Oklahoma Bans Radar Detectors Only in Commercial Vehicles, Jammers in Everything

Oklahoma reached detectors late and narrowly. Section 11-808.1 was added by Laws 2012, c. 207, Section 5, with an emergency effective date of May 8, 2012, and every one of its three prohibited acts is qualified by the phrase "commercial motor vehicle." Nothing in Title 47 forbids a detector in a private car, pickup or motorcycle, and the Legislature's decision to write the 2012 section around commercial vehicles only, twenty-one years after the jammer statute of 1981, is the strongest evidence that the omission is deliberate rather than an oversight.

What counts as a commercial motor vehicle is set by the Class A, B and C definitions in 47 O.S. Sections 1-107.1, 1-107.2 and 1-107.3. A Class A vehicle is a combination with a gross combined weight rating of twenty-six thousand one (26,001) pounds or more where the towed unit rates over ten thousand (10,000) pounds. A Class B vehicle is a single vehicle rated at 26,001 pounds or more, or such a vehicle towing a unit of ten thousand pounds or less, and it captures a bus of that weight designed to carry sixteen or more people including the driver. A Class C vehicle is anything else that must be placarded for hazardous materials under 49 C.F.R. Part 172, subpart F, or that the manufacturer designed to carry sixteen or more people including the driver. Class D, the ordinary licence class, is defined at Section 1-107.4 and covers single or combination vehicles rated under 26,001 pounds plus, regardless of weight, marked authorized emergency vehicles and vehicles designed and used solely as recreational vehicles. A motorhome therefore stays outside the detector ban no matter how heavy it is.

The detector ban notably attaches to presence, not use. Paragraph 2 makes it unlawful to operate a commercial motor vehicle in which a radar detector is merely "installed or present," so a detector switched off in a glovebox or riding loose in the cab is enough, and paragraph 1 reaches a passenger as well as the driver. A driver who moves a personal detector from a private car into a rig is caught by paragraph 3 as well.

Jammers are treated far more harshly and are not limited to commercial vehicles. Section 11-808 defines a jammer as any instrument, device or equipment designed or intended for use with a vehicle or otherwise to jam or interfere in any manner with a speed measuring device operated by a law enforcement officer in the vicinity, and defines speed measuring device to include radar speed meters and laser speed meters. Both use and possession are unlawful, and so is manufacturing, advertising, offering for sale, selling or otherwise distributing one in the state. The only carve-out in Section 11-808(D) is for a person who lawfully holds a Federal Communications Commission licence for the use of a jammer. Section 11-809 adds further exemptions for any lawfully licensed receiver of radio waves, for devices owned or operated by federal, state or local government and used by employees in their official duties or sold to law enforcement agencies for official use, and for citizens band radio.

A commercial driver running interstate faces the federal rule as well. 49 C.F.R. Section 392.71(a) bars any driver from using a radar detector in a commercial motor vehicle or operating one that is equipped with or contains a radar detector, and Section 392.71(b) forbids a motor carrier to require or permit the violation. Oklahoma law contemplates that overlap directly: 47 O.S. Section 230.4(2) allows the Commissioner of Public Safety to adopt by reference and enforce all or any portion of the federal motor carrier safety regulations of the United States Department of Transportation, as now or hereafter amended.

S. 00) or imprisonment for not more than ten (10) days, twenty (20) days on a second conviction within one year after the first, and up to six (6) months on a third or subsequent conviction within that year. Section 17-101(D) adds that any Title 47 offence not otherwise punishable by confinement may still draw up to one day in jail at the court's discretion. For a commercial driver the practical exposure is larger than the fine, because the detector is found during a roadside inspection and the carrier is exposed under the federal rule at the same time.

A jammer carries the extra risk that the device itself is contraband: Section 11-808(B) makes bare possession unlawful, so there is no lawful way to hold one in Oklahoma without an FCC licence for its use.