Laws Governing Use of Radar Detectors, Laser Detectors, and Radar Jammers

The state of Virginia, the District of Columbia, and most of the Canadian provinces ban the use of radar detectors and laser detectors. To enforce these laws, all these jurisdictions have deployed radar-detector detectors (RDD) to sniff out vehicles using radar detectors and laser detectors. The first units went by the name of VG-2 and could detect the local oscillator emissions of traditional radar detectors. This forced detector manufacturers to change their designs to conceal these emissions, thus making them invisible to the VG-2 RDDs.

There are federal statutes that make radar jammers illegal in all 50 states. California, Minnesota, and Utah specifically ban radar and laser jammers. (Radar jammers are banned by state law in the following states; Nebraska, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Virginia, Washington DC, North Carolina, California and Utah) It's possible that laser jammers may become outlawed soon in other states as well. Long-haul professionals get no break at all: Since February 1995, radar detectors have been banned in 18-wheel commercial vehicles in all 50 states.

"Mobile Scanner & Radar Detector Laws in the U.S." provides a state by state rundown on laws governing radar detectors.