Lately I've been getting about 3 laser falses per day. I drive around 100 miles per day give or take. Before this week it never happened so much, only when I was behind a Trailblazer or something. Now i'll be all alone on a back road and it'll go off for like a second or two. Freaks me out, but I never see a cop. Any ideas?

 

Red infrared lighting can affect laser (a common effect from brake lights, especially LED brake lights.) I turn laser off on my V1, it's pointless, if you get hit, you're already tagged.

 

LEDs in taillights and stoplights are generally "pulsed" to get a higher apparent brightness and longer life.

It's the "pulsing" that "fools" the V1 into thinking it’s seeing the “pulsed”/”modulated” beam from a laser gun. More and more auto stop lights and traffic lights are using them. If the LED light was steady/constant, it wouldn't be a problem.

The other thing that will really mess-up the V1 is reflected glints of sunlight. Of course, that will only happen in the daytime...

Finally, light source that is “fast responding” (e.g. florescent, xenon, LED, neon, etc) can cause the V1 to go crazy if it connected to a “noisy” source or if it’s “pulsed.”


BTW, leaving it on can come in handy if it leads you to find out about a common laser trap location. Sometimes, the police are hiding and hitting cars with laser, and I’ve seen them back at the same location over and over. If not for the “first warning” caused by some scatter and "idiot checks", I wouldn’t have bothered to “note” the location… And, yes, if you’re speeding and you’re the first to be hit with the beam, it's probably too late...

 

Yep the laser has only saved me twice. Each time they hit the car infront of my first and it bounced off. I'd get like a quick 2 second hit, then a long like 5 second hit when it was on me.

The falses have all happened during the day. Weird that it just started happening this week.

 

Probably coincidence you were behind someone with the wrong kind of taillights.

First time it happened to me, I was in a convienience store parking lot while my wife was getting a soda, and the V1 went crazy on laser. It was an advert sign in the window that just happened to emit on the right frequency.

 

The only good the laser detection will do is to indicate it's time to put the 3.2 engine to the test.

 

I was in traffic, police were shooting laser ahead at cars infront and my laser detector notified me of the presence of laser immediately down the road. I think the laser detector can be helpful as long as you are not he first to be hit!!

 

Regardless.. if the police are lasing people they can still use judgement and cite you whether or not they get a positive hit. If they lase the car in front of you and you are gaining on that car, they will call out your car. After all, it's a preponderance of the evidence in court. And a cop's word suffices.

 

I have doubts on your scenario. Laser needs to work straight down a traffic lane. The cops set up at a point on a curve where the Laser can project on a tangent. Since cars are coming head-on, this makes it difficult to judge whether a trailing car is gaining or not.

Lasers put out a very narrow beam. This can be useful to the driver. I've been lased on I-95 in Maryland when moving to the left lane from the middle. When the V1 went off I began to move back to the middle. I tried this several times noticing that there actually was an invisible "edge" to the beam. As long as I stayed out of it I was OK. Of course, traffic was plentiful. If you are alone, you are dead meat.

 

With my V1 I leave it all on and just keep the volume down during 'normal driving' then put it up when I feel it is required....the Lasre function is tolerable for the extra protection layer it gives in my view. Also, you will probable start another thread with the line: "Damn...should have not turned off the V1 laser" j/k

 

nah... its gonna stay on.

 

Seriously guys, keep your V1 Laser protection on! I have personally been saved by 7 laser speed traps in the past year from Montgomery County Police, U.S. Park Police, Maryland State Police, and Metropolitan DC Police! It's not worth it to turn it off!

My V1 has even been set off when I was driving on the opposite side of traffic than the cop while BEHIND him! Must have reflected off a bunch of cars.

 

I was thinking the same thing. I would NEVER shut off laser. X band on the other hand I would depending on where you live.

 

I totally disagree. On the traffic citation, the citing officer will have to indicate the instrument used and the statue that was violated. Of course a cop can give you a visual ticket any day of the year but no way a cop is going to be set up in a laser speed trap and then pull over a vehicle that "appears" to be speeding. If he is using laser, he MUST have a positive ID on the violator, anything less and you can defeat that in court with a simple question "Officer did you clock my vehicle exceeding the speed limit?" That's your preponderance of the evidence, this time in works to your advantage, because YOU have all the "heavy" facts. A cop's word suffices when there is a dispute to the circumstances, not to the facts. How do I know this? I was once pulled over by a Minnesota Trooper, while sitting in his front seat during the traffic stop, he told me he knew I was speeding because I was in the left lane passing a truck at a high rate of speed, but he couldn't get a radar lock on me because the truck was shadowing. I got a warning.

