RADAR DETECTOR USE AND SPEEDS IN MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA

Radar detector use and vehicle speeds were determined at four rural interstate sites in Maryland and Virginia. Radar detectors are legal in Maryland but banned in Virginia. Receivers designed to pick up the microwave signals that emanate from radar detectors were used to indicate the presence of radar detectors in use; speeds of free-flowing vehicles were measured using nondetectable radar. In both Maryland and Virginia, tractor-semitrailer trucks were most likely to have radar detectors in use (28% in Maryland, 32% in Virginia). Four percent of passenger vehicles in Maryland and five percent in Virginia had radar detectors in use. The estimates of radar detectors in use in this survey are conservative because under certain traffic conditions it was not possible to determine whether only one or more than one vehicle had a radar detector in use. For all categories of vehicles, those with radar detectors in use were much more likely than those without to be traveling at excessive speeds; the higher the speed the more likely it was that vehicles had radar detectors in use.

• Corporate Authors:

  Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

  1005 North Glebe Road
  Arlington, VA  United States  22201
• Authors:
  • Freedman, M
  • Williams, A F
  • Teed, N
  • LUND, A K
• Publication Date: 1990-5

Media Info

• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: 11 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automobile drivers; Data collection; Measures of effectiveness; Motor vehicles; Radar detectors; Radar vehicle detectors; Speed; Speeding; Surveys; Traffic speed; Truck drivers; Utilization
• Uncontrolled Terms: Effectiveness
• Geographic Terms: Maryland; Virginia
• Subject Areas: Highways; Research; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00496740
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 31 1990 12:00AM