The relationship between speed, crash risk, and crash severity is well-documented. In-vehicle radar detectors are small, specialised radio receivers tuned to the frequency range used by police radar guns that make it possible for drivers to detect police radar efforts and to alter their travel speed to avoid penalties for speeding infractions. The Western Australian Office of Road Safety on behalf of the Road Safety Council contracted the Curtin-Monash Accident Research Centre (C-MARC) to conduct an independent review of the literature pertaining to Safety Warning System (SWS) signals and radar detectors, and to comment on the state-wide road safety implications of banning the ability of vehicles equipped with radar detectors to receive signals from SWS transmitters. The aims of the literature review were to investigate the road safety impacts of 1) radar detector use by drivers, 2) SWS signals transmitted from road works’ sites emergency vehicles, and black spot locations being received by users of radar detectors and 3) SWS signals transmitted from tractors using drone radar being received by users of radar detectors. The relevant survey, observational (on-road), and crash (insurance) data research in the area of radar detector use and SWS signals were reviewed. Collectively, the literature indicates that, because radar detectors are used predominantly by an already high-risk group of drivers, their application as receivers of SWS and drone radar signals is unlikely to result in overall benefits to road safety. Such a system would only be of benefit to temporarily and locally reduce the speed of those target vehicles equipped with radar detectors, which are already likely to be exceeding the speed limit (possibly because of the presence of an active radar detector in the first place). (Author/publisher)
Abstract