Laser detectors legal in UK?

[Jesske]

I wondered or laser detectors are legal in UK or other countries. Or are there special rules about having one? I wanted to buy one (I live in Belgium), but after what happened this week I have other thoughts about it. This happened:

This was on tv on Monday week. A guy with his BMW 320d was caught with his laserdetector. He went to trial and was convicted very heavy. The judge wanted to make an example for all other traffic violators.

- he loses his laserdetector (400 euro)
- he loses his car because it was part of the crime (25000 euro)!!!
- he loses his drivers license for 1 year
- he has to pay 2750 euro penalty

now he has to buy a new car because he really needs that

I think this penalty is very very hard. Is this only in Belgium or also somewhere else???

 

[Rob Clark]

to my knowledge, a laser detector / radar detector arent illegal (not sure of the point of a laser detector as if it goes off you have been caught) , however, a laser diffuser is a different kettle of fish, i know of several ppl who have been given a hard time when mr plod behind them wonders why his pointy laser cant detect you when you passed him @ 110. unless you happen to have a remote garage door or summert then they may strip your car and if found, make you pickup the soap in click.

 

[Ross M]

i believe laser detectors are now illegal or are going to be illegal very soon.

 

[MRBILLYUK]

i believe laser detectors are now illegal or are going to be illegal very soon.

Yeah laser detectors are illegal now .

Robbievox , your on about laser jammers / garage door openers , not detectors .

 

[Maxx]

Are laser ones illegal now?? Will still be using mine

 

[Neil G]

I believe some bumper sensors for parking can be setup to jam/hold the signal from radar/laser speed detectors.

I wouldn't of though that they could ban those.....well, not just yet anyway.

 

[Tripps]

The current state of play is thatl laser and radar detectors are not yet illegal (it was claimed they were at one point but this was overturned). But the new road traffic act goes through parliament will make them completely illegal. Not sure when this will be though, it was supposed to go through last year before the election, but was blocked by the house of lords as I recall.

In the rest of Europe both types of device are illegal and the French are very strong on enforcement, handling out 900 euro fines and confiscating the devices.

As has been said laser jammers are illegal, as they are not passive devices like the detectors, essentially flooding the laser bandwidth with noise to stop the police getting a postive reading.

The detector manufacturers who had integral laser detectors on their 2nd gen devices (Snooper Evolution and Road Angel 2) have changed their policy because of this and their latest devices don't have laser detection build in.