Laser jammers

[icecoldak]

ALP have no fear of any Lidar

 

[rtmozingo]

Not sure if you are joking, but he pretty much told us he IS in law enforcement in a previous post...

You missed the (quite clever) joke.

 

[Ruger]

You missed the (quite clever) joke.

Doubtful.
It wasn't nearly clever enough to miss.

---------- Post added at 07:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:28 PM ----------

I too was aware that GEICO donated radar and laser devices to law enforcement agencies. The idea here is that such donations will more than pay for themselves when they raise the insurance rates of their clients who receive speeding tickets.

Of course they couch this in terms of supporting law enforcement agencies and safe driving practices, but the obvious truth is that what they really aim to support is their bottom line.

I quit dealing with GEIGO years ago because their business model is so heinous.

 

[bo1966]

Not sure if you are joking, but he pretty much told us he IS in law enforcement in a previous post...

he's trying to be funny saying traffic laws are not a good way for police to spend time. Fortunately he doesn't get to choose how it's spent

 

[rtmozingo]

he's trying to be funny saying traffic laws are not a good way for police to spend time.

Clarkson wrote a really good article on the stupidity of speed limits that I'm having trouble finding. Basically, most accidents occur when we are going under 30-40, because we're not paying attention. The faster you go, the more you pay attention, and while the consequences are more severe, data shows that because people are more focused on driving, the accident rate plummets. This video will have to due in lieu of his article.

Back in my high school college days (so not really that long ago) I would always do 5 under, obey every law to the letter. But one day I was driving home through a speed trap town, and missed the drop from 70-40 for about two seconds - enough time for the cop to pull out and write me a ticket. No mercy, no understanding for the fact I simply didn't see the sign, just a ticket.

I learned a very valuable lesson then. It doesn't matter whether or not you obey the rules, it just matters if someone enforcing those rules is watching you. You can be a star citizen (like I was) and the one time you make an accident you'll get no mercy.

So now, while I generally try to hold to the speed limit, I don't care anymore if I'm over it on occasion, especially if no one else is around. I wouldn't have any interest in a jammer because I rarely speed (and if I am, usually only for passing or on accident) but because most cops seem to spend their time writing speeding tickets for revenue, it would surely be nice to have one just to screw them over.

My grandfather was mayor of the small town I grew up in, and it was notorious for being a speed trap town. "Have to in order to fund the budget", they said, yet he pulled all the officers off the freeway and was still able to pay for everything with money left over.

Fortunately he doesn't get to choose how it's spent

If he doesn't have some small input into it, then something's wrong, since he's a citizen and LEOs are *supposed* to be public servants.

 

[bo1966]

Absolutely a public servant. Speed limits, weather I agree with them or not are the law. Laws are put in place by people ELECTED by you to do so. If the job goes undone, you'd be the 1st blaming police for not enforcing the speed limits if it's your family that got hurt or worse. Believe it or not. Speeding and most traffic citations are dictated by the drivers attitude when approached. No one is out to get you. You didn't get stopped because you were following the law. You got stopped because you broke the law. Even if it's a law you feel is wrong, unfair or hurtful to your feelings. It's a pretty simple concept

 

[rtmozingo]

Absolutely a public servant. Speed limits, weather I agree with them or not are the law. Laws are put in place by people ELECTED by you to do so. If the job goes undone, you'd be the 1st blaming police for not enforcing the speed limits if it's your family that got hurt or worse. Believe it or not. Speeding and most traffic citations are dictated by the drivers attitude when approached. No one is out to get you. You didn't get stopped because you were following the law. You got stopped because you broke the law. Even if it's a law you feel is wrong, unfair or hurtful to your feelings. It's a pretty simple concept

And it is because people like you can only see black and white that everyone here looks at options like jammers to keep themselves in the white. If you can't be bothered to show consideration to the circumstances, why should we, especially when your intent is to take advantage of dis-favorable situations?

 

[smurfslayer]

To be fair, while @Ruger makes a profound and salient point about law enforcement vs. speed enforcement, ‘Bo hasn’t really qualified to what level he performs this kind of work. As a country, we tolerate way too much traffic enforcement as the default. Law enforcement in other countries isn’t structured the same way. Some European countries are creeping that way, but they’ve never had the “sit on the side of the road all day and write speeding citations” mentality. But ask yourself this question

do you really want the people who excel at speed enforcement doing other kinds of law enforcement work? Really?

Back when Mohamed and Malvo were being a menace around Massaponax, VA, just after they cleared the scene and I rolled through and what do I see?

Right by the exit is a VA state trooper running stationary radar. Not looking for the shooters, not assisting in the investigation, not doing anything for the 20+ mile backup, he’s seriously running radar - traffic is moving at 35 mph UNDER the speed limit.

This is the archetypical example of someone granted authority and abusing it to make the world safer for criminals and terrorists.

On the other side of the coin, there’s a city nearby who used to station patrol officers in intersections to direct traffic in rush hour. Those guys seriously saved me 10-15 minutes each day by keeping selfish knuckleheads from getting their way out of turn.

 

[bo1966]

Y'all are right. All we do is traffic enforcement to ruin your day. It's what we enjoy. Pulling completely innocent drivers over simply to give you made up tickets for something you actually didn't do. Think about it. That is the least favorite but necessary thing in any officers day. And no officer see traffic in black and white. Just like any other duty it's taken case by case as the law allows.

 

[Ruger]

In my jurisdiction there is a great distinction between how the PD and the SO do traffic enforcement. The PD writes tickets. They are in the law enforcement business. But the most frequent call you hear on the SO's frequency is, "10-8, verbal." Meaning that they've given a verbal warning in lieu of writing a citation.

There are obvious differences between how the two agencies pursue traffic enforcement, and there are just as obvious differences between how individual LEOs do it. We have one deputy who writes a lot of citations. He's very friendly, very professional, and very productive. And we have several sergeants who almost never write a traffic citation.

@smurfslayer's opinions, in my observation of him here, are never poorly considered or frivolous. But what he saw reflects on a single officer - one member of an agency that employs scores if not hundreds of LEOs.