Regarding a Feb. 16 article in the Lake section by Flynn McRoberts (“Road gunners: Laser takes speed trap into future”): Radar seems to be on the way out because of the cancer danger to the private parts of police. Laser guns are taking over.
McRoberts writes that laser’s big advantage over radar is precision. At 1,000 feet radar scatters to 210 feet, while laser spreads to 4 feet. These lasers must be very powerful!
While attending various computer shows, I’ve run across laser pointers that are used for pointing to graphs and charts during business meeting.
These little pen-like things spread about 5 or 10 inches at 30 feet and are powered by little penlight batteries. It seems to me that I recall grave warnings about potential eye damage if they are pointed in the wrong direction.
Are we switching the potential of cancer to the police for the potential of blinding motorists? These guns are already being used in Wheaton and Glenwood, and are ready for use on Chicago area tollways.
At this point, I do not care about what precautions are in effect, or how safely the guns are going to be used, or any other governmental or manufacturers’ assurances. We can argue about that later.
What I want to know is, at what distance are these new laser guns harmful to the eye? At what distance do they burn away the optic nerve?
