On the road, everybody wants to reach his destination as soon as possible. While some people keep low and appropriate speeds. Others seem to be in a hurry. Some of them also try to find a thrill. All of them drive fast. And when people drive fast, often they drive faster than the speed limit on that road. When they go over the limit, they get a ticket for breaking the law.
Since the dawn of civilization, the law has been there. The ways of escaping the laws have changed over time, so has the law itself and its implementation. To catch over-speeders, a radar gun is used by police which identifies over-speeding vehicles. It has proved quite a menace for thrill seekers.
To avoid a speeding ticket, a device named radar detector is used by drivers. Radar detector gives the drivers an early warning of any radar speed gun coming ahead. It allows the drivers to slow down when approaching the radar gun and avoid a speeding ticket.
How A Radar Detector Works
To understand how radar detectors work, we need to know how radar guns work. The primary radar guns are radio signal transmitters and radio signal receivers fused into a single device. The radar gun emits radio waves which when hit a car, bounce back and are collected by the signal receiver part of the radar gun. When the radio wave bounces off from the vehicle, its frequency changes and the change is recorded by the receiver. Each speed makes a specific difference in the frequency, and if the recorded frequency change is that of a car moving at the allowed speed, the vehicle is identified as over-speeding.
The Radar Detector is a radio signal receiver. It collects frequencies emitted by the radar guns. As the radar gun scatters its radio waves’ web over an area but receives signals only from a specific spot, the radar detectors collect the radio signal before being detected and allow the drivers to slow down and avoid being fined.
How To Use Radar Detector
You may be wondering what it must be illegal to use a radar detector, but fortunately, it is legal almost everywhere (excluding some USA states). While a radar detector is a great tool to save you from an over-speeding fine, if not correctly used, they can also bring you problems.
The best radar detector is a pricey device. It is recommended to use that radar which is compact and can be concealed away at any place in your car. Many people mount the radar detector to their windshield. Many times, some of them find their windshield broken, and the radar detector vanished. It is also against the law in many states to mount anything to the windshield. So, even if you get away from your radar stolen, you may still have to pay fine.
Many people fix the radar detectors somewhere hidden inside their cars. This is a very wrong place for a radar detector. A radio wave can go through glass, plastic or even flesh but it can not pierce through metal. So, a radar detector placed inside a car may not be able to detect the radio waves as they will be blocked away by the car’s metal body.
Modern radar guns (or lidar) use fast bursts of laser beams to detect a vehicle’s speed. Lasers are essentially light. And where radio waves can pass through most substances, a laser light is deflected or blocked by almost everything. To detect this view, a radar detector needs to be placed outside the car. Some sophisticated radar detectors can fit between front bumpers and grills while remaining concealed.
Radar detectors are an excellent tool for driving without the worry of speed ticket, but they can prove useful when we know how to use them. Without this knowledge, even an expensive and high-end radar detector will turn out futile.