🚀 go-pugleaf

stirling@mullet.gu.uwa.edu.au (Stirling Hamersley) writes:

>The local police have taken to using speed guns that use
>a laser to determine car speed to catch those with 
>the ye olde radar detectors.  Must have been easier than
>outlawing radar detectors as they have done in NSW.

>Someone told me there are already laser detectors
>around.  Is this true and how do they work?  I imagine
>the would not be very effective as the laser beam used
>to detect the speed is very directional and should only need
>to be on for a fraction of a second, once the car has 
>been sighted.  Radar detectors depend on detecting when a
>car ahead of your car is being gunned.  I can't see you detecting
>the laser until it is too late.

>"Speed limits are for Volvo drivers" - Hamersley.

Ever seen a laser beam?  they beam hits particles in the air and
scatters, heck, get a few watts behind it and you can stand hundreds
of feet away, perpendicular to the beam, an it looks solid in the air.
Anyway... the detectors are supposed to work by detecting the scatter
of the beam when the speed trap zapps someone else, so you get
warning.  

So far, Cincinatti Microwave has a model out, and Bel has one about to
hit stores, CM claims 2500feet detection range, Bel claims 5000 feet,
the range on the speedguns is only about a thousand feet.

The detectors are based on the technology that was used to detect
laser guided weapons in Desert Storm.

cheers.
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