strategy & tactics
How to Enter the Radar and Laser Category Before venturing into the radar and laser category, it’s important to understand not only the technology, but also these key factors that will help a shop formulate its market position. WORDS BY KEN WARD
It’s important to note that radar and laser speed enforcement has become a significant source of income for cities, counties and towns across the continent. They’re not trying to make the road safer, they’re trying to make your wallet lighter. The town I live in issues six times more traffic citations than a similarly-sized town next door, and those citations pay for three police officers which otherwise wouldn’t be in the budget. They aren’t walking a beat, though. They are in the Traffic Enforcement division. Educar Training, my training company, isn’t regularly engaged in radar-laser as a category, but at Musicar Northwest (my old store), it was a key part of our business. Musicar is still known as a leader in this field. Musicar’s owner, Tom Miller, had a roster of radar/laser customers when we started. Every new car they bought got a full installed radar-laser system. I was the newbie in the category, and it took me quite a while to get my arms around it. Once I did, the technology changed, and the threats changed, and we had to learn over and over. Now Nick Akin and Tom Miller at Musicar are the most knowledgeable staff I’ve ever seen on radar and laser. The photos in this article show a Musicar Northwest installation using Escort radar and AL Priority laser systems. The vehicle is a 2019 Mercedes G63 SUV. I’ve had friends and colleagues ask me about the keys to entering this category. Here they are.
Understand Enforcement Technology Radar is still important to understand. Laser hasn’t replaced it. Ka-band is what the newest guns use. Some small jurisdictions still use older X or K guns, but
52 Mobile Electronics October 2019
Custom pod for an Escort display. The vehicle is a 2019 Mercedes G63 SUV. those bands are more often used by radar devices which aren’t speed-detecting (such as gate openers and supermarket automated doors). We call detectors triggering off of these devices “falses,” but Front AL Priority modules built into the grille with they really aren’t. IR-transparent lenses. They are legal radar emitters, too. That’s why Ka-band is more important to a driver than X-band or K-band. It’s more likely to be an enforcement threat. There is some talk about “sensiRear AL Priority laser modules mounted flush into a bumper. tivity” of a radar detector, and that’s an important topic. In the radio-fredetector triggers. The detector may have quency world, “sensitivity” refers to a features which prevent a trigger which measurable aspect of a receiver. In the have nothing to do with its actual RF senconsumer-facing radar-detector world, sitivity, so don’t be confused. Owning a “sensitivity” often refers to how often the radar detector which triggers all the time
