
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 12, 1994                   TAG: 9401120155
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

NEW LAW BANS RADAR DETECTORS

The Federal Highway Administration will start cracking down this month on most truckers and bus drivers who use radar detectors. Beginning Jan. 20, the practice will violate a new federal law.

Some major Washington lobbies that concern themselves with safety are pleased, saying the statute will cut down on speeders who have tried to evade police radar with impunity. But the law will not affect private motorists because the highway administration regulates only commercial vehicles. And studies show very few passenger cars use them, anyway.

The new prohibition against use of radar detectors will apply only to trucks and buses in interstate commerce - trucks weighing 10,000 pounds or more and buses carrying at least 16 passengers.

Stan Hamilton of the highway administration says the law will have particular relevance to California, which has more trucks than most states but has no state regulation against radar detectors. Virginia and the District of Columbia already outlaw the detectors for all motorists, and New York prohibits them in most commercial vehicles. Connecticut last year dropped its ban.

Radar detectors are compact electronic boxes, some as small as a pack of cigarettes, that act as radio-frequency receivers to pick up signals emitted by police radars.

Hamilton says the highway administration has established fines of $500 to $1,000 per infraction, but that enforcement of the new law will be borne chiefly by the states. Jim Faria, a radar expert with the California Highway Patrol, believes the law may help cut down on speeding trucks, although he is dubious about the value of radar detectors anyway.

"Most of them are useless," Faria said in an interview. "The radar equipment we use in California does not transmit a signal continuously. We put it on just to confirm a speed we have established visually, and by that time it's too late for the driver to be warned."

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., wrote the law banning radar detectors in commercial vehicles into the 1992 appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation.

"There's no reason to have these devices except to evade the law," Lautenberg said. "Our nation's highways are going to be much safer because truckers are going to slow down without radar detectors. The lives we save will be the payoff."

by CNB