I’ve made hundreds of trips from Miami to Key West over the past 21 years and, like anywhere else, you’ll get X and K alerts from shopping centers and grocery stores, but Vaca Key has a special presentation. Most people call it Marathon Key, by the way, but Marathon is actually the name of the city, not the key. Anyway, as you get through Marathon there’s a Monroe County Sheriff Station that has an out-of-service squad car with a light bar and always-on K radar. I’ve passed this dummy hundreds of times and always have to mute my V1. It’s just one of those nuisances you get to know when you travel the road so many times.
Last trip, on my way back home, V1 starts letting me know the Sheriff’s car is still out there, pumping out that constant K. I pressed mute. I was still a good mile from the Sheriff’s station at that point, and the local shopping-mall X’s and K’s were coming and going, but all of a sudden I had an incoming on Ka. In all my years traveling this route, I’ve never had a Ka band in this location, and I immediately slowed. It kept coming back intermittently, a lonely Ka.
As I drew near the Sheriff’s station, yep, the old cruiser with its unmanned K-band was still pretending to be a threat. But as I got closer, I spotted something else—hidden behind the fake Sheriff was a shiny new Florida black-and-tan, and it was the Trooper zapping Ka at all the locals who knew better than to fall for the phony-sheriff trick.
I cruised by and smiled at those folks now getting tickets, the ones who passed me as I took precautions, knowing there was a real speed trap ahead.
Thank you V1, not just for technology, but for being so smart about it!
Dr. Todd Narson
Miami Beach, FL