I’ve found that laser detection is largely academic in practice. The reason is because the detector is usually pointed right at the vehicle and is very fast at caclulating speed. By the time the detector senses it, the deed is done. However, there have been a couple of occasions where the person in front of or beside me got tagged so it is not entirely useless.

I know what you mean about the false sense, but for me they have been mostly very reliable. I have only been tagged 1x without the radar detector giving me a warning. That time was by an airplane doing the spotting and signaling to a lineup of patrol cars on an on-ramp.

One of my radar detectors is about 16 years old and the other one is 19 years old. I found another in a desk that is almost 30 years old! They have been darned reliable machines so far. I read that the newest ones have the ability to mask out the type(s) of and patterns of newer cars which use radar to help them drive more or less autonomously.

There are some forums which are devoted almost entirely to discussions of radar detectors. One can learn a lot with a little time reading. Accordingly, the Valentine brand is still a run away favorite, and still about the most expensive. Some new detectors incorporate a GPS and also have the ability to share information by way of the www about where known speed traps are located. Some of these can report this autonomously while others require user intervention to upload the data. It’s nice to see these tools are advancing in novel ways.

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Toyota is a leader only because their drivers block everyone behind them. Oh what a feeling.