sure do. As I said earlier from everything I have read it is a slim chance you will be alerted to a laser in your vicinity that is not aimed at you. And if it is aimed at you it is pretty much too late to slow down. Since they are a on/off pulse there is no lingering waves like Ka.

This is all coming from a point of view from the Houston/Austin area. Here they rarely use laser and if they do there is not much of a chance for you. Also I drive past airports very often and the lasers the towers give off make my detector go more crazy than the display. I just disabled that feature on my 8500 and never looked back

 

You are a much braver man than I am...

In the NY tri-state area you have a mix of old-school X-band, Ka and LIDAR... there's no way I'm disabling any of them, I'd rather live with the false alarms...

And as far as the laser tag goes... well I agree that the beam is so narrow that chances are you won't catch any scatter from the guy in front, but nevertheless I'd rather leave it on and take my chances than disable it altogether.

But there are some people like me that are a little bit more pro-active with our approach... I installed a Blinder M-20 a couple of months after I got the car and never looked back. Johnny Law and his laser gun can wave at me all day long... I just wave right back...

 

I agree that in general cruising, a laser save is not going to happen. The other day the stars lined up for a laser save for me; I was turning onto a 45 mph highway and punched it to get in front of the merging traffic when bam, hit with laser right as I was reaching the posted limit, foot off the throttle, I coasted right by the leo who was giving me a reproachful look. Without the laser detection, I would have been bagged for at least 5 - 10 over the psl!

Not turning mine off anytime soon!


Oh and the ferrite choke is not working to reduce the laser falses at startup for me. I may try smaller choke than the one I had laying around, we'll see.

 

Nice. I looked into those but around here I do not think I'd get too much use out of it.

Good save, well I guess there is a perfect example of where I am wrong. Not speeding yet but having the intent to until you see the laser. Point taken.

 

I have a 8500 and mine has gone off a few times when i triggered my wipers. In my Audi the 8500 would go off everytime I used my horn (which was often) and it got annoying fast!

 

My 8500 used to do that every time in my CLK, and it was dirty power from the hardwiring. I switched the cords and everything was fine. I put it in my Maxima and my G and it never complained.

 

Thanks Viguera. Great points.

I forgot to mention that I have an anti-laser cover for my front license plate. I read that the police are trained to aim for the most reflective area on the vehicle. This will give me at least a good 2 - 4 sec before the fuzz has a good lock on me. I agree that even with the false alarms, it is still worth it. So far, my unit has saved me from 3 tickets in the past 4 months from the regular Ka and K bands. No real laser detection yet. Will keep you posted.

 

Thanks Viguera. Great points.

I forgot to mention that I have an anti-laser cover for my front license plate. I read that the police are trained to aim for the most reflective area on the vehicle. This will give me at least a good 2 - 4 sec before the fuzz has a good lock on me. I agree that even with the false alarms, it is still worth it. So far, my unit has saved me from 3 tickets in the past 4 months from the regular Ka and K bands. No real laser detection yet. Will keep you posted.

 

The cops will go for the license plate or the headlights... with the plates it's the worst because it's a nice flat metallic part that they can focus on and reflects laser really nicely.

I took mine off and I have one of the laser emitters right behind where the plate would be. At night when the cops aim their laser between your headlights, that's where they end up...

Just got saved Wednesday night on the GSP driving down to the in-laws too... Exit 107... driving down "a little fast", get the laser alert from the Blinder and the Escort, slow down and turn the Blinder off and a couple of seconds later I pass by 3 state troopers ready to pounce.

Better luck next time, officer.