"The SpeedLaser has had an industry leading “stealth” mode that fools jammers, defeating them from preventing speed readings. This exciting new feature now detects that a jammer is in use and displays the type of jammer to the law enforcement officer at the time that the speed is recorded."

“...because we believe that agencies will now be able to know when a motorist are attempting to thwart their efforts at recording speed.”

“With our unique stealth mode, the SpeedLaser gives traffic police the advantages that they can be certain which car is speeding on a busy highway and it is really difficult for detectors or jammers to interfere. Now, with this feature, the officer will know which cars are using jammers and the type of jammer being used.”




That's a load of marketing BS, because the gun doesn't tell the officer "it's the blue MINI with the aftemarket sway bar," or anything. The officer can only assume he knows what the laser beam is hitting; he can't see it, the beam is invisible.

And so what if he knows he's being jammed by a Blinder M20 and not the Lidartec K40? Does it make a difference to you to know you're being tracked by the SpeedLaser and not the Marksman II?

I HOPE being able to clock speed in the presence of a jammer is MARKETING BS.. or we're in serious trouble.

But for identifying WHICH car, isn't this one of the things LIDAR excels at? Look through a scope with crosshairs, and the target vehicle is there. The beam is narrower than your car. Some LIDAR manufacturers have options like integrated digital cameras, which record both your picture and speed. Or a visible pinpoint targeting laser. The dot would be easy to see during the day since it lies within the scope's crosshairs. (Next; we need to show that these beams are blinding drivers and causing accidents! Remember the airliners hit by handheld lasers?) Of course this would only stop them from making units with targeting beams. They'd still have cameras and cross-hairs. LIDAR could be the final enemy with no long term solution.

On another note, it may be possible for an LEO to determine something about a jammer, or at least the fact that he is being jammed. My guess is that jammer brand-X pulses at a rate of 'x' and brand-Y at a rate of 'y'. While identifying this may not appear to be of value, it may if (or when) jammers become illegal. It could be useful for an LEO to determine he was jammed by a real signal and not just noise, giving him enough reasonable suspicion to inspect your car. Similar to having a VG-2 detector in a detector-illegal state.

Along those lines, some of today's RADAR detectors can display a frequency and use this info to aid in rejecting false signals. If it's the wrong frequency, filter it.. if it's the right one then it's a radar gun! Maybe the next generation of laser jammers will use random and changing pulse rates? Like what the Enterprise does to it's shields when the Borg attacks! :biggrin:

1. I don't mean to argue, but LIDAR doesn't identify anything: you look though the scope and hopefully the invisible laser beam is bouncing off the thing you're looking at - which happens only if they were aligned properly. And a visible targeting beam is not the measuring beam - the two are completely independent.

2. Whether the beam is narrower than your car depends on the distance.

3. LIDAR doesn't measure speed - it measures a change in distance. Therefore it's
extremely easy to produce bogus readings, by either intentionally or inadvertently moving the gun while taking a measurement.

4. All jammers have an off switch. The instructions recommend after the alarm sounds to slow down immediately and turning the unit off, before the officer attempts another reading.

Argue? I thought we were discussing :biggrin: . Being able to exchange ideas means not having to think in a vacuum. What I'm learning from web searches is a direct result of what we are discussing!

Of course I want jammers to work, and for them to stay legal forever. The short term reality is probably that LIDAR and jammer technology leap-frog each other. To provide an example, I'll mention for Josh:

>>> Blinders have recently been upgraded to jam Laser Atlanta's 'stealth' LIDAR. <<< The upgrade involves swapping out the heads. No info on what the upgrade program costs, if any.

My main point earlier is that since all this stuff is so computerized (LIDAR with built-in cameras, targeting systems, future discriminating circuits designed to circumvent jammers, etc.) that it will be an uphill battle trying to keep stealthy. I also believe that the existing equipment is already more accurate than you may be giving them credit for. Granted, they can go out of whack too.

