How I Got Rid of My Radar Detector and Stopped Getting Tickets . . . Mostly

Valentine One

Article thanks to Jack Baruth and roadandtrack.com. Links provided:

Dec, 2015  In a darkened parking lot, long past sundown, somewhere in downtown Columbus around December of 1989, I handed fifty dollars to a fellow I knew only as "G" and waited. "G" counted through my two twenties and single ten impassively. He was an unsavory and possibly dangerous fellow, well above six feet tall, broad-shouldered and ill-tempered, but he was my only source for this stuff. Having satisfied himself as to the money, "G" stared me down for what felt like twenty minutes before producing a flat-ish, rounded-off metal box slightly smaller than my outstretched hand.

"You don't know who I am," he reminded me. Then he disappeared into the night, leaving me with the cold metal box. The back of it was marked "CINCINNATI MICROWAVE." The front had a knob, an amber warning light, and an analog gauge. It was the real deal: an Escort radar detector. True, it was obsolete by 1989—the Passport mini-detector had been out for years—but it still worked just fine. And its age, along with what I suspected was a light-hearted, or at least a light-fingered, approach to personal property on the part of "G," made it possible for me to buy it on the $3.25/hour I earned bagging groceries.

The Escort sat on the dash of my Mercury Marquis, affixed by Velcro, so I (and all my friends) could see it but I could also remove it for overnight parking. It seemed to work pretty well, faithfully providing me with warnings regarding the location of every sliding door, garage opener, and off-brand radar detector in town. Periodically, it would also inform me of police radar. It mostly did this by immediately jumping to the red side of the gauge and buzzing like hell whenever a cop hit me with his "instant-on" speed gun. In theory, it was supposed to tell me when the motorists ahead got hit, but in reality it mostly served as confirmation that I'd been hit and that I needed to decide whether to pull or over or run for it.

Shortly afterwards, I sold my Escort and got one with a newer circuit board that was supposed to be better. A few years later, I got a used Passport, then a new Passport. I don't think that any of my Escorts or Passports ever stopped me from getting a ticket, except in a very roundabout way. Sometimes they would beep for no reason, which would make me cautious, and then I'd see a cop five miles later on a different road, but I'd still be feeling cautious so I'd still be around the legal limit when the Passport BEEPed to tell me I'd been shot.

Still, ownership of a Cincinnati Microwave detector was kind of mandatory for car guys in the Nineties, the same way it was mandatory to have blackwall tires or those little stick-on g-meters that used a ball bearing in fluid to tell you just how hard you were rocking around your local on-ramp. When Mike Valentine left Cincinnati Microwave and formed his own company, our loyalty followed the man, not the Escort brand. So around the time I started buying BMWs and Porsches, at the turn of the millennium, I acquired a proper Valentine One. With the arrows and everything.

Finally I had some genuine warning of radar ahead. Except the cops had all switched to laser by then. At least in Ohio. Whenever I discuss speed enforcement in Ohio, I like to compare it to the novel The Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert. It's a science-fiction tale of how an entire planet was designed to be the most miserable, dangerous high-stress place possible, for the purposes of breeding brilliant, manipulative military officers and politicians. Ohio is kind of like that. Speed enforcement is everywhere and it is obsessive and it is utterly unforgiving. The only way a committed speeder can keep his license is to load up with all the tech, develop a sort of animal cunning or sixth sense about potential police presence, and be ready to disappear down an off-ramp or side road before the lights behind you come on.

If you can speed in Ohio, you can speed anywhere. To keep the odds ever in my favor, I loaded up my Porsches and Phaetons with laser jammers front and rear, special wired-in power supplies for multiple Valentine One detectors, and I shared known speedtrap locations with friends as often as possible in exchange for similar intelligence about other places.

The laser jammers, I have to admit, saved my bacon a few times. But then the cops got better laser guns and the expensive, fragile jammers just served to let me know my goose had just been cooked. Basically, I'd spent thousands of dollars over the course of fifteen years to have the same level of "protection" I'd gotten from my fifty-dollar used Escort in 1989. Meanwhile, I'd gotten maybe a dozen tickets over the course of ten years, always accompanied by a dilatory BEEP or BOOP from some equipment buried somewhere in my car. Something had to change.

I started to think differently about avoiding speeding tickets. Instead of relying on technology, or what the CIA calls SIGINT or ELINT, I would rely on my own intuition or knowledge, also known as HUMINT. I threw away all my detectors and jammers, because I didn't want to rely on the machines. Then, I decided to develop my human capabilities.