As for the V1 falsing, my first V1 would alert false K and laser alerts, but it was very frequent...so I sent it back under warranty and they replaced it as a defective unit. If you can live without your unit for a week or two, send it back to Mike with your complaint and they will make adjustments.

 

You totally disagree that an officer can still use judgement and issue a citation based on a visual? I want to speed in your world with my V1.

I've been in court where the judge found a person guilty because the cop said he got a return from a long-haul truck but because the car was moving faster than the truck he pulled the car over. An officer can answer your question: "No, Kensteele, I didn't positively id your vehicle speeding via laser. I however tagged the vehicle next to you travelling at 55 and you gained on that vehicle. Thus you were travelling at a speed greater than 55."

Anyway, where I've seen a laser trap in Oregon it's not one officer that sets up, but a group. He camps out on a bridge and calls out violaters to a gaggle of officers (I've seen 3 cars and five motorcycles) on an onramp. Oregon freeways are 55 in the cities it's not difficult to cite people exceeding the limit.


An officer can set his cruise control at 55. If you are ahead of the officer and your vehicle becomes 'smaller' in his field of view he can issue a citation. It's not science, but it still works in court.

 

Well we'll just have to agree to disagree. I had a long answer here but I deleted it....

 

Sitting behind GMC Envoys at the light always makes mine go off. Other GM SUVs do it too..

BTW, I remember being hit by a real police laser trap once. And I was by myself with my previous car. I was doing probably 15mph over on Weber Rd in Bolingbrook (speed limit of 45mph). Lucked out. I passed the police car and he did not follow. Was driving a 1996 Talon AWD.

 

The light emmited from specific tailights (chevy trailblazer...) falls into the infrared spectrum. Which is why it goes off.

A pulsing light itself will not set the detector off (in the visible light spectrum).

Laser guns are all in the infrared spectrum.


A remote control from your home stereo will set it off too if it is close enough to the right frequency. Depending on the emitter in the device.

 

The overkill grade correct statement is: "A noisy, pulsing, or transient light event that might be visible, can set off the V1 detector due to the time-varying IR output that exists along side the visible spectrum..." The V1 detector needs to recognize a number of different pulse frequencies and patterns due to the non-standardization of laser guns.

More related information:

The sun is full spectrum; when you get a glint of the proper surface, you get a single shot or gated burst of IR sufficient to cause a false reading in the V1.

Neon, halogen, xenon, fluorescent lights can have noisy light sources and can produce prodigious amounts of IR and UV light -- in addition to visible light. These CAN and WILL set off the V1.

The halogen I used to own was so noisy in the IR range, that I couldn't use my IR headphones with it on; it had a non-filtered fly back power supply. (It was noisy in the visible range too, but my eyes can’t see 100 kHz noise.)

The halogen’s replacement, a Verilux lamp (a fluorescent lamp), causes the IR reception on my TiVo, TV, and DVD to malfunction during its warm-up period. A pin diode used as a detector with an IR filter in front of it show that it emits a fair amount of "hash", in the IR spectrum, during the tube's/ballast warm up.

The xenon laser-pump tubes that we use for strobe lighting were a problem as they "jammed" all IR control slaves during operation until they were finished with water-cooled water jackets (ozone production was also reduced to non-headache levels).

I've driven by two neon signs that have flipped-out the V1. Glass is not a good IR absorber.


If you take you IR remote control -- the one with the very same reddish-looking window filter -- and aim it at your TV or other device, you can generally get your TV to operated at a pretty good range, and if the unit is strong enough, you can bounce the invisible beam off the walls and still get it to work the intended device. However, if you put a glass of water in front of the device, it will block the IR and prevent it from working.

All of my current IR remotes will set off the V1.

 

You know, mines been doing this too. Only started the last few weeks. Wonder if it's a defect?