Mr. Rockster, you are a very very naughty boy...

No seriously, this is a topic that I know a little bit about. I've owned one a long time ago, but since moving to Switzerland I decided that it was completely useless to me, and eventually gave it away to my brother who lives in Australia. Why?

Well for a start he needs it far more than I do. The main benefit of a radar detector is to detect police cars using radar. Such mobile patrols are extremely common in Australia, so common in fact that you will seldom see anyone driving over the speed limit - it's maddening! How often have you seen a policeman pull anyone over in Switzerland for speeding on the motorway? How often have you seen a police car actually patrolling the motorway (as opposed to driving somewhere where they need to go)? That's right - almost never. Cross the border to Austria however, and it is a very different story!!

Switzerland tends to do most of its speed "enforcement" (read: revenue generation) by the use of fixed camera installations. These tend to be placed in places where safety has little to do with it, but are good places to catch motorists unawares. No doubt you are full aware of this, so I'm preaching to the converted . In contrast to Australia (at least New South Wales) fixed cameras can only be placed in sections which have a proven accident record (i.e. a "black spot"), and three large warning signs must be placed prior to the camera. Yes, placing such warning signs would reduce the number of people caught, thereby reducing the revenue generated. This would seem illogical, unless the goal is to save lives rather than prop up a budget. That said, plenty of mobile patrols and camera cars are deployed there, making the average Australian motorist's life a misery (unless they like driving at the speed limit). Mind you, the limit in towns is usually 60 or higher, so it's not quite as oppressive.

Anyway, I'm getting off the track a little here, but my main point is that you would like a radar detector to detect fixed camera installations. The problem here is that they are not very effective at doing this. Many installations catch you from behind, meaning that the signal can only reach your radar detector by reflecting off something else, and usually by the time this happens it is too late. The other problem is that a camera only has to detect the speed of a car right in front of it, therefore it only requires a very power level to do this. When a policeperson makes a speed trap they may be checking the speed of cars up to 1km away, meaning that the radar signals are much easier to detect.

Now consider that most camera installations are switching to laser. The detectors can detect laser as well, but you usually have about 0.5 seconds to react, and your only hope is that a hand held laser gun is being used, which means that the beam is moving around giving you at least a couple of seconds early warning. However in the case of fixed cameras the beam is fixed, so you'll have no warning at all.

Additionally, when using a detector in built-up areas you'll get a lot of "noise" from various sources, most of this noise in the X-band (your detector should have the option to disable X-band), but there is still a fair bit of noise in the K and Ka band as well (the same used by modern radar). This effectively makes your driving experience, well, irritating. I got to the point where I would switch it off in cities entirely.

So basically whichever way you look at it, you're screwed. Set aside part of your budget for paying these fines, and think of it like tax. The next time someone tells you about Switzerland being a low tax country point this out to them (along with expensive health insurance, AHV that you aren't going to get by the time you get old enough to claim it, etc).

If I still haven't managed to discourage you, and you are the type of guy that likes to go for the top of the range stuff, then you'll want to check this out: http://www.beltronicspro.com/rx75.html

Mark