How does police radar work?

[Wayne Maybury]

Originally Posted by SPF2245

Both my in car (MPH) and hand held radar (Genesis) allow me to target the largest target (or strongest target) and/or largest and fastest target. Both are directional so I can choose to ignore vehicles traveling in either direction (ie opposite direction traffic). My mobile will also allow for same direction (in front or behind me) moving targets while I'm at speed. Regardless of the operation, I am required to make a visual estimation prior to locking in the speed on radar in order to eliminate your arguement (does it always happen first...um no). Now, are there guys who work off the reading purely...yep, and it's wrong. State your case, ask the officer if he had made his visual estimate, quality of tone emitted by the unit at the time of lock (this can cause "reasonable doubt"), and distance he made his observation and even bring in his estimate of the truck (supporting your case his unit was tracking that vehicles speed). Good luck.

As for the arguement about signs or surfaces reflecting the signal, this does happen, but the audible signal tells the opperator it's occuring by providing a poor quality sound during operation verses a solid sound with a good lock. Now, if it's LIDAR...your screwed, there is no escape and it's what I love using most because of it's accuracy (you target a specific vehicle with an Aim Point style retical), and it provides speed and distance at lock. Pretty cool and it eliminates these problems.

Thanks, this is the information that I was looking for. The officer's car was very well hidden behind some construction equipment or material so while the traffic could not see police car, the officer could not really see the traffic except in his small outside left door mounted mirror. He was inside the car and was using a radar unit which was mounted on the outside of the left rear window. I think that the radar signal went off and he looked in his mirror and saw me when in fact it was the pickup that was actually setting off the radar. When he stopped me, I told him that it was the pickup that he should have stopped, not me. At that time he stated that "the radar told him that it was me speeding". This seemed to me to be a very strange comment by the officer. I want to repeat this comment in court but I do not want to look like an idiot either.

Mike, I have pleaded not guilty to doing 114 in a 70 zone, not that I wasn't speeding at all. I am quite willing to admit that I was doing 95 in the 70 zone (whether or not others were doing the same speed is irrelavent) and take my punishment. However, I feel that the officer missed the actual culprit as he probably didn't see him in his mirror. I cannot see any other explanation.

I will let you know how this eventually turns out once I get my court date.

Wayne