I work in the network biz and am aware that both wired, wireless and laser transmission systems are designed to get their info through regardless of interference that might be encountered along the way. Without getting too technical, they use modulation techniques that are able to sort out all kinds of crap, and in the end digitally reproduce the originally intended signal. This kind of technology will eventually make its way into LIDAR guns.

All true, but no technological wizardry can eliminate operator error.

Case to the point: MPH Industries' POP radar technology. The manufacturer admits that while in this mode, the displayed speed of a vehicle may not be accurate. They recommend that the officer only use this mode to obtain an estimate of speed from the target vehicle and then switch to normal mode to obtain the exact speed.

So what do the officers do? Use it in POP mode all the time. And what do radar detector manufacturers do? Design anti-POP features. And all these technological advances are developed because the manufacturer produced a useleless feature pushed onto the users by their marketing guys.

You're missing the point. The cop doesn't need a special feature to tell him you're using a jammer. He knows it when he gets an unimaginable speed or error on your car when it worked for all the others.

Any technology can be overcome by another technology. Nothing is impossible. It's this industry's nature to leap-frog itself. Otherwise, neither side would make any money. :)

Until they start using digital encrypted modulation on their signals it will certainly be on the easier side of things to thwart.

And then again there was always my old idea of replacing my driving lights with giant infrared heat lamps. :D

I hate laser... I miss having an all black car too.

Anyway, price alert.. that thing I got is now 272 retail for the next couple of days. (the blue version)

Black isn't going to help you. It's all the crome and headlight reflectors and more than anything your front plate.

Black might be less noticable to the eye but not with two big contrasting white stripes :D

By NOT having a front plate am I less at risk of being had ?(I have one of the old green plates-only need the rear one) This morning I got lasered as I got on to 95 south at 4:15 AM .I was doing roughly 73 but there was a guy beside me on the outside lane going faster. The statie didn't bother with either of us. He was tucked on the right side with half the cruiser showing just beyond the hale st. overpass. NO LIGHTS ON! I always thought they were supposed to have at least parking lights on. Hand held gun visible as I went by in the right lane. :angry: :angry: :angry: :mad: :mad: :mad: :nice:

They use lights when they want you to slow down. And they don't, when they want to catch you.
http://www.motorists.org/ma/docu.html

I thought I heard that in CT it's considered entrapment if they don't have their lights on. We're also not allowed to use red light cameras. Hoo-ray. And Jock, I could roast you for admitting speeding after that other fiasco, but I won't because I'm a nice person ;)

And Jock, I could roast you for admitting speeding after that other fiasco, but I won't because I'm a nice person ;)

quite a difference going 8 over at 4:15 in the morning on a 4 lane interstate with only one other car on the road,and I NEVER said that I wasn't as much to blame for going too fast in the other fiasco.I do NOT have any halo's(witness the $305 speeding ticket that sits in my record.) :rolleyes:

It was always my experience that staties never had to have their lights on, but town cops did. At least in CT. In my town, that meant a tiny green light on top about the size of a night light. I always remember keeping an eye out for mysterioius green lights in the woods (and sometimes they looked just like that!)

The simple rule of the thumb is they can pretty much do what they want.

quite a difference going 8 over at 4:15 in the morning on a 4 lane interstate with only one other car on the road,and I NEVER said that I wasn't as much to blame for going too fast in the other fiasco.I do NOT have any halo's(witness the $305 speeding ticket that sits in my record.) :rolleyes:

I don't want to hear any excuses mister! :p

Speaking of Nashua... has anybody taken exit 2 off of rt 3 heading into Hudson NH? Well it's a 3 lane exit (with shoulders on each side, more like 5 lanes total) for about 2 miles before it comes to a stop light. Guess the limit there? 40mph. Try driving that road at 40mph. It just feels so slow that you just think that something is wrong. Go any faster there and chances are you will get nabbed by the Hudson Police. It's their favorite speed trap.

