What if you could put a bell on cops, like a kitten? (You can)

A few years ago, Oregon’s traffic enforcement changed a bit. Cops began to set up speed traps in places with double or triple fines and speeding tickets that cost over $1,000 weren’t unheard of. I got an expensive ticket myself and as a nerd in search of a solution, I loaded up wirecutter.com to find the best radar detector to prevent it in the future.

Quite unexpectedly, I learned something after a couple years of using a radar detector: the killer feature isn’t speeding, the true killer feature is the devices tell you exactly when cops are nearby, which can greatly reduce anxiety. It’s like putting a bell on a cat that is always getting into trouble — detectors are de facto police presence alert systems. Knowing there’s a cop nearby does make me anxious in that moment, but knowing I have nothing to worry about all other times greatly calms me down.

Some background: I grew up in Southern California and my first car in the late 80s and early 90s was born of the culture surrounding me. I drove a lowered Toyota mini-truck with custom wheels, tinted windows, and a big stereo. I wish I still had photos because today it looks ridiculous. Lowered custom trucks were a staple of Southern California car culture, but they grew from lowrider culture, which has strong Mexican-American roots.

I mention this because I used to get pulled over constantly while driving, on the order of more than once a month for the 4–5 years I owned that truck. I haven’t owned anything like it since, and in the 20 years that followed the truck I’ve only been pulled over 3 times. For mini-trucks, cops loved to look for easy vehicle infractions (too low, too loud, windows too dark) which allowed them to do searches of the vehicle. I got regularly threatened with being taken to jail if they found anything (they never did). I strongly suspect cops were also looking to bust a non-white driver, based on how often they seemed surprised when I rolled down my window.

I didn’t know I had constant low-level anxiety about police until I got a radar detector and it mostly went away. This is a point I think most white people miss about things like “driving while black” or how policies like overzealous stop-and-frisk laws target people of color. When you’re constantly being reminded of your otherness and your basic freedom to move around is regularly under question (in addition to regular threats that it can all be taken away in an instant), you build up anxiety that is always with you and stays with you. It’s a terrible feeling that’s always there, at least a little bit.

In driving extensively around California, Oregon, and Washington states over the past few years, I’ve found cops almost always keep radar guns going 24/7 in their cars, almost always on their own custom Ka band that has a near-zero false positive rate. This means whenever the detector goes off on the Ka band, I have about 30 seconds until I will see a cop. I straighten up, put my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel and stay alert. When the beeping passes, I can calm down and continue driving.

If you live with any anxiety about being hassled by cops, I can say with experience that radar detectors can have a calming effect when you’re behind the wheel.