“… the device was a total failure.”
Air Date: December 18, 1997
Summary: ABC 20/20’s News Segment
Correspondent: Arnold Diaz
Hugh Downs:
“We know a lot of men like to get gadgets for Christmas, but if your thinking that a radar jammer is just the thing for men that drive fast, Arnold Diaz found that you better think again”.
Arnold Diaz:
What could be better… a device that could make your car invisible to the police radar guns!
Impossible, not according to the huge ads appearing in USA Today for The Phazer. The unit that mounts on your windshield supposedly jams police radar and laser signals so the police cannot measure your speed.
Wally Buys A Jammer
Wally, a traveling salesman, purchased one unit for himself and another for his father, after reading testimonials from police departments and universities. But “poor Wally” he got a ticket and so did his father.
What’s wrong says experts is that The Phazer can jam radar and laser at 10 feet or so, but take it on the road where the police can be 1,000 feet or so, it appears to be totally useless.
Richard Costello of Cooper Union Engineering says after his examination of The Phazer he saw nothing inside the device that would make the unit work as advertised.
Connecticut State Police vs. The Phazer
Using police radar and laser guns the officers got a reading every time. “This device was an total failure.”
What about those testimonials?
University of Denver researcher R.R. D. PhD said his quote was taken our of context.
So does the spokesman from the Nebraska State Patrol who added “The Phazer is a piece of {expletive deleted} that doesn’t work.”
As for the road test report printed on Tennessee Parks Patrol letter head, the spokesman says that there was no such test and that they didn’t know where they got their letterhead.
Rocky Mountain Radar Offers No Comment
20/20 tried to get a comment from Rocky Mountain Radar to explain these inconsistencies, but they had no comment.
The Rocky Mountain Radar unit was a complete flop and if you were to find a unit under the Christmas tree “it would be the first present I would bring back to Santa, and I would consider a Pet Rock or Chia Pet”.
