Foiling the Fuzz

CB's "good buddies" are sure learnin' fast how to outfox Smokey the Bear. The sophisticated way to beat speeding tickets is to use a miniaturized radar-emission detector. Mounted on a dashboard, it flashes a light and then sounds a high-pitched beep when the vehicle approaches a radar trap. "This is the fastest-growing area of consumer electronics," says Cy Robinson of a Richardson, Texas, firm called Autotronics that sells "Snoopers" ($89.95) and "Super Snoopers" ($149.95). Super Snooper claims to be able to sniff out "over-the-hill and around-the-corner detection."

Leader in the field is Electrolert of Troy, Ohio, which currently makes some 2,000 of its $90 "Fuzzbusters" a day. Electrolert was founded in 1973 by Dale Smith, a former Air Force research scientist. After being caught in a speed trap, he went home and built himself a radar detector. It was comparatively simple for him, since he was also making radar devices for the police.

The gizmos have been widely criticized by lawmen as "licenses to speed." Says Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner James Finch: "My feeling about any device used to circumvent or break our speed laws is that it should be made illegal." Though several states have outlawed Fuzzbusters, the bans have been struck down as an unconstitutional limitation of the public's right to receive any electronic signal on the air. Legal or not, more than 500,000 of the detectors have been sold so far. and over 1 million may well be in use by the end of the year.

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