Vehicle · Radar detectors
Are Radar Detectors Legal? State Laws
Whether a radar detector is legal in a private passenger car in each state, the penalty where it is banned, and the separate federal rule for commercial trucks. Each cited to the statute.
Read this first: legal in most states, banned in Virginia
For a private passenger car, a radar detector is legal in almost every state, including 5 of the states here. That is not because a law says you may use one; it is because no statute bans it. The one clear exception in this set is Virginia, which prohibits using or even possessing a radar detector in a moving vehicle.
Two things trip people up. First, a federal rule bans radar detectors in commercial vehicles nationwide, so a truck driver is covered no matter which state they are in. Second, mounting anything on the windshield can run into a separate obstruction-of-view rule even where the detector itself is legal. Every page links to the statute, or to the code chapter read for the states where the answer is that nothing prohibits it.
Pick your state
The verdict, any penalty, and the statute or code chapter on each card.
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F
I
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What these pages are, and what they aren't
Each state page is a reference for the radar detector rule and the neutral steps around it. They are deliberately not advice for your stop: commercial use, window mounting, and jammers are governed separately, so each page links to the statute or the code it was read against. This is legal information, not legal advice.