The Next Generation Of Police Radar
From its beginnings in the early 1960s the use of police radar for speed control has made many evolutions, determined to keep ahead of radar detectors. From the early days of S-Band radar to the new laser and POP police radar, as technology improves so does radar. Different bands of radar grew into the market with X-Band, the K-Band and the Ka-Band. Now police radar is growing into laser technology.
However, through the years as radar use grew, so did its critics. In 1979, a Miami, Florida, television show conducted an experiment with a police radar gun and discovered a house appearing to move at 28 miles per hour — a palm tree was clocked at 86 miles per hour! This prompted the National Bureau of Standards in 1980 to test the six police radar brands in use at the time; the results showed that many were error prone. It called for a national standard for the guns, but manufacturers promised to police their own industry.
In 1983 and 1984 the International Association of Police Chiefs tested 24 models of police radar guns and found weather conditions affected the accuracy of nearly all of them. Others were found unacceptable due to the wide width of radar band, accuracy, and interference from CB radios or police band radios.
National Radar Standards Issued by NHTSA
In January of 1994, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration issued revised standards for police radar guns since the self-governing of quality obviously wasn’t working. Today, most police radar guns meet or exceed those standards.
Today’s newest crop of police radar guns is growing with the use of laser technology. Their beams are considerably tighter and the instant-on capability of the trigger activated units are much more reliable. Only the state of Pennsylvania doesn’t use laser radar as a result of litigation brought over the training received by the state police.
Speed enforcement is easier using laser police radar as most radar detectors find the beam too late for the driver to react. Hence the phrase ‘if your detector goes off, it’s too late.’ The tight circle beamed by laser usually is out of the detection area of a dash- or window- mounted unit.
With strict new government standards in place for police radar units and the use of quick bursts of radar known as POP, avoiding radar detection is getting harder. Then again, the sophistication of the new breed of radar detectors is also getting harder to get around.
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