Almost A Save - Almost A Ticket

[Esoterica]

It was a nice day today, the sun was shinning, the birds were chirping and I was rolling down a stretch of highway doing 90 in a 75 while day dreaming about rubber chickens and womens panties. Not at the same time of course, that would be weird, just kind of going back and forth between the 2 subjects in my mind you know.

4 Lane Hwy mostly flat and straight, about 100 feet of dirt and tumble weed dividing east and west bound traffic in the middle of no where. I could see about a mile up the road what looked like a horse trailer, following a small car, following a semi and I had been closing in pretty good on this group for a short time, nothing in the rear for as far back as I could see. All of us traveling in the far right lane, when all of a sudden, out of no where and within only 100 feet in front of me out of the tumble weeds an unmarked Highway Patrol must of whipped a U turn on the highway and pulled right out in front of me in the left inside lane.

No warnings or alerts and certainly looked like he was pulling out to get me. A word that sounds like duck flew out of my mouth as I dropped from 90 to 55 in the blink of an eye, but he had already accelerated rapidly ahead of me so I thought he must be going after one of the cars further up the road. I was clearly traveling a lot faster than them so he would have had more fun with me, but timing by just a few seconds seemed to of saved my ass, not my detector as it never went off.

Any how, as this was all running through my mind and I was thinking now about the skid marks I must of left in my pants, not on the road he had caught up to about 1/10 of a mile behind the horse trailer. Then 2 separate and short Ka band single bar pulses rang out of my 9500i, followed by a full five bar Ka hit. Wasn't sure at first if he was shooting behind him and back at me or if he was hitting the horse trailer with IO. I had brought my speed back up to 80 in the 75 and was pacing perfectly behind him at about 1/2 mile back now watching still to see what he was going to do.

He passed the horse trailer and started coming up behind the car, again about 1/10 of a mile behind the car... 2 short and separate Ka pulses on my detector and then bam, full 5 bar alert again as he was now clearly checking the car.

By this time I'm thinking why is he even bothering to check these vehicles, we were both doing 80 in the 75 and clearly pulling on these other cars so they were obviously enough doing the PSL, made no sense to me why he was even bothering with them.

Well he passed the car now as I was just beginning to pass the horse trailer, and yet again he got up about 1/10th of a mile behind the semi, and again, 2 short and separate Ka pulses, then bam once again, the full bar alert as he hit the semi. I thought this guy must be really desperate to write someone a ticket, good thing I wasn't 5 more seconds up the road when he decided to come my way or he would have nailed me perfectly most likely.

So as I'm now passing the semi in that little group of vehicles and holding firm at 80mph the Highway Patrol car is pulling on me so he must of stepped up to about 90 ahead of me. No more cars ahead of us for as far as you could see, like at least 5-10 miles (guess) of visibility down the road ahead and suddenly, yet again 2 short and separate Ka pulses and bam another full bar alert. Just as I was thinking what in the hell is he shooting at now, no ones up there. I look over into the on coming traffic side and I'll be damed if there wasn't another one coming at me and hitting me with his gun. I could see the whites of his eyes as he looked right at me too. I thought for sure he was going to turn around and write me yet another ticket for doing 5mph over the PSL.

I had the warning and ignored it, thinking it was coming from that cop up the road ahead of me, I wasn't even thinking about the possibility that I could be getting hit by a different one coming back at me. I think all that saved me from this one was the only emergency vehicle turn around for him to use was at least 8 miles back where the cop ahead of me had just used moments ago. Normally, knowing that I would have just punched it to get as far away as possible before he could turn around and come back after me in the hopes that he wouldn't want to work that hard to get me, but I was pinned in like a rat in a cage with the other one already up ahead of me.

Whew, no tickets today, just two close calls that I can't consider to be saves, but instead just lucky timing.

[KaPro]

esoterica,
Do you run your display in expert mode? You know why I'm asking.

[thestaton]

Nice story.

[Rottman]

Nice story.

