By John Miehle Cape Coral, FL
I thought that Mr. Garver’s column on radar detectors was entertaining (“Jiggers! It’s the cops!” Feb. 3-4, page 4). I am a retired SMPD officer. During my almost 30 years of service, I was interested in and participated in traffic enforcement. Even as a captain, I rode with the motor officers right up to my retirement. I lost two family members to traffic accidents and sustained injuries from an on-duty accident in 1977 that put me out of work for four months, and that I live with to this day.
My take on detectors is, I see a positive effect to people having them. First, in a city environment, they are mostly useless and give the most likely violator a false sense of security. When they alert, it is usually notification that you have just been caught. If you aren’t the one caught, your detector alerts and notifies you that there is a radar unit close. What do you do? Slow down. A lot of signal devices at intersections are run by radar-type electronics that set off detectors. What do you do? Slow down. Also, in Santa Monica, if you don’t have a laser detector, your alert will be the red lights in your rearview mirror.
One positive aspect for officers is that the detectors prevent them from getting bored. I used to look at detectors as a challenge to defeat them. I would guess that the younger officers of today kind of see them as they would an electronic game. A game they will win about 99.9 percent of the time.
On a serious note, traffic violations, and especially speed, kill more people every year than any other event. So, if a radar detector serves as a reminder to slow down, good. Oh yes, I might mention that if your hope is to possibly get off with a warning and you have a detector, forget it.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 7, 2007. Read the original PDF.