Can the police use laser guns from inside your car?
You may have seen it before: You’re traveling down the interstate and see a police officer in his car shooting LIDAR from the driver’s side window. Perhaps he has even seen an officer aiming through his windshield or through his side rear view mirror?
The question is: can law enforcement officials employ LIDAR from inside your car or truck? In short, yes!
The police laser, whose official name is LIDAR, is an acronym for Light Detection And Ranging. Among the online community of laser jammers, ‘laser’ may be the most used term, but LIDAR is equally acceptable. Police laser guns can seem complicated and daunting, but with a little basic familiarity with the math along with an example or two, anyone can understand how it strategizes and then defend against it.
In general, police laser guns (LIDAR) calculate speed by using infrared light to measure distance a few hundred times (in just a few seconds). The genius of police laser guns, compared to radar guns, is how the laser beam is concentrated in an extremely small area that can only be focused on one car at a time. Officers would like to be able to pinpoint an exact vehicle, and the laser pistol’s small beam allows them to do so. Light rays spread out as they travel; they can start as small as a pin as soon as they come out of the laser gun. Still, after 1,000 feet, the beam is about six feet wide, small enough to focus on a single car.
Many LIDAR speeding officers choose to sit perpendicular to the road and fire at oncoming traffic from the driver’s side window. Why would they do that from inside their car? You can find 3 main reasons:
1. Laser guns are heavy!
Although it may not seem like it, a good number of laser pistols have heavy, state-of-the-art interiors, which can put pressure on an officer’s hands and arm if they’re shooting for a long time. For this reason, some officers will also use a tripod or place the lidar unit on top of their car and target vehicles from behind the car.
2. LIDAR guns must be stable
Most people certainly haven’t used police lasers in the past, therefore they don’t understand how tricky it can be to really focus on a car approaching from a considerable distance. To acquire a speed reading, the officer must keep your car or truck pointed for about a second and prevent it from “sweeping” sideways. Sudden or sweeping movements could give an incorrect speed reading.
3. They are ready to go
The minute a police officer gets a speed reading, they should go chase the speeder! If he is already sitting in the car, he will be able to start it and turn on the red and blue lights. If he is standing outside the vehicle, he had to open his car door, get in, and then get out, resulting in a loss of time and, quite possibly, a missed ticketing opportunity.
As mentioned above, some cops shoot the laser pistol through their windshield and even reflect it off the rear view mirror of oncoming cars. This will actually generate a speed reading, but these methods will likely decrease the functionality of the device and many LIDAR companies do not generally support these methods.
