Radar Detectors Are Legal in Wyoming; the Word Radar Appears Nowhere in the Statutes

Wyoming has never legislated on radar detectors, and the absence can be proved rather than assumed. Every title of the Wyoming Statutes was searched for radar, laser in a speed context, speed measuring, speed detection and jammer. The only hits for detection device are the retail theft detection device offences in Title 6, and the only laser hits are in surgery and firearm accessory contexts. No Wyoming provision prohibits owning, selling, installing or using a device that detects police speed enforcement equipment, and none restricts it by vehicle class, road type or driver age.

That silence sits on top of an affirmative permission. W.S. 31-5-901(b) provides that nothing contained in the equipment act prohibits equipment required by the United States Department of Transportation, nor the use of additional parts and accessories on any vehicle not inconsistent with the provisions of this act. An accessory is lawful unless some provision of the act reaches it, so the question is only whether anything does.

The equipment approval scheme answers that in the negative, and it does so with a closed list rather than by silence. W.S. 31-5-934(a) provides that a person shall not sell or offer for sale any lamp, reflector, hydraulic brake fluid, seat belt, safety glass, emergency disablement warning device, studded tire, motorcycle helmet, eye protection device for motorists, or red rear bicycle reflector unless and until it has been approved by the superintendent, who is the director of the Department of Transportation under W.S. 31-5-102(a)(l). W.S. 31-5-934(b) extends the approval duty to any item for which a standard has been adopted under W.S. 31-5-935, and W.S. 31-5-935(a) directs the superintendent to adopt standards for exactly the same ten categories. A radar detector is not on either list, so it is not approvable equipment, it is not required equipment, and it is not equipment the superintendent may set a standard for under subsection (a). W.S. 31-5-935(b) and (c) let him adopt safety equipment standards conforming to US DOT, ANSI, SAE or Vehicle Equipment Safety Commission standards, but those are safety-equipment standards, not a licensing hook for a receiver.

The one in-cab receiving prohibition Wyoming does have is narrower than it looks. W.S. 31-5-961(a) provides that no motor vehicle operated on Wyoming highways shall be equipped with television-type receiving equipment so located that the viewer or screen is visible from the driver's seat, with an exception in subsection (b) for equipment used exclusively for safety or law enforcement purposes approved by the highway department, and one in subsection (c) for electronic displays used in conjunction with vehicle navigation systems. The prohibition is confined to television-type receiving equipment. It does not reach a radio receiver generally, and a detector is not television-type equipment.

What is left is placement. A windshield-mounted or mirror-mounted detector is subject to W.S. 31-5-955(a), which prohibits driving any motor vehicle with any sign, poster or other material or substance upon or crack within the front windshield, side or rear windows which materially obstructs, obscures or impairs the driver's clear view of the highway or any intersecting highway. Wyoming sets a materiality standard, not a measured exempt zone, so a unit low on the windshield in the driver's sightline can be cited on the mounting even though the device itself is entirely lawful. A visor clip or a dash mount takes the question away.

Commercial drivers are the real exception, and the source is federal. 49 C.F.R. 392.71(a) provides that 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 392.71(b) forbids a motor carrier requiring or permitting a driver to violate it. Wyoming does not restate that ban in statute, but it keeps its motor carrier rules aligned with it: W.S. 31-18-303 gives the Department of Transportation rulemaking authority over motor carrier drivers, equipment and hazardous materials, and W.S. 31-18-303(c) says that unless the department makes an exception after public hearings under the Wyoming Administrative Procedure Act, the rules of the department shall be current with rules adopted by the United States Department of Transportation, as now or hereafter amended. The practical enforcement point is W.S. 31-18-301(c), which lets department field investigators, Highway Patrol troopers and authorised personnel compel a commercial driver to stop and submit the vehicle to inspection by signs at ports of entry or other designated locations.

One distinction Wyoming never draws is worth flagging. Several states separate a passive detector, which only receives, from an active jammer, which transmits to defeat the measurement. No Wyoming statute mentions either, so there is no state offence specific to a jammer and no state definition distinguishing the two. Anyone considering an active device is looking at federal communications law rather than at the Wyoming Statutes.

There is no Wyoming offence for possessing or using a radar detector in a private passenger vehicle, so there is no fine, no forfeiture and no licence consequence. Two adjacent exposures remain. S. S. S. 31-5-1201(b) sets the fine at not more than $200 for a first conviction, not more than $300 for a second conviction of the same offence within one year, and not more than $500 or up to six months, or both, for a third or subsequent conviction of the same offence within one year of the first.

R. S. S. 31-18-301(c). Because Wyoming has no periodic motor vehicle safety inspection, a private driver never encounters a lane where a detector could be found and no equipment certificate is at stake.