At the National Motorists Association meeting on Friday, Scott from Quattro123.com brought two Lidar guns. In addition to letting us try out the guns and showing videos of their inaccuracy, we later went out to the parking lot to test them. They were impressive, giving accurate distances of even stationary cars off of any surface, not just reflective plates or headlights. But we had a very unique opportunity: those of us with lidar jammers (or laser shifters or whatever else you want to call them) could finally see just how well they worked first hand. I had installed my Bel 904 (same as the Escort ZR3) myself about a year ago but since have only come across one officer with a laser gun, and I was already well below the speed limit, so I had no idea if it was actually working. Furthermore, every inch of my car was covered in dirt and salt, which could certainly make them less effective. We went out to an area of the parking lot where we had a long straight shot, and drove towards the laser gun. Two people had K40 units installed–and both of those almost never worked. The other MINI with the Blinder system worked flawlessly. And happily, my unit prevented the gun from getting a reading at all distances, in fact I was surprised just how far away I was and its jamming was effective, despite the road grime.
An interesting note was my dash-mounted radar detector only occasionally rendered a laser alert, (of course that is a useless function, they instantly have your speed at that point) illustrating that the beam is small enough to hit your front bumper but not your windshield. The two K40 owners were very upset, as they had them professionally installed. I later spotted their main issue: they were installed far behind the front grills, which blocked their transmission beams. It didn’t help that the K40s had very small infrared windows as well. It is astonishing that the installers did not have this common sense. But in the end I was very glad to see both my unit and my installation were worth the investment.