Just a wimp, obviously

Call me ultra-moralistic if you want, Mr 'Working-to-the-Rules', a namby-pamby, a non-risk taker, and anything else, but I can't for the life of me see the point of radar detectors.

The reason police use radars on roads is to prevent accidents primarily, rather than to make money. You can argue this till you're blue in the face, but making money from radars is a secondary aspect - they are there to prevent people speeding.

To me the mindset that goes with using a radar detector is one that says to itself: the whole radar thing is a game. This is how it's played. The cops set up their radar. I speed as much as I can, and if I get caught, it's not my fault. They shouldn't have been being sneaky in the first place. I'm an innocent victim here. Therefore, in order to cease being an innocent victim in the game, and to get one up on the cops, I install a radar detector. This means that when my detector detects, I can slow down. And the cops won't get me. That's how the game is played.

It's a stupid game. It fails to take into consideration the fact that even though you may think you can drive safely at a greater speed than everyone else, it's possible you can't. Furthermore it fails to take into account the fact that there are other people on the road who may not appreciate your speeding and the possibility that you may cause them to be involved in a crash.

I've been told by someone who's a member of our family (an in-law) that he always drives faster than everyone else because he knows he's in control. Yeah, right.

I know I'm banging my head on a wall on this one. I've never yet met anyone who's told me outright they wouldn't think of using a radar detector. Must be a kind of macho thing that I just don't understand (being the little wimpy person that I am, the kind who used to get the sand kicked in his face by the big muscular guy).

Fallacious Arguments

I've always struggled to understand the justification for radar detectors. People talk about using them as though they were playing some game with the police radars, yet this isn't a game. The intention of the police, whatever many people think, is to prevent speed accidents. Yes, lots of people claim it's to make money out of motorists, but surely if the motorists didn't speed then the police wouldn't make the money. There's some failure of logic on the part of people who want to use radar detectors, I think. But I've always felt as though I was in the minority on this argument. Still, being in the minority on an argument doesn't necessarily prove you're wrong; it may only mean that a lot of people believe a fallacy.
I don't enjoy speed restrictions either, along with most drivers. I always think I can drive safely at the speed I'm going at. But the issue isn't what I think, but what the law is. And in general, the law has accepted the argument that people are killed because they don't know how to control speed. Of course there are drivers who can control speed, but they're a minority, and many people have illusions about their ability to control speed. This becomes obvious on days when the weather is iffy, such as heavy rain, or frosts, or snow (it's just started to snow outside again as I write). Some people don't change their driving habits on those days at all, which to me is foolish. But again, I'm probably in the minority on this argument.