Originally Posted By: HerrStig
Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
A laser detector by itself is useless. Period. Laser works at the speed of light. By the time even the best radar detector alerts to a laser attack, the officer already has your speed.
There is no passive way to beat laser. You must have a jammer to defeat it.
In states where jammers are legal I recommend the Blinder X-Treme, which provides excellent protection. The Escort ZR-4 Shifter is another, but it's no longer made and didn't work so great....got rid of it.
Radio waves travel at the speed of light.
Now, now...don't let physics cloud the discussion...
The real issue with laser is scatter and beamwidth. The radar wavelength is much longer, so the beam isn't as tight, meaning that much of the beam misses the target and travels beyond, where it bounces off objects, like other cars, or terrain, and can be picked up by a detector that is well behind the intended target of the beam.
With a laser - the beam is tight enough that the scatter is in front of the target, and the beam is smaller than the target. There's no light energy traveling past the target to bounce around and get picked up by a detector. So, typically, a laser is only registered by your detector when the cop has aimed it at YOU.
The lock-on takes milliseconds, by which time, you've already been clocked, and there is nothing to do.
The lock-on with radar is equally quick, but your whole strategy is to pick up the radar energy directed at cars in front of you, so that you have time to slow down.
That said, detectors have lost quite a bit of utility since LIDAR came out. Instant-on radar worked against detectors but had nowhere near the effect of the Laser speed guns.
Your best bet is a sharp look-out; the cop still has to SEE you to aim his gun at you, so, if you see him before he decides to aim at you and clock you, you can slow down. Further, beware the spots where they like to catch folks: where there is good cover for the cruiser and you can't see him until you're on top of him, or coming into a small town on a state highway and there is a sudden drop in speed limit. A precautionary speed reduction in those cases is prudent.
I used to drive from Stowe, VT, to the LGA, NY parking lot. 345 miles each way down 89, then 91, the 95. Horrible drive. And I used to see 3 - 8 speed traps along that route. My Valentine 1 was a big help, but I was saved more often by a precautionary speed reduction where my line of sight was reduced than I was by the V1 (arguably the best, most useful detector on the market) warning me.
