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Having received one speeding ticket approximately every three years since I began driving, I have a small grudge regarding enforcement of speed laws for revenue generation.
In my town, doing 80 and above on the freeway is condoned in peak hours because it moves the flow and the road is designed for
it. Disrupting the traffic to write tickets jams the works, and is hazardous to the officers.
But in the safely barriered carpool lanes, exceeding 65 can get you an expensive ticket, because the lanes are designed with plenty of places suitable for an officer to safely pull over a speeding driver.
I'd like to have a means of distributing inexpensive radar detector / jammers in the areas most used for this selective enforcement.
A small device, built with cost reduction in mind, that could be left in zones that are convenient to the revenue generating motor officers and cruisers that hunt the traffic flow not for those that are driving unsafely but those that can be harvested for city revenue.
Batteries not included.
Radar and laser detector forum
http://www.radardet...ehe-first-save.html
[normzone, Dec 16 2011]
Solar powered insect
http://www.meritlin...gift---p-47835.aspx
I have one of these, all it does is jitter a little. Power is going to be an issue. [normzone, Dec 16 2011]
Wild Weasel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Weasel
It's actually an airplane, but the missiles it carries are often called by the same name; technically, it targets radar-guidance devices, but it finds jammers too. [Alterother, Dec 17 2011]
You could always put one of these in your hubcaps...
http://www.gardenweasel.com/
Might not work, but it would make for some cool Ben Hur wheel cutting effects. [RayfordSteele, Dec 19 2011]
And a search for radar pajamas yields...
http://www.cafepress.com/+radar+pajamas
[normzone, Dec 21 2011]
[link]
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Yeah, when I say radar, I really mean the whole set of new speed detection tools. Some of which scatter enough to be readily detectable, and some of which are pretty tight beam. |
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And the trade-off between low cost and weatherproof raises cost. Getting caught would be an offense, so you'd want them to be ruggedized enough that you could just spray them on as you drove by. Which raises the cost again. |
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I knew this was a pipe dream with problems when I posted it, but an (edit) ($500) ticket will drive a man to dream. |
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//generate revenue// You'd think so, but I just ran a quick calculation for one of the city's major fishin'holes. They nab four people per hour when it's operating, at a 70% conviction rate (the placement at certain times of day is a clear Human Rights violation) and an average cost of $85 per guilty plea (with court appearance); that barely covers the cost of 2 officers and a cruiser: toss in court-time and it doesn't break even. |
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One thing to remember about radar jamming is that it's
obvious. There's no way to be sneaky about it. If a cop's
radar gun starts giving off wildly conflicting signals, all he
has to do is watch the cars going by until his gear starts
working again, then go down the road and pull over
everyone who passed him until he finds the illegal device
(and, yes, a cop can pull over as many vehicles at one time
as he/she deems neccesary). |
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Yeah, this is zone control. The local motor officers have some places they work, usually where there is a shadow or buttress to conceal themselves behind, or as you come around a slight bend in the roadway. |
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"you'll be looking at at least 50 bucks per unit for a ruggedized, weatherproof detector/jammer" |
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Yeah, but when you pay a few hundred dollars for the ticket (89 mph) and then tack on the increase in your insurance rates for the next three years, you can pay for a few of these things. |
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Distributing the plans over the 'net and letting hobbyists build their own should keep costs down. |
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I did miss that point. A very clever way to make a cop
angry, which in turn benefits all of us. |
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Implementation, however, would result in the creation of
small, cheap jammer detectors that police would use to
find these little troublemakers, or simply a rise in State
Police agencies requesitioning large supplies of Wild
Weasel missiles. |
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This could become an arms race, beginning with jammer triangulation teams searching for the offending devices, then placing trail cameras to capture images of the culprit installing replacement devices. |
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I wonder what the smallest footprint is you could achieve in a jammer. Could you make them the size of one of those solar powered insects and scatter them like so much roadside trash? |
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Sure, if you want a radar jammer with a 6" broadcast
range. |
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According to my grandfather's notes and hints of
corroborating evidence in Cold War legend, man-portable
jammers have attained effective radii of ten miles or
more, but there is no mention of anything in a handheld-
size. |
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So I'd want to either tap into a power source on a rooftop and beam it down the road - not exactly dispensable, but an amusing guerrilla act - or craft these things to look like casual roadside trash - 18 pack beer cases, 5 gallon paint buckets, etc. And I was raised not to litter... |
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The 'man-portable' jammers my grandfather mentioned in
his journal were 'similar in chassis to a PRC radio'. That
means a backpack-mounted unit; could be made to look
like a 24-pack of Rolling Rock with an old VHF antenna
stuck in it. |
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Wire a plethora of jammers underneath various civic fleets
of vehicles which transit the lanes in question - taxis, city
buses, police cars... |
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See how long before the radar operators work out their
intermittent loss of signal problem. |
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Now that's an idea worth implementing. Imagine the
dumbfounded expression on the State Trooper's face when
he/she* loses signal coherency on the ol' radar gun, quickly
fires off a Wild Weasel from the battery hidden behind the
nearest stationary moose, only to find the missile pulling a
180 and
targeting his/her own cruiser. |
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*I was recently pulled over by a female Maine State
Trooper who, despite having both the build and voice of a
USMC drill instructor, was possibly the nicest cop I've ever
met outside of Canada. Considering there are only two
troopers assigned to this part of the state, and apparently
at least one of them is a woman, the experience has left
me thinking of police officers in general as gender neutral. |
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I keep getting confused with the Wicked Weasel... |
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The unofficial motto of the Wild Weasel crews is YGBSM: "You Gotta Be Shittin' Me". This appears prominently on the logo patch of some squadrons. As the story goes, this was the response of Jack Donovan, a former B-52 EWO (Electronic Warfare Officer): |
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This was the natural response of an educated man, a veteran EWO on B-52s and the like, upon learning that he was to fly back seat to a self-absorbed fighter pilot while acting as flypaper for enemy SAMs " |
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As radar in cars as collision prevention (sort of a
smart, distance-based cruise control) becomes
increasingly common, this could be less of a 'sticking
it to the Man' thing, and more of a 'Domestic
terrorism' thing. |
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Not long ago there was a fuss about radar jammers disguised as remote control garage door openers. The signal to open the door, conveniently, was exactly the same as the jamming signal so you had a perfectly valid excuse to have it. |
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With the current generation of radar 'guns', a single-
frequency device like that won't cut the mustard. When
the devices were first introduced, some regular, un-
altered garage door openers could spoof them, but that
changed pretty quickly. |
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[Hive_Mind], I've a feeling that radar guided automobiles will turn out like the flying cars of the '50's. Theoretically possible but logistically and economically unfeasible. |
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Dang. I thought this was about radar detecting pajamas. |
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[Grogster], we've got them for you (link). |
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Last night I blew up a Patriot OE-349 in my radar-
detecting pajamas.
What it was doing in my pyjamas, I'll
never know. |
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Thanks for that, [NZ]! [+] |
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Radar-evading pajamas, now I could go for that. |
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I've been saving it for my next motorcycle (I asked Santa
for a Triumph), but Alterorder Inc. recently sent me a
sample of the new Stealth-Inna-Can radar-absorbent
spraypaint cooked up by the mad geniuses at the Heathen
Institute (no
doubt the cause for the latest rebuild estimate to have
floated across my desk). If anyone is willing to donate
their pajamas, we'd love to test it on an array of natural
and synthetic textiles. Test pilots also needed. Inquire at
the rear, please. |
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