New York Radar Detectors: Legal in Cars, Banned Over 18,000 Pounds

Section 397-a sets two weight triggers rather than one, and the difference between them decides most cases. The first reaches "any motor vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than eighteen thousand pounds", however that vehicle is used. The second reaches "any commercial vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than ten thousand pounds". A vehicle in commercial use therefore crosses the line at 10,001 pounds, while a heavy vehicle in private hands stays outside the section until 18,001. Both figures are stated as gross vehicle weight rating, the manufacturer's rating for the vehicle, not the weight actually being carried on the day of the stop.

For an ordinary passenger car, an SUV, a minivan or a light pickup in personal use, neither trigger is engaged. The section is drafted as a prohibition on use in two named classes of heavy vehicle, not as a general prohibition with exceptions, so a driver under both ratings falls outside it entirely rather than qualifying for an exemption. That is the practical headline for most New York motorists, and it is worth stating plainly because the same device is unlawful for every driver in a small number of other jurisdictions and New York is regularly and wrongly listed among them.

Enforcement in the covered vehicles runs on a rebuttable presumption written into subdivision 1. The presence in such a vehicle of a radar detector or laser detector "connected to a power source and in an operable condition is presumptive evidence of its use by any person operating such vehicle", and that presumption "shall be rebutted by any credible and reliable evidence which tends to show that such radar detector or laser detector was not in use". Two conditions have to be met before the inference arises at all: the unit must be connected to power and it must be operable. A detector packed away unpowered in a sleeper or a toolbox is not described by the presumption, and the rebuttal standard the statute sets, credible and reliable evidence, is not a high one.

Subdivision 2 is unusually explicit for New York equipment law. It provides that the section "shall not be construed as authorizing the seizure or forfeiture of a radar detector or laser detector, unless otherwise provided by law". An officer writing a section 397-a summons therefore draws no confiscation power from the section itself.

Subdivision 3 fixes the penalty: a violation is a traffic infraction punishable by a fine of not less than twenty-five nor more than one hundred dollars. That is a light penalty by the standards of the Vehicle and Traffic Law, where the general equipment ceiling under section 375(32)(a) is a $150 fine or thirty days.

The provision that actually catches New York drivers out sits immediately before it. Section 397 makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding six months or both, for a person who is not a police officer or peace officer acting pursuant to special duties to equip a motor vehicle with a radio receiving set capable of receiving signals on the frequencies allocated for police use, or to knowingly use a vehicle so equipped, or to knowingly interfere with police radio transmission, without first securing a permit. The permit does not come from the state. It comes from the person authorized to issue it by the local governing body or board of the city, town or village in which the applicant resides, or, for a resident outside a city or village in a county with a county police department, from that county's board of supervisors. The section exempts a person holding a valid amateur radio operator's license from the Federal Communications Commission who operates a duly licensed portable mobile transmitter and, in connection with it, a receiver on frequencies exclusively allocated by the FCC to licensed radio amateurs. So in the same New York car, a radar detector is lawful and an unpermitted police scanner is a misdemeanor carrying up to six months.

A section 397-a violation is a traffic infraction rather than a crime, and is answered in the local court or Traffic Violations Bureau like any other equipment infraction. The fine range is fixed by subdivision 3 at not less than $25 and not more than $100, with no separate provision for repeat offenses. Because subdivision 2 forbids reading the section as authorizing seizure or forfeiture, the device stays with the driver unless some other law reaches it. The defense is built into the statute: the presumption of use arises only where the detector is connected to a power source and in an operable condition, and it is rebutted by any credible and reliable evidence tending to show the unit was not in use, so a driver of a covered heavy or commercial vehicle who can show the unit was disconnected or non-functional is answering the charge on the statute's own terms.

A private motorist whose vehicle is under 18,000 pounds gross vehicle weight rating, and which is not a commercial vehicle over 10,000 pounds, has no exposure at all under this section. The exposure that does exist for that driver is under section 397: equipping the car with a police-frequency receiver without a permit from the local governing body is a misdemeanor punishable by up to $1,000 or six months imprisonment or both, which is roughly ten times the detector penalty for a device many drivers assume is treated the same way.