) windshield or side window using suction caps. Detection range reported to be as high as 1 kilometre (0.6 miles) in some instances. Angled at 90 degrees to a line of traffic the device is able to pinpoint the vehicle with the leaking radar detector.



Seems like decent RF design and shielding could overcome the problem though.

If they did ban them, would this not contravene Human Rights 'freedom of use of possessions'?

Wouldn't they have to prove there was a benefit to public safety to get round this law?

Thinking laterally - I wonder if they'd try to state that the reason that the number of deaths on the road has gone up is because too many people have these detectors and are driving recklessly where the detector is not picking up speed cameras?

That would be an interesting use of spin doctory - using their own unfavourable statistics against the very drivers who are being killed?


Dave

Okay, so detectors can be detected, but all that means is detector makers will evetually start looking at ways of preventing the leakage and making them truly passive. I'm no expert in these sort of things, but surely some shielding in the right place would do the trick? Doesn't the RF shield on the back of a PC where the leads plug in do something similar? Even if it's impossible to shield them completely that'll just make the GPS ones even more attractive.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Yep, picking out what muct be a tiny signal amongst the plethora of radio emissions coming from a vehicle sounds like science fiction to me.

I have yet to see any evidence that TV detector vans are anything more than a man with a list of addresses which have no licence.

I recon they will just start pulling people for going past cameras at the limit.

And I can't see how they can possibly ban GPS based systems without banning all GPS systems.

They definately do work. The problem is that most receivers use a super heterodyne design which converts the received signal to a lower frequency before dection (in the superhet sense). This can leak and be radiated in the receive antenna, which I presume on radar detectors is a dish type.

As far as I know all quality detectors either have decent circuitry that doesn't leak to any great extent or has a different intermediate frequency that the popular radar detector detectors don't use.

Gareth

Absolutely, Holland has the Stalcar. They picked about 2000 radar detectors in 6 months, though they've had Stalcars sincs May.

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www.beterveilig.nl

I don't know about this one...



Exactly. According to European law (which is above Dutch law), we have freedom of information gathering. But one section says that a gouvernment has the right to tighten up freedoms, for the benefit of public safety.

So who do you think is going to give the answer to this "public safety" question? Yes indeed, we have our own TRL, which have put out a press release, claiming that radar detectors are bad for traffic safety.

Although their story is completely underproven. The press release says "Radar detectors are bad for traffic safety", the story says "we expect radar detectors to be bad for traffic safety".

Ofcourse, they use the old Finch report for their arguments, and many other reports which have a gray beard.

The Finch argument is interesting. We had a report in Holland, evaluating the effects of "traffic control" - including speed control. The conclusion was, that it is not statistically significant clear that speed control has had very positive effects. The same reports states that the whole Finch investigation does not apply in the real world. Only 4 days later, they argue the evilness of radardetectors using that same Finch argument.

Later, they republished the radar detector story, but the cut out the Finch part, as I criticized on our website that they're not taking their own investigation serious!

Anyway, Finch is dead in Holland. If they reclaim the argument, they're in big problems now!

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www.beterveilig.nl

Perhaps you would like to see our own mr. Brunstrom demonstrating this science fiction for you?

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www.beterveilig.nl

Today we have an article on the frontpage of our site, claiming that we have a remedy against the stalcar.

If you are interested, you can post question on our Radar detector detector forum. People who have the information do speak english.

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www.beterveilig.nl