No Concealment Of Radar Units

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31973, 28 April 1969, Page 1

No Concealment Of Radar Units

A traffic officer who used a micro-wave speed detector at night from a car without parking lights was disobeying instructions, said Mr D. L. Hogan, the Ministry of Transport’s district officer, yesterday.

Mr Hogan said complaints that an officer had done this ilast week had proved correct.; The officer was using the unit' contrary to instructions, and ■no person would be prose(cuted as a result of his ncorrect use of the unit It was the Ministry’s policy, said Mr Hogan, not to hide or conceal a radar unit. Officers were instructed to show parking lights on radar vehicles at night, and it was in their own interests to do so.

"Otherwise they might get wiped out,” he said. Another important reason for making radar vehicles visible to motorists was the deterrent effect. Motorists who could see a radar car at the roadside were unlikely to exceed the speed limit. Micro-wave speed detector units would not be run from unlit vehicles at night in Wellington, the City Council's traffice superintendent, Mr J. Anderson, said yesterday, according to a Press Association message. He had been asked to comment on the reported use in iChristchurch. Mr Anderson said that he

llhad no comment to offer on ’.“what anyone else does.” “However.” he said, “it ; would be most unusual for us t to operate a micro-wave unit ■ at night. We have found moving vehicles more effective at 'j night” I Mr Anderson said he knew

> of no instance in Wellington ; where a micro-wave unit had been used from an unlit ve’ihicle ■ The chief traffic officer for ' the Ministry of Transport in ’ the Wellington district, Mr H. K. Little, said when asked if unlit vehicles had been ; used in his area: “No. definitely not. We would not do ■'that. “Even when our vehicles ' are parked under street lights, their lights are on."