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Radar Scare


ajzepp

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I usually see them with the "gun" resting on their open driver side door. They do have to aim it at a flat surface, usally the license plate, to make it work.

 

BTW, to fully understand what officers go throw day in and day out, you all should do a ride along with them. I think you'd appreciate how much they put their life on the line to protect you from the crazies running around the streets. I have two family members that are police officers and I worry every day that they come home safe every night. It's a crazy world out there.

 

Here in the area we had a cop killed while doing a routine stop at 8:30 AM on a very busy interstate in the suburbs.

 

On the day after Labor Day, a CHiP officer had pulled off on the shoulder to check out a dead deer. Another officer was pulling over someone to issue a ticket for an obstructed license plate and they stopped just behind the first cop. The first cop walked over to the driver's door and the driver shot him in the head through the glass. That cop was on life support and was declared dead the next day after they found matches for transplants. The other cop saw his buddy get gunned don, rgit out and shot the shooter right there. The shooter was dead before he reached the hospital. Good.

 

The shooter was a computer programmer in Silicon Valley and there was no reason in his background for the shooting. The shooter only had a DWi ten years ago on his record. Like Noork said, they don't know if they'll come home on any given day.

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Driving to work today, I was infuriated with what this one cop was doing on the side of the highway. I'm a very vigilant driver and I have never been the cause of an accident in my life. So I'm driving in the 3rd lane from the right on a 6 lane expressway (85 South for those in Atlanta) just minding my own business, listening to Colin Cowherd on the radio, and getting my day off to a good start. I happen to look over to the right, and the first thing I THINK I'm seeign is someone with a gun and in a shooter's stance getting ready to fire off a shot. In actuality it was some idiot cop with a radar gun. Is there some reason why these people need to be so damn dramatic with the radar checks???? Honestly, I damn near reacted so reflexively that I almost swerved a bit into an adjacent lane. it startled the hell out of me and I was NOT happy to see that it was just a donut eater with a radar gun.

 

And for the record, I'm respectful and appreciative of the work that the police do 98% of the time. Well, maybe 95%. But this whole production was entirely unneccesary, IMO.

 

Has anyone else seen this sort of behavior?

 

Can't say I have seen them on the side of the road, but running up and down I-75, I do see them on overpasses aiming it like they are getting ready to squeeze off a few rounds.

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That's what I'm saying.

 

Situation escalated quickly.

 

:rolleyes: Nothing "escalated"....it was a gut reaction...lasted about five seconds until I figured out what was going on, and then it was over.

 

Can't say I have seen them on the side of the road, but running up and down I-75, I do see them on overpasses aiming it like they are getting ready to squeeze off a few rounds.

 

lol...exactly...I guess it really is how they're trained then.

Edited by ajzepp
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:rolleyes: Nothing "escalated"....it was a gut reaction...lasted about five seconds until I figured out what was going on, and then it was over.

 

 

 

lol...exactly...I guess it really is how they're trained then.

 

i was just teasing about it being funny that the first thing you thought was a shooting.

 

truth is, that would be INCREDIBLY rare, especially given the context of the story (out of car, standing in a highly visible spot).

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i was just teasing about it being funny that the first thing you thought was a shooting.

 

truth is, that would be INCREDIBLY rare, especially given the context of the story (out of car, standing in a highly visible spot).

 

Of course, but what Im saying is that this wasn't a situation where I sat there and pondered it...you can't help how you react sometimes, and that's what it was - a reaction. I completely agree that the chances of me actually getting shot at on the highway are very slim, but when you all of a sudden come upon someone who is aiming something at you that resembles a gun, it can give you a jolt.

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That's how I was taught years ago and it's still the way it's taught in our state's police academy. It's not RADAR, where you just need to point the antenna in the general direction to get a reading. With LIDAR you need to put a red dot on a moving target and hold it steady as your shoot the vehicle. The LIDAR then shoots a series of inferred pulses towards the vehicle, where it reflects off the moving vehicle, and then back to the LIDAR. The LIDAR then calculates the speed and distance and displays it to the operator. When you have vehicles traveling at 80-90mphs, you have to hold the gun steady and on target to get a reading. Now they do make a LIDAR unit that it shaped like a pair of binoculars, but they are a lot harder to use than the LIDAR gun.

 

Interesting...so is that even feasible when you have multiple lanes of moderately high volume traffic? Are you guys trained to use them as a visible deterrent at times? And have you ever heard of people (aside from me) taking issue with how it looks?

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Interesting...so is that even feasible when you have multiple lanes of moderately high volume traffic? Are you guys trained to use them as a visible deterrent at times? And have you ever heard of people (aside from me) taking issue with how it looks?

 

And what's the maximun angle you can be to get a correct reading? Distance from suspect vehicle?

 

(I'm just curious, I usually pick a speed about the middle of the traffic around me, or slower)

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Of course, but what Im saying is that this wasn't a situation where I sat there and pondered it...you can't help how you react sometimes, and that's what it was - a reaction. I completely agree that the chances of me actually getting shot at on the highway are very slim, but when you all of a sudden come upon someone who is aiming something at you that resembles a gun, it can give you a jolt.

 

Right, hence I gave a quick little barb about not watching so much tv with gun violence. Odds are conditioning from that had a lot to do with the instinct reaction to be "holy cow, a gun!"

 

Wasn't all that serious to start with, and I'm still not. It was an offhand joke that's likely a tiny bit true. No harm no foul.

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Right, hence I gave a quick little barb about not watching so much tv with gun violence. Odds are conditioning from that had a lot to do with the instinct reaction to be "holy cow, a gun!"

 

Wasn't all that serious to start with, and I'm still not. It was an offhand joke that's likely a tiny bit true. No harm no foul.

 

Or it might be the fact that it is held like a gun, that you "shoot the vehicle" (per Ghost) like a gun, that the officer is in a stance as if he's firing a gun, that it's even CALLED a gun, and that some people aren't accustomed to having people aim guns at them.

 

BTW, here is a pic of about how the cop was holding it....add in more of a firing stance and that will give an idea of what I saw. http://ddq74coujkv1i...AR-dw-285x2.jpg

 

 

And here is a pic of what I typically have seen: http://media.northjersey.com/images/300*231/MC_McGovern_1112_gz_tif_.jpg

Edited by ajzepp
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Or it might be the fact that it is held like a gun, that you "shoot the vehicle" (per Ghost) like a gun, that the officer is in a stance as if he's firing a gun, that it's even CALLED a gun, and that some people aren't accustomed to having people aim guns at them.

 

BTW, here is a pic of about how the cop was holding it....add in more of a firing stance and that will give an idea of what I saw. http://ddq74coujkv1i...AR-dw-285x2.jpg

 

 

And here is a pic of what I typically have seen: http://media.northjersey.com/images/300*231/MC_McGovern_1112_gz_tif_.jpg

 

really, the comment is no big deal. im letting it go.

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Funny when I see something like that my first reaction is "oh !@#$, how fast am I going?"

 

Mine usually is, as well.

 

In Canada or at least Ontario where I mostly travel, the cops use tripods if they are not sitting in their vehicle.

 

either Toronto has the coolest (i.e. nicest) cops on the planet, or I just hit a good stretch, cause Ive been stopped a bunch of times on the QEW and they are always as nice as can be. Of course, it's been almost 20 years since Ive been up there, but back in the 90s they were great. And the tripod thing would make more sense to me....unless they have to keep adjusting for height, but if it's a constant height shot then I would imagine that's much more stable than aiming it like this guy did.

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