I couldn't get past the "women's panties"

[erickonphoenix]

Great story!

Unfortunately, you have to shut it down if a LEO is in your frame of field unless you have verified he's left he area and even then you have to have your eyes working.

Cases in point.

LEOs exit then re-enter the highway behind you. Pacing ticket.

LEOs u-turn across the median then after they're out of site the other way they u-turn again and creep up behind you. Pacing ticket.

LEO seems to disappear in the distance only to surface sitting on the right shoulder shooting traffic as they crest a hill. Radar ticket.

Similar scenario as above: I was hauling a$$ up I-45 N once and caught a glimpse of a DPS trooper flying down the feeder in front of me. I coasted down to the PSL as he merged on the interstate and disappeared. Probably 10 miles later there he was in the median pointed right at me. BAM full Ka hit and a $300 ticket 25 over PSL. He had eyeballed me on the interstate but was not able to clock me. So he gunned it ahead of me then laid out for me to speed back up when the coast was clear.

These scenarios are single LEO incursions so you can imagine what can happen if he happens to have another LEO on the radio nearby.

[kensteele]

esoterica,
Do you run your display in expert mode? You know why I'm asking.

lol. or a v1. ops:

[CJR238]

esoterica,
Do you run your display in expert mode? You know why I'm asking.

X2, i always keep Expert mode on. the display is a bit small to see but it has saved me many times when there has been multiple threats. Especially since the 9500I will verbally announce "multiple frequency's detected"

[Esoterica]

Do you run your display in expert mode? You know why I'm asking.

No, I haven't been, I'm considering it now though so I do know why you're asking. I guess there are two reasons I haven't been, the manual suggests you get use to it in standard mode for a while first, and also the display becomes smaller as far as the bars it displays. WIth the ticket writers so thick around here htough I think I should probably start though. I'm not sure expert mode would have saved me here though, because at the moment there was only the single signal in the area, not both of them. Nevada Highway Patrol so far never seem to travel with their radar on all the time, always IO. It was clearly my lack of experience that almost got me caught. Guess I was just getting comfortable enough with this thing to be dangerous, to myself. I should have expected more than one to be lurking around though, they also always seem to like to hunt in packs around here.

I know some of you guys have actually used and even own some of these radar guns, so maybe you can answer this? I have been noticing that when ever Ka IO is used around here I get that 1 or 2 little single bar pulses prior to getting hit full strength. Up untill this incident I assumed it was just picking up the weak remains from a signal of him IOing a car up ahead of me somewhere, explaining in my mind the 1 or 2 single bar alerts I've noticed.

After following this one though and clearly seeing it was a normal behavior each time he IO'd one of the vehicles it had me wondering now if maybe the gun they are all using in Nevada sends out a weak signal for targeting or warming up or something, or possibly there is a reason the pump the trigger prior to full firing?

I have no idea what brand or model guns they use here, I'll pay more attention to that next time I ever get to see one, but I can't think of a single time where I've been hit with either an IO Ka, or a POP alert that I hadn't noticed that single bar warning come up first. At least I know now that when I see that to brace myself for a full hit to soon follow, at first I expected to see a ramp up of the signal so it use to catch me off gaurd.

[kensteele]

also the escort seems to have a bit of urgency in it's tone meaning it ramps up a lot quicker to a brisk solid tone. perhaps there is a more than a bit of warning that would allow a nice but quick ramp-up but escort doesn't show it. they would rather just show full-strength all-bars and get 'er done.

[Esoterica]

I just seen this video CJ linked in another post...

http://www.cooleysllc.com/radar101.html

I think this somewhat explains what I was seeing with the IO in use as the system is first turned on, then triggered, and adds to my confidence in my 9500i doing a good job at picking up this initial short pre warning. Years of racing motocross has my ability to react to an immediate and unexpected situation down to nano seconds so with my well honed cat like reflexes and a further understanding it makes IO not as much of a threat as I first feared.