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Re: Flashing headlights & RADAR Detectors

To: triumphs@Autox.Team.Net
Subject: Re: Flashing headlights & RADAR Detectors
From: Tom Tweed <ak627@dayton.wright.edu>
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 19:07:40 -0400
Last week, JOE IV made too much sense when he wrote :

[snipped]

 >
 >  As far as I know,only "permanantly installed and operational" (your
 >interpretation may vary) RADAR detectors are illegal in CT.  If you
 >have one either concealed or "temporarily placed on the dashbaord"
 >you might not be ticketed.  Connecticut has no detector detectors
 >-again as far as I know- like Virginia has, so if a police man dosen't
 >see your "operational("But officer, it was just sitting here, unplugged,
 >on my way from New York to Massachusetts") RADAR detection device",
 >you won't get caught.
 >  Be warned however, that the first thirty miles going north from New
 >York
 >on I-95 are efectively "RADAR jammed", by the D.O.T.'s  highway
 >traffic flow maintainance RADAR monitoring system. In this area,the
 >State Police use LASER tracking to ascertain the speed of passing mot-
 >orists.  Good luck, it's a jungle out there, and just don't speed..;^)
                                                   ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^
 >                               JOE IV
 >                               TR 250
 >                          WALLINGFORD, CT. USA
 >


..and I must second that, although we all know it's not the speed that
kills.  However, anyone must admit that in a crash, speed is most def-
initely a factor, and high speed is an aggravating factor, to put it
in legalese.  Think about it...you see that you are about to be hit by
a baseball, you know that you just don't have time to out-maneuver it;
would you prefer what launched that ball at you to be an under-hand lob,
or a Nolan Ryan fastball ???  The mass is the same, but the speed makes
all the difference, and that alone, ISTM, is the logic behind the speed
laws.  Now that any half-wit can buy a RADAR detector and make believe
that he can drive just like the Dukes of Hazzard on your crowded free-
way, I see a conflict...the half-wit thinks he has just bought a lic-
ense to fly, and the police get an attitude about all drivers with
RADAR detectors, since there are plenty of half-wits out there, driving
like they're Special Cases, immune to traffic laws and common sense.
   Well, guess what, we're ALL special cases, in that argument, or
else, none of us is...and should just read our speedometers and the
road signs (and the traffic, and the weather, etc,etc,) and not push
our luck or our half-second margin for error.
Soap box mode off, thank you,
Tom Tweed
SW Ohio


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