Delegate seeking to lift Va. ban on radar detectors
Newly elected Chesterfield Dem introduces 2 bills
A new Democratic House member who quietly flipped a Chesterfield County district long held by Republicans wants Virginia to rethink its decades-old ban on radar detectors.
Virginia was for decades the only state to ban radar detectors for private vehicles. Mississippi is the only other state to ban them, under a law enacted in 2020.
The radar detector bill (House Bill 180), filed by Del.-elect Debra Gardner, D-Chesterfield, would allow drivers — except for those in commercial vehicles such as delivery trucks or tractor-trailers — from equipping vehicles with radar detectors.
It is one of two bills the new delegate introduced with important changes to Virginia criminal law.
Gardner, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, is also proposing to end a requirement that sentences for people convicted on multiple charges when the charges involve certain crimes be served consecutively — one after the other — rather than concurrently. This is House Bill 179.
The result has been prison terms of 100 years or more.
Gardner’s radar detector bill would retain language dating back to 1998 that bans devices that interfere with radar or laser speed monitoring devices.
The measure is likely to draw opposition from law enforcement agencies.
“This would interfere with the enforcement of speed laws,” said Dana Schrad, executive director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police.
“Violation of speed laws has led to a serious problem with speed related crashes,” she said. “We will oppose this legislation.”
The great radar detector debate has been an off and on discussion in the Virginia legislature for decades.
In 2010, Del. Joe T. May, R-Loudoun, got a bill to remove the prohibition to the floor of the House, where it was defeated. In 2015 Del. Dave LaRock, R-Loudoun — who had defeated May in a 2013 GOP primary — introduced a repeal bill that was left to languish in a House Transportation committee and never reached the floor.
One rationale that proponents of radar detectors espouse is that the devices help motorists avoid speed traps. In 2011, a Hopewell traffic-enforcement program ran 14 hours a day, seven days a week along a 1- to 2-mile section of Interstate 295 through the city. Hopewell nabbed so many motorists who exceeded the 70 mph speed limit as they briefly passed through the city that the stretch came to be known as the “million-dollar mile.”
Eleven Hopewell sheriff ’s deputies, all but one of whom were part time, wrote 14,778 tickets in 2011 with $2,056,387 in assessed fines, with more than $1.6 million of that being collected, the Sheriff ’s Office said in February 2012. Seventy-five percent of those cited were from out of state.
Police say one reason to continue to bar radar detectors is that “routine” traffic stops sometimes lead to arrests in more serious crimes. They also say it is a common sense prohibition.
In 2003 State Police spokesman Dave Chewning told The Times-Dispatch: “Why equip thousands of officers across the state with equipment to combat speeding and then allow the citizens to go out and buy equipment to try to defeat it?”
Opponents also note that speed is a key contributing factor to traffic crashes in Virginia. In 2022 Virginia had 122,434 crashes, with 1,005 fatalities and 59,404 injuries, according to the annual Crash Facts report from the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Virginia Highway Safety Office.
The report noted that 24,877 of the crashes were speed-related and involved 441 fatalities and 13,051 injuries. Speed was a more prevalent factor than alcohol. The report found that 6,910 of the crashes were alcohol-related and involved 274 fatalities and 4,174 injuries.
Consecutive sentences
Gardner’s consecutive sentence law would eliminate language that says mandatory minimum sentences for some crimes have to be served consecutively.
This language, like the mandatory minimum requirement itself, means judges have no discretion to modify a sentence, no matter what the circumstances of a crime.
In Virginia, the mandatory minimum sentences imposed for some 200 crimes, most dealing with drug or firearms offenses, cannot be served concurrently.
Consecutive mandatory minimum sentences are also required when a person is convicted for three or more times of violating a protective order, of being involved in gang activity on school grounds.
A similar bill last year, sponsored by state Sen. Joe Morrissey, D-Petersburg, passed the Senate after he told the story of a juvenile sentenced to 33 years after accompanying two adults who robbed seven people; the juvenile was convicted of seven firearms charges; but what would have been at most a five-year term for any them turned into a 33-year sentence because they had to be served consecutively. Because the adults arranged a plea deal that dropped some of the charges, the sentence for one was six years and for the other was 12 years.
Morrissey’s bill died in a House Courts of Justice subcommittee on a partyline vote, but this year, that panel will have a Democratic majority.
Gardner, a longtime social worker and counselor, was elected Nov. 7 in House District 76, a Democrat-leaning part of Chesterfield. She defeated Republican Duc Truong, receiving 64% of the vote.
Virginia lawmakers convene Jan. 10 for a scheduled 60-day session that will be highlighted by efforts to reach agreement on a two-year budget for July 1 2024 through June 30, 2026. Democrats are likely to hold a 51-49 edge in the House of Delegates and a 21-19 edge in the state Senate pending the outcome of two special elections on Jan. 9.