Below is a paper that I had to write for English 102.

Chuck Yeager, world's first supersonic pilot:
"My legacy, I suppose, is speed. But looking back, I don't think many people save a lot of time by moving faster from one point to the next, because from the time you're born until the time you die, it's pretty cut and dried. You have to take advantage of time, not speed."

Rocco S. Rossetti

April 30,  1998

English 102

When you go somewhere, do you speed so you can get to your destination faster? When people (including yourself) speed, is it legal? What if you have a device that allows you to speed without getting caught, should that device be legal or illegal? These questions I ask might seem stupid, but they both have answers that are clear-cut. The device I will be dealing with is called a "Radar Detector". There are states that outlaw the use of radar detectors because of the danger they create, but it is now getting harder to outlaw radar detectors.

There are two different views people have regarding the use of radar detectors. These two views are so heated that two separate organizations were created to support their beliefs. These two differing views are: should radar detectors be legal or illegal.

Radar is the abbreviation for "RAdio Detection And Ranging". Radar was mainly designed for military use, but it later became adapted for police work. Radar's main purpose is to determine the velocity of a vehicle from a distance. Many people do not like having the police possess the power to determine the speed of their own car, so they counterattack by investing in a device called a radar detector. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations states: Radar detector means any device or mechanism to detect the emission of radio microwaves, laser beams or any other future speed measurement technology employed be enforcement personnel to measure the speed of commercial motor vehicles upon public roads and highways for enforcement purposes.  A radar detector works simply by being able to detect a radar gun's signal that is transmitted in three different frequency bands.

The first organization I will discuss is called R.A.D.A.R. The reason this name was chosen is because it is the abbreviation for "Radio Association Defending Airwave Rights". The group was created by three companies that all have something in common, which is they all manufacture radar detectors. One of the directors of this organization told a New York Times Reporter, "We're not advocating speeding. We're advocating driver awareness". Which is good thing, but this is not the only reason why they believe radar detectors should be legal.

Police radar guns are like humans, they make mistakes. An example of such a mistake is clocking a tree going twenty miles-an-hour down someone's yard. The last time I looked at a tree, I did not notice any wheels attached to the trunk. The reason radar guns produce this type of error is because they work on a principle know as "The Doppler Effect". When radar guns produce these kinds of errors, they are commonly referred to as "ghostly images". This is one of R.A.D.A.R.'s most compelling pieces of evidence why it should be legal to possess. Their statement is: How accurate could a radar gun be to determine the speed of a vehicle, if it can not even calculate the speed of a non-moving object?  Therefore, radar detectors protect people from these radar gun fallacies.

This group also believes that radar detectors make better drivers, because they can detect trouble spots on the road. Their theory is that if a section of road is considered hazardous, then there will be more than the usual amount of police patrolling that area. Radar detectors will detect the presence of the police, and they will then slow down and be more cautious than the other drivers.

Then there is the other group, which holds the opposite views compared to R.A.D.A.R. They think radar detectors should be illegal to possess. This group is know as G.U.A.R.D., which is short for "Group United Against Radar Detectors". They believe that radar units should be illegal to posses because they create accidents.

Radar Detectors allow the driver to maintain a higher speed and not get caught. The reason the driver does this is because he/she is protected from the police. But there is still one thing that he/she isn't protected from, and I will discuss that later in the paper. It has been proven that fifty-six percent of all people who own a radar detector speed when using one. But, when these people speed, they do not just place themselves in jeopardy, they place the people around them in danger. An example of such a road hazard is when a radar detector starts 'beeping' and, as a reflex the drive hits the brake. The people behind this driver then have to adjust to this sudden deceleration in a very short period of time. This practice could cause a serious highway accident because the driver had no advance warning to the sudden breaking.

Chuck Hurley, who is a chairman of G.U.A.R.D. and the vice-president of the National Safety Council, said, "We have enough information right now to understand what radar detectors are for. I mean, if they're not for breaking the law, why are they called fuzz busters?"

If you don't think there should be a ban on radar detectors, then please read the following paragraph.\par \tab The State Road was inspecting an overpass on I-79. Traffic was restricted to one-lane, and during rush hour, traffic stopped. There was a couple who was stopped in traffic, in the passing lane. A driver, who was driving a truck, did not notice the stopped traffic before it was too late. He slammed into the couple's car, and propelled their car into the median. The couple was instantly killed in this accident, and this accident would have never happened if the guy that caused the accident had not been using a radar detector and speeding. There is no doubt that speed was the major contributor in this accident, but do you know why he was speeding? He was speeding because he thought he had "police-immunity" since he was using a radar detector.

On the third page, I said that a radar detector will not protect you from one thing, and that one thing is the protection from causing an accident. Chuck Hurley said, "[It's] a matter of common sense. There is no other source of violent energy in a crash other than speed. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that the higher the speed, the higher the fatalities". But this is what a Radar detector is made to do, which is to go fast. But due to this guy speeding, a set of grandchildren will remember their grandparents every time they drive past the two white crosses at mile marker 119.

The group R.A.D.A.R., knew that detectors were dangerous, and the public gave them a negative image because of incidents like the one described above. The companies that make radar detectors, do not want to lose the two-hundred million dollar industry.  They came together and decided on a way to change the people's minds regarding the use of radar detectors. They created a contraption called "Safety Warning System™" also known as "SWS".

The Safety Warning System works by detecting signals from a transmitter, positioned along the road or in a car, and then displaying a message on a L.E.D. display.  It will display 100 different messages, anything from a blind curb, to Police in pursuit. So now when a motorist gets pulled over and the officer asks, "Is that a radar detector you have there?", a driver could say, "Officer, it is a safety warning device."

There are also Radar detector manufactures that advertise directly to parents with teenagers getting ready to drive. These companies say that any good parent should buy their child a safety warning device, because he will know of dangers on the road before anybody else will or before it will be to late. The key thing to remember though, is that when buying a SWS system, it comes with a built-in radar detector. When a parent gives his child this safety warning device/radar detector, the parent thinks he is doing a good thing by giving such a device to his/her child. But I seriously doubt the teen-ager is thinking the same thing. He is probably thinking that his parents are trying to tell him, "Go as fast as you want son, but just don't get caught."

It is now harder for the federal or state governments to place a ban on radar detectors, because the Safety Warning System and the radar detector is built into one unit. R.A.D.A.R. and the radar manufacturers have succeed in manipulating the purpose so it is harder for state and federal governments to forbid the use of these devices. Who will pass a bill that will prevent a driver to have a safety device in his car? But the U.S. Government does have a law that makes it illegal for any commercial vehicle to have a radar detector. There are only two states and a province that outlaw radar detectors in all vehicles. These states are Connecticut and Virginia, and the province is Washington, D.C.

To sum this research paper up, people who have a radar detector don't have them because they are fun, they have them because they help them break the law. How could someone invest in a item that go against what the State Police are trying to prevent. There are also some radar detector manufacturers, that will pay your speeding ticket if you get napped while using their product. What is this world coming to, a bunch of wild bandits driving down the inter-state? If we place a restriction on these devices, we will become civilized drivers.
 

November 12, 2006