I cast my vision as far forward it would go and started watching for brake lights. Most people don't hit the brakes until they're about fifty feet from the cop in question, so I made sure I was looking at the most distant guinea pigs ahead. I familiarized myself with the kinds of places cops like to sit, looking at the on-ramps as I went by and never zipping through a blind hill or corner in the left lane. I positioned my car so it wouldn't be easily visible for radar or laser, making sure there were trucks next to or behind me whenever I thought I was at risk of being zapped.

Finally, I decided to just slow down most of the time. No, I don't drive the speed limit, but I no longer drive 20-30mph above it at all times. I drive just slightly faster than the flow of traffic so I can disappear back into that flow when I have to. It helps that speed limits have risen significantly since I started driving in Ohio; the 80mph that would have sent me to jail in 1989 is now insufficient to attract the attention of the Highway Patrol until around the end of the month.

As a consequence of these actions, I haven't been convicted of speeding since 2006. Note that I say "convicted of," not "charged with," because I've added the final, and most important, weapon to my arsenal. When I get pulled over nowadays, I call a local attorney the next day and get it handled. Ninety-nine percent of the municipalities and police agencies out there don't care about the ticket; they care about the money. So I call an attorney and have him offer to pay the same amount without the points on my license. Like Billy Dee Williams says, it works every time.

With that said, there's speeding and then there's SPEEDING. So when I was busted somewhere west of Laramie last year, doing wayyyy into the triple digits, I did the smart thing. I called around until I found a local law firm. The attorney told me she could phone in my plea and get me dropped to a lesser offense. I told her I would pay her whatever it took for her to visit the country courthouse in person.

"Nine hundred bucks for a half day, minimum," she said.

"You got it," was my response. I paid her up front. When she got there, out in that two-horse town, the judge was so struck by her beauty that he moved my case to the front of the line. Then he asked her some questions—about herself, not about me. Then he dismissed all charges, except for thirty-one dollars in court costs. Then he asked if he could call her in the future if he needed an attorney.

Which reminds me of a lesson from another Frank Herbert book, in this case Dune: Never use a machine to do a man's job. Or in this case, a woman's.

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My First Florida Car

The car, after a several years, starting to show some rust.

1973 Buick Century

While living in Wisconsin back in the 1980's, I was able to purchase two Florida cars thanks to my dad. He retired from Chrysler in Milwaukee after working there for 30 years. He was only 52 years old in 1979, sold their house and moved the family to Sarasota, Florida. My three youngest siblings moved with my parents as they were still in school. I was already 27 years old and on my own, remaining in Milwaukee.

One day, it was about 1980, I got a call from my dad. He said he had a neighbor across the street that was getting too old to drive and wanted to sell his car. It was a 1973 Buick Century with V-8 and automatic that only had about 12,000 miles on it. Yellow with a black top, he said it still looked brand new and was willing to sell it for $2,000.00. I said "hell yes" and started calling for a plane ticket and to arrange for a few days off. I flew down a couple days later and we went across the street and made the deal. The guy had a car port with no garage and I asked if I could keep it parked there until I left and he said "sure". It rained overnight and the next morning we were outside and he came out with a towel to give me. I asked what it was for and he said that he always wiped the car down after a rain to keep it looking good. I was young, kind of stupid yet, and was about to say that was not going to happen when I got the car back to Wisconsin. My dad must have sensed this as he took the towel, handed it to me and I got the hint that I'd better do it, LOL.

That was a good car that I had for over 10 years and put well over 100,000 miles on it. With a 350 cu. in. V-8 and a two barrel carburator, it had decent power but a four barrel would have really made it go. I thought about replacing the carb but just never got around to it. With only 12,000 miles on it I'm sure the car had the original bias ply tires on that were by that time seven years old. It handled kind of crappy at speed on the highways when I drove it back to Wisconsin so I put a set of (one size over) Michelin tires on with four heavy duty Monroe shocks. After putting a smaller aftermarket Momo steering wheel on, it drove like a freak'in sports car. I was pretty happy with it.

As I happily found out, after buying a second Florida car thanks to my dad, older retirement areas are prime spots to find deals on used vehicles, including motor-homes. It only makes sense, as a lot of them age out or die off and their vehicles need to be sold. Older people of means tend to maintain and not abuse their stuff. It certainly helps to have family or friends in the area to watch for deals.