Cities Use Radar To Line Their Pockets With YOUR Money

Increasingly, cities in the US and Canada are using photo radar and red light cameras to catch speeders.  While you might think this is a good thing, cities often put the cameras in tricky locations where the speed limit suddenly drops unexpectedly.

You may get a ticket and pay a big fine when you had no intention of speeding and didn’t know you were over the limit at the time.

For example, there is a heavily traveled location in my area where the speed limit suddenly drops from 65 miles per hour to 35 mph.  The city has cameras stationed there and nabs speeders one after another all day long.

This is no isolated occurrence.  Municipalities all over North America have discovered this kind of “speed trap” is a HUGE money-maker.  Normally a camera company is hired to set up a detection location, analyze the photos, and sends out threatening citations for the city.  The city pulls in big revenue with very little expense.

What can you do about it?  Plenty.  New photo radar detection units are staying well ahead of the situation.  One just-released speed camera and red light camera alert system uses GPS to locate cameras far ahead of you.  The tiny unit features a LED display and a voice warning telling you a camera is coming up.  It also tells you what speed you’re SUPPOSED to be driving, and what speed you ARE driving.

With traffic tickets and time lost fighting them often amounting to hundreds of dollars, the affordable detection unit quickly pays for itself.

But isn’t this helping people to get away with driving dangerously high speeds?  Research shows these types of advanced detectors do two things:

1.  These units encourage people to drive the speed limit.  Often people speed because they don’t know what the speed limit is or aren’t consciously aware of how fast they are driving.  The unit corrects that.

2.  Radar and camera detection units allow people to drive faster when conditions safely allow.

This last point is one most consumers aren’t aware of.  Experts have long agreed you can safely drive somewhat faster than the speed limit without creating a danger to yourself and others.

Some states and communities take this into consideration, only handing out tickets when your speed is well over the posted limit.  But many other municipalities use a low speed limit as a license to make mounds of money, liberally handing out tickets to as many as possible.

What can you do if you wind up in court after being nabbed by a speed camera?  Since these cameras aren’t being monitored by a police officer, you can point out the various ways the system could be dishing up faulty information.  If you can shed doubt on the validity of the camera’s report, your ticket could be dismissed.  See my site for a full tutorial on how this works.

Safe driving is important, but it’s also important for you to avoid getting tickets.  If this makes sense for your driving, check out the wide range of photo radar detectors available.

(Radar Roy is a retired deputy sheriff lieutenant and veteran cop and is one of America’s leading experts on photo radar detection.  See his wide selection of Radar Roy tested detectors and reports at http://www.radarbusters.com  Reach Roy from his site.)