Delegate Joe May (R - Loudoun & Clarke Counties)
If one veteran Virginia legislature gets his way, the last state to ban use of radar detectors will repeal its ban too. Delegate Joe May (R - Loudoun & Clarke Counties), Chair of the powerful Joint Committee on Technology and Science in the Virginia House of Delegates has introduced HB 674 to repeal Virginia's radar detector ban.
According to the National Motorists Association (NMA),
"[d]espite the lack of any positive benefits, Virginia is the only state that bans the use of these common devices. In the past three decades, there were over 100 attempts in 33 states to enact similar bans, but only in Virginia and Connecticut did these misguided efforts succeed. Connecticut repealed its ban in 1992, and it is time for Virginia to do the same."
Delegate May believes that radar detectors tend to cause drivers to slow down. In a previous Winchester Star interview May rhetorically asked, "Is your objective to keep people in the speed limit, or is your objective to issue citations?" The NMA has an online petition to support May's bill here.
Do radar detectors promote public safety?
Radar detector proponents contend that radar detectors often reduce travel speeds, aid enforcement, and promote safer driving. In fact the1987 "Yankelovich Clancy Shulman Study" appears to support these claims when it found that the accident rate for radar detector owners was actually 23 percent lower than it was for other motorists.
And American City & County Magazine, “the voice of state and local government since 1909,” reports that
"Since 1991 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has allowed use of unattended radar transmitters to trigger radar detectors and thereby warn drivers of hazards ranging from highway construction zones to road maintenance. . . . At least two studies have shown that drone transmitters capable of setting off the current generation of radar detectors are effective at slowing traffic in construction zones . . . We believe this technology has much untapped potential. Enhanced transmitters, when they are coupled with `smart' radar detectors, will let the driver differentiate between various types of road hazards."
Comments
Ed Levine could always consider NOT SPEEDING as a way of avoiding any police intervention during his commute...
Actually, Ed could avoid police intervention by not being stopped for what is a perfectly normal activity (use of a radar detector) in the other 49 states in the nation. That alone would eliminate the interaction altogether.
Actually, Ed could avoid police intervention by not being stopped for what is a perfectly normal activity (use of a radar detector) in the other 49 states in the nation. That alone would eliminate the interaction altogether.
Virginia could also consider raising speed limits to 85th percentile speeeds so radar detectors would not be needed. A 65mph speed limit on a rural freeway is illegally underposted.
Virginia is a poor state, therefore they enforce absurd speed limits and laws. VA needs to raise their posted speed limits to 75mph, not 55. Va sucks.
The reason radar detectors are legal everywhere else, is that they dont use it anymore, they use lasers and probly MMW radar. But by removing a citizens right to know if they are being scrutinized by the gestapo, they want arbitrary results and you cant fight them without potecting yourself with a detector, at least if it IS safety they are after, they would be happy people when they get hit by radar to remind them to slow down. It seems like they want revenue without impedence instead of safety.
Actually, radar is still widely used in most of the southeast. I've been using a detector for almost 5 years and I get almost 30 times as many legitimate threats from radar than laser. The reason being is that radar is usable in all weather conditions, in a moving cruiser, and from behind the windshield. Laser is not. Radar is here ot stay.
Radar Detectors are nothing but very simple radio receivers. The FCC rules (Part 15) clearly state that jurisdiction
of the Airwaves is the sole purview of the Federal Government. There are many reasons for this, interstate commerce issues being but one. Hence, a state has no jurisdiction over the regulating the airwaves and can not enact or enforce law such law.
Wonder if VA will give back all that illegal money they took?
I swear to god I was traveling at 75 in a 65 mph zone and the fool clocked me at 77 mph, WTC.
In other news, VA being the only state that bans radar detectors, that's news to me...
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