brick
02-14-2007, 08:38 PM
Back in "the day" I drove around with a high-end radar detector because I was under the impression that it was a good idea. To tell you the truth I didn't drive **that** fast but I liked to have a heads up. Sometimes. Unless the cop was using laser or instant-on. Or pacing. Or any number of other techniques that completely defeat my little toy. But within a day of finding CleanMPG I quit speeding and put the thing back in its box. So this week I ebay'd it and got back 100% of the purchase price. No way did I expect that.
I wonder if there's a good way to put that money toward better FE? :D
lightfoot
02-15-2007, 07:50 AM
Radar detector - hoo boy that brings back some memories!
Rewind many years to a Bike Week trip to Daytona with a bunch of motorcycle roadracers in a rented motorhome towing a trailer full of racebikes. I didn't race; I was a photog hitching a ride. One of them had brought along a radar gun to check top end on the banking (typically >170mph) and someone else (not me!) thought it would be great fun to try it out while we were in the motorhome tooling along I-95. We zapped a group of three performance cars whipping along in the fast lane, and they immediately jammed on their brakes and ducked into the middle lane, heads swiveling, as they searched for the speed trap. After a while they got their courage up and accelerated back into the fast lane, and we zapped them again. This went on for about 10 miles until we took pity on them and let them go. One of them, in a 5-liter Mustang as I recall, looked madder than a wet hen as he blasted past.
Our game backfired on us because the semis in our area all slowed down whenever we hit the trigger, and that gummed up traffic and slowed us down. So we quit doing it.
Then on the way home I was at the wheel and had the motorhome's radar detector on. We were in southern CT where the limit is 55 but traffic flowed at 65-70 (then, more like 75-80 now!) so I wanted to keep track of things. Well suddenly all the lights on the detector lit up, max signal, and I'm figuring the trap must be really close. Couldn't see anything, and then it happened again! Muffled laughter from the back of the motorhome: they had set the gun up again and zapped our own detector. My friends.
Time for me to throw out my old detector and CB radio - seems like nobody uses these things anymore, too busy jabbering on their cells.
