There are many gadgets and gizmos on the market currently that proclaim to be able prevent you that speeding ticket, anything from license sprays to laser scramblers, but do any of these products actually work or are you just wasting your money by investing in them. We investigate.
License Plate Spray
Ok the idea behind this is you spray your license plate with a special high powered gloss that when your flashed will reflect the flash back towards the camera, this then over exposes the image rendering it useless as a legal document while being completely legible to the naked eye. All this sound great in practice but the overall feedback on these types of products is a sense of inconsistency where you have to be in exactly the right conditions for it to work if you want some real life examples go to Amazon and type license plate spray.
Verdict – Not effective enough to put all your faith in.
Laser Jammer
A laser jammer does just that it is designed to diffuse a laser that is pointed at your car taking a reading. It does this by firing back the same frequency and pulse rate the speed camera produced which in layman’s terms scrambles the camera and prevents a reading from being taken.
From our investigations it would appear that the jammer does in fact work although with a lot of buts attached. For one ok the jammer hasn’t been banned yet but people have already been arrested for using laser jammers on the road the first arrest was in 2003 for “perverting the course of justice” the problem being for the owner of the laser jammer that if the police cannot take a reading a picture is till taken and logged. From here if the same thing happens again and again you are flagged by the police force who may well pay a visit.
Verdict –Effective but problematic
Radar/Laser Detector
These sat nav size devices work by detecting the radar or laser signal given out by speeding detection devices. The idea is that if say a Gatso or speed gun is in the local area the device will pick up the radar or laser signal and you will be warned ahead of time, you can change your speed accordingly. In practice it will probably be down to you purchasing the correct unit, probably the more expensive one, in order the get the sensitivity you need in order to get the time you need to slow down and prevent a ticket. The problem, especially with Gatsos is that the radar signal is very weak which means with the majority of devices of this type your either on top of the speed camera before the device pick it up or too close to stop in time. As for laser detection usually the laser is already on your car before you are alerted so this wouldn’t be effective for that purpose.
Verdict- Do your homework on the best devices and don’t buy purely for the laser detector.
Road Angel
This is marketed as the most comprehensive speed fine prevention system in the UK today and depending on which device in the range they are talking about they are probably right. I use this myself and it has never seen me wrong. It basically has a map of every speed camera position in the UK downloaded in to the unit’s memory and as long as you purchase the connected version an orange sim card in the unit will continually update with any new speed trap locations and even the position of mobile vans etc. when the information is available. Although this is not the best protection again handheld speed cameras, over 80% of penalties come from fixed speed cameras and this is by far the best way to prevent a ticket from the majority.
Verdict- great defence against fixed speed cameras such as Gatsos please bear in mind for the connected version there is a £5 monthly charge but it’s worth it.