Conference hydra::dejavu

    Perhaps it's simply intuition...
    
    Barbara Mandrell had a serious auto accident several years ago,
    and, though the was not in the habit of wearing seatbelts, I've
    heard her say (on TV) that that day for some reason she put her's
    on, and made her kids who were with her in the car do it to.  She
    proceeded to have a wreck, and she says the seatbelts saved their
    lives.   
    
    I was in a car two weekends ago, in the passenger seat moving about 65 
    m.p.h. in a pouring rainstorm.  I had had a couple of beers, but
    the driver was sober...suddenly for no apparent reason I started
    to have this vague feeling of uneasiness, and I put on my seatbelt.
    Not three seconds passed before the car suddenly swerved at a 45
    degree angle, and we slid across three lanes and became airborne
    for a second, landing in a ditch.  We were OK, and I chided the
    driver for travelling so fast in the rain; you tend to hydroplane
    when you do that which is what happened to us.
    
    Don't know if this helps you...
    
    Now if we could only figure out what supernatural law causes a cop
    to appear within 5 minutes of someone saying "gee, we haven't seen
    a cop for hours"...
    
    Doug  

        Possible explanation (not related to radar, however):
    
    	I have a little bit of the same tendency, although over a lesser
    period of time (7 1/2 years, 1 speeding ticket (July 1986), average
    speed 70+).  I have a "feeling" that it's either safe to speed
    or that I should slow down.  Once I didn't listen to the feeling
    that I should slow down (July 1986 I got a ticket).  Mostly this
    feeling is a direct result of the configuration and behavior of the
    other cars on the road than on any tendency to detect radar, however.
    
    	When I'm driving, there are certain configurations of cars on
    the road which are much "safer" inherently for speeding (from the
    point of view of being caught by police radar):  Staying in the right
    lane as much as possible, following at least one car going as fast
    or faster than you, following trucks, slowing down slightly when
    going over hills or around blind curves, slowing down before
    rest areas, scanning far ahead for other cars braking, etc.  These
    habits will protect you from most normal speed traps, with the
    exception of helicopters, Connecticut picture-taking
    devices, and police coming onto the highway from exit ramps.

    	Conversely, there are other habits which will earn you a ticket
    much more often.  Some of these are cruising in the left lane all
    of the time, passing cars when going by rest areas, passing cars
    when going around blind turns, driving as the "lead car" in the
    left lane, and driving much faster than the traffic around you.
    
    	I drove to Illinois and back last winter averaging 80 miles
    an hour for the trip out (including 85 through Indiana and Ohio),
    and 75 miles an hour for the trip back, passed numerous speed traps,
    and was never fooled when I followed these rules.

    	In addition, if you drive the same roads a lot, you get to know
    where the speed traps are, and where they aren't.  For instance,
    when driving up Route 93 to the White Mountains, there are stretches
    of 15-20 miles where helicopters are the only thing to worry about.
    After a few times down the road, you can take advantage of that.

    	It may just be that the "feeling" you should slow down is an
    unconscious reaction to certain conditions which you have associated
    with a higher probability of speed traps.
    
    Just a thought,
    -Mike

    Another, sort of off-the-wall thought that might be worth considering:
    it's been shown that occasionally some folks  have tooth fillings
    that have crystallized slightly, resulting in a sensitivity to radio
    waves (a few even reported of "hearing voices" that turned out to
    be commercial broadcasts).  Now, it's possible that you've got fillings
    that are sensitive to the radar portion of the spectrum, and you
    "feel" radar unconsciously that way. ...
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Thanks for the help.
    
    I think the reason most likely has to do with a subconscious (sp?)
    analysis of the traffic patterns (Re: .2).  However, there may also
    be something going on relative to intuition/ESP when it come to picking
    up a warning from the drivers of the cars going in the opposite
    direction since they have just passed the speed trap.  Typically
    the sighting of a speed trap evokes strong emotions from most of
    us and that may be detected as drivers pass in the other direction.
    
    
    
    
    
    .....Bob - he who is now less uncertain

    You don't by any chance wear a hearing aid do you? :-) My uncle has
    one of those Miracle Ear units that fits completely into his ear. He
    has had to stop driving past airports due to the buzzing caused by the
    radar. His doctor confirmed that this is a common complaint of
    people with this type unit. 
    
    Paul.

    
    Any chance that a radio broadcast will be 'blurred' (snowed?) by
    a radar of this type?
    
    This used to happen to me about 12 years ago, consistantly, yet
    the 'experts' at that time told me that this wasn't possible...but
    I always wondered.
    
    (I've got so many tooth fillings.........wonder if I was a radar 
    detector in a past life?!?!?)
             
    Cindy

    No I don't wear a hearing aid, but it sounds like a good idea for
    those states where radar detectors are not legal.
    
    
    
    ....Bob

    When I was younger and a LOT crazier, I would lie face down on a
    motorcyle, crank it wide open, put it on the white line, and en-
    vision the road around the bend.  I figured it could be a survival
    trait, kind of....I did a lot of this in the Berkshires & around
    San Francisco....I had some interesting rides, and I still cannot
    act at all sane around motorcycles.....so I don't ride them....MWR
    

    RE .0  I get butterflies in my stomach
    
    RE .6  No.
    
    Steve

    I have the same sense I think. Only mine goes down one week a year.
    I always seem to know where the radar traps are and manage to avoid
    them. Though ever since I started driving I got one ticket a year
    in the same week of the year. Now I do the speed limit that week,
    which by the way is the third week in april. I recently got a radar
    detector but I usually know where they are before my radar detector
    does.
    
    							Geoff

    
    This reminds me of a couple of things. One is that people always seem
    to know when you're looking at them. Even if you're way around the
    corner of their peripheral vision, if you stare at them for several
    seconds they always seem to turn and look at you. For some reason they
    get the legendary 'feeling of being watched'. 
                                      
    Another thing that this makes me think of is something I have heard
    called a Hunter's Detachment. This is kind of hard to describe
    (especially for a vegetarian!), but it has been held by hunters for
    ages that getting excited and worked up over prey while lieing in wait
    for it tends to tip the prey off. Thus the good hunter waits patiently,
    and tries to maintain a mindstate of not really caring whether or not
    the prey comes by, or even really thinking about the prey at all. You
    could say that this is to avoid giving the prey the 'feeling of being
    lain in wait for'. 
    
    In both of these cases one somehow becomes aware that the attention of
    someone else is focused on them. Especially in the case of avoiding
    ambush, this seems to be an excellent survival skill. Perhaps we are
    decended from wary early humans who sometimes got 'funny' feelings and
    profited from them by avoiding nasty situations. 
    
    Let's hope that the smokies out there are tapping their fingers
    nervously on the steering wheel and muttering a bit, anxiously waiting
    to pounce on the next unaware speeder. 
    
    
    				Lance