Arkansas Regulates the Radar Gun, Not the Radar Detector

Start with the negative, because in Arkansas it is the whole answer for a private car. A full text search of the Arkansas Code Annotated for "radar detector" returns nothing. Searching the single word "radar" returns six documents: five are the radar operator certification subchapter at Ark. Code §§ 12-9-401 to 12-9-404 and its chapter note, and the sixth is a public utility minimum requirements section at § 23-18-1406. The Code of Arkansas Rules, which Ark. Code § 25-15-218 makes the official codification of every state agency rule and which is updated weekly, likewise returns nothing for "radar detector". There is no state ban, no possession offense, no commercial vehicle carve-out written by the General Assembly, and nothing to seize.

What Arkansas legislated instead, in Act 672 of 1983 and through amendments running to Act 151 of 2019, is the enforcement side. Ark. Code § 12-9-401(5) defines police traffic radar as any speed measurement device utilizing the Doppler principle or an infrared light system to measure the speed of motor vehicles, so the subchapter covers laser and lidar units as well as conventional Doppler radar. Section 12-9-402 gives the Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training the power to establish minimum selection and training standards for appointment as a police traffic radar operator and instructor, to set the curriculum for the basic operator course, the basic instructor course and the refresher courses, to approve the institutions used for that training, to review agency records for compliance, and expressly to exclude honorary law enforcement officers from radar training classes sponsored by the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy.

Section 12-9-403 is the appointment rule. A person shall not be appointed as a police traffic radar operator or instructor until the minimum standards for training requirements have been completed, and the commission issues a certificate only after the agency director, chief or county sheriff submits evidence that the operator has met them. Subsection (e) strips authority from an operator who fails to keep up the training: he or she loses the authority to operate a police traffic radar for enforcement purposes. Subsection (f), added by Act 151 of 2019, requires an officer to finish general law enforcement certification before becoming eligible for radar certification, and subsection (g) limits eligibility to a full-time officer, a part-time officer, or an auxiliary officer appointed as a reserve officer as defined by commission rule.

Section 12-9-404 is the provision a driver would actually raise. It says a police traffic radar operator who does not meet the standards and qualifications set forth in the subchapter, or any made by the commission, shall not take any official action as a police traffic radar operator, and any action taken shall be held as invalid. That is a statutory invalidity attached to the officer's certification rather than a suppression rule, and it has stood unamended since Act 672 of 1983.

The one prohibition that does bite is federal and applies to commercial drivers. Under 49 C.F.R. § 392.71(a) no driver shall use a radar detector in a commercial motor vehicle, or operate a commercial motor vehicle that is equipped with or contains any radar detector, and under (b) no motor carrier may require or permit a driver to violate that. The rule has been in place since 58 FR 67375, December 21, 1993, and it binds a commercial driver in Arkansas directly, without any state adoption. A detector in a pickup or a family car in Arkansas is outside both the state Code and that federal rule.

There is no Arkansas offense to charge for possessing or using a radar detector in a private vehicle, so there is no fine, no equipment citation and no forfeiture provision to point at. 71(b) forbids a motor carrier from requiring or permitting the violation. Jammers are also absent from Arkansas law: a full text search of the Code for "jamming" returns zero results, and the Code's "laser" provisions are about hand-held laser pointers, § 5-60-121 and § 5-60-122, and about projecting a laser light on a law enforcement officer, § 5-54-132, which is a separate offense and not a speed enforcement countermeasure.

The practical Arkansas argument is the reverse of an equipment charge: § 12-9-404 makes the reading of an uncertified operator invalid, so the certification of the officer, not the detector on the windshield, is what a speeding defense turns on.