Just drove the 95 section where it's STILL 45mph for 12 miles in both directions. What a load of crap! The highway is wide, straight and in excellent condition. If they can lower the limit due to some past accidents, then what's to stop them from doing this anywhere else the road is wide, straight and in excellent condition!!

Hey, has anyone noticed their detector reporting 'laser' just as you leave the EZ-Pass tollbooths? My old one never did that, but my new one does.

Just drove the 95 section where it's STILL 45mph for 12 miles in both directions. What a load of crap! The highway is wide, straight and in excellent condition. If they can lower the limit due to some past accidents, then what's to stop them from doing this anywhere else the road is wide, straight and in excellent condition!!

yup. their latest trick is to lurk waaayyyyyy back on an entrance ramp and get you as you go by,beware, big Brother is indeed watching you........bwaahaaahaaa

what's to stop them from doing this anywhere else the road is wide, straight and in excellent condition!!

You must be hallucinating. There is no road in mass that is wide, straight, and in excellent condition. Or even good condition.

Hey, has anyone noticed their detector reporting 'laser' just as you leave the EZ-Pass tollbooths? My old one never did that, but my new one does.

Yup. It may be a large infrared light which illuminates your plate for cameras, or it may just be a speed detector. I haven't looked down to see if it is sensed front or rear, but I would guess rear for the plate.

The Globe's excellent weekly Starts and Stops column this week reminds us that the 45mph limit on 95N is advisory only:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/12/25/speed_limit_signs_advisory_in_i_95_zone/

The Globe has an article today that Mass will start charging fastlane users $24 to replace transponders with dead batteries (here (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/12/28/24_bite_ahead_for_many_in_fast_lane/)
Yet another reason to get a free ezpass from NY instead of paying for one in mass.
The photo of the board made me start looking for ways to manually replace your battery. Not as easy as I thought to find the custom battery or any info on the procedure.
But I did come across this interesting article on next-generation plans; the current contract for the mark IV equipment expires in 07:
http://www.tollroadsnews.com/cgi-bin/a.cgi/r9uT8vJmEdmcEIJ61nsxIA
And I remember telling people that in IL, many ezpass lanes are 50mph (and people blow through even faster), while mass leads you to believe you must go through at 15mph. Well sure enough this article proves it: "reads of properly mounted transponders are at least a 99.99% capture rate at speeds between zero and 100mph"

Right now the speed limit at NY EZ Pass lanes is 15 mph but there are plans to upgrade the equipment to allow faster thruput and at least some plazas will have what look like overhead reading equipment that will allow traffic to flow through at normal highway speeds. No mention of any charges for the transponders either.

Hmm. Will be interesting to see if NY follows suit, if they think we'll pay for the transponder change.

We had a tollbooth fatality of one of the Thruway workers here recently, and I think that's the best argument for not blowing through the tollbooths. MA is usually smart enough to put the fast lanes at the far right, though when that happens here it is too easy to get stuck behind an 18 wheeler in 2nd gear.

I (heart) my EZ Pass!

Glad I mailed my old transponder just before Christmas! It figures though.. the initial $27.00 or whatever was supposed to be a returnable deposit, not a recurring fee! Just like Excise tax was supposed to be a war tax (over then the war was over).

BTW I noticed that the Garden State Parkway has at least one or two toll lanes where you can cruise through at highway speeds. Pretty cool.

Yes, the Garden State and the Jersey Turnpike both have lanes where you can do 55. Most toll stations near the city have higher speed EZ Pass lanes. Booth operator fatalities is the very reason we no longer have toll booths in CT. Sure the state makes up for it in other ways, but I think we're better off without them. It'd be nice to see other states do the same.

Annette, I couldn't agree with you more

Oh my God, we agree on something! :eek:

You've probably already seen these toll booth pics. What idiots!!

Oh my God, we agree on something! :eek:


Ewww, icky... :aargh: