Drive Utah from top to bottom with a fuzzbuster nestled close and you'll see more than the state's "pretty, great" scenery. The little black box, tuned to the specific frequencies of police radar, will let you know just when to start looking for a cop in the picture. And if you want to, you can almost always spot him.
You needn't look, of course. The box will sound the alert so you can let up on the gas pedal if you're speeding. And there's a good chance you are.Recent research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows that more than one in four vehicles going faster than 70 mph is equipped with a radar detector.
This page has previously urged Utah to outlaw the sale of such devices, which in effect send the message that it's all right to break traffic laws if you don't get caught. Connecticut, Virginia and the District of Columbia have already outlawed them.
Now five national organizations with wide-ranging interests are joining the chorus. The American Automobile Association, American Trucking Associations, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, International Associations of Chiefs of Police, and National Safety Council are urging the Federal Highway Administration to ban radar detectors in commercial vehicles.
A fuzzbuster ban would improve truck and bus drivers' compliance with speed limit laws and thus reduce deaths and injuries in crashes involving those vehicles.
Banning such devices would do no harm to law-abiding Utahns, except those currently making a profit from their sale.