Let me begin this week’s Mod Squad with a disclaimer: In no way do I admit to speeding nor do I recommend my readers exceed the speed limit while behind the wheel of a stock or modified vehicle.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the point. Nothing curdles the blood and fills the gut with dread like the appearance of red and blue flashing lights in the rearview mirror. Those of us with modified vehicles sometimes get pulled over so that an officer can take a closer look at our handiwork. Perhaps the body kit looks as if it might be too low to the ground or the windows a bit too tinted.

Other times we’re pulled over when our right foot falls asleep on the gas pedal and we somehow find ourselves flying at low altitude over the posted speed limit – an unfortunate occurrence, but more often than not, a purely accidental oversight on our part.

If you happen to have one of those legs that seems to fall asleep on the accelerator, and haven’t had the opportunity to get it looked at by your family doctor, you may be surprised at the many ways the folks who enforce speed limits have to catch those of us suffering with this rare disease. So I thought it might be useful to take a closer look at some of their techniques, just so we all know why speeding, like gambling, is likely to result in someone going home with a lighter wallet.

Radar
The first technique that comes to mind is radar. A perennial favourite, you’ll find police officers in every state and province pointing these things at passersby to see who’s being naughty and who’s being nice.
Radar guns are particularly useful when local officers set up a speed trap. We’ve all seen them parked somewhere near a highway overpass or on city streets with the gun pointed at oncoming traffic.
What you may not realize is that they have the ability to check your speed even without the traditional speed trap setup. In other words, the police car could be in motion, driving towards you on the opposite side of the street with the gun aimed at your vehicle. If you happen to be speeding, all the officer has to do is make a U-turn and catch up with you. I got nailed by one of these units in Florida many years ago.
Another technique to be aware of is the unmarked or camouflaged police vehicle parked in a driveway after dark with all lights off. I came across one of these just the other day and didn’t know it was there until I was just a few feet away. That’s how invisible they can make themselves.
If you go online you’ll find endless websites dedicated to methods and techniques you can use to try to make life difficult for officers using a radar gun. Although you might increase your odds of evading the police, I highly doubt these are foolproof ideas on which you should bet your driver’s licence.
One of my favourite suggestions comes from a website that recommends you put your vehicle into “stealth mode.” They’re not suggesting you’ll become invisible or that the radar gun won’t be able to lock onto you. Rather, the authors of the website suggest their techniques will make it more difficult for some types of radar to lock onto you from far away.
They suggest you cover up or mask the parts of your vehicle that would easily reflect radar signals –license plate, headlights, turn signal lamps, fog lights, etc. If you happen to come across a speed trap that uses the specific type of radar on which this technique might work, then you might have a fighting chance. But if not, you’re good as caught.

Pacing
Another method of speed enforcement is called pacing. With this technique, a police car follows a speeding vehicle for a specified distance while observing the speedometer of the police vehicle to calculate the average speed of the paced vehicle.
What makes this method so insidious is that the police car is usually unmarked. I had a run in with a police vehicle like this many years ago in the states. It was an old beat up station wagon, complete with fake wood panel doors – the kind your uncle Ned used to drive. I didn’t know it was a cop car until he put his sun visor down to reveal the red and blue lights. Gotcha!

Time-distance
One of the oldest methods (and still in use today) is the time-distance method. With this technique, officers measure the time it takes for your vehicle to traverse a distance of known length.
If you’ve ever driven down a highway and noticed funny looking triangles painted onto the pavement every kilometre or so, you’ll be glad to know that officers in the sky can use these, in conjunction with a stopwatch, to figure out your average speed. Then, all they have to do is radio ahead to a unit on the ground, and the nice folks in the black and whites pull you over.

And finally ...
Although you could buy and use a radar detector (only legal in some parts of North America), paint your vehicle to turn it into a “stealthmobile,” or drive around with one eye on the skies above in order to spot suspicious air traffic, the bottom line is that sooner or later you’ll likely get caught. The moral of this story is simple: If you have to speed or race, take it to the track.