SHARKS, GEEKS AND US; We infiltrate the biggest speed-enforcement test extravaganza in the country.(News)

Byline: PHIL BERG

We think of speed cops as the enemy, restless predators who can smell your car-guy scent from beyond your view, whose sharp high-technology teeth will coldly devour your ability to enjoy your passion.

To test our perception, we attached ourselves like remoras to an unlikely gathering of predator and prey. They meet annually on neutral ground, the Switzerland of speed enforcement, which consists of several deserted highways outside El Paso, Texas. It's a spot where weather favors consistent electronics testing and the participants bare their shields.

Here's what they said: Imagine mobile broadband service being adopted by the commercial trucking industry the way CB radios proliferated in the 1970s, and mix in simple GPS. Instead of broadcasting Smokey's location on a cheap two-way radio, a trucker's mouse click will record the coordinates of every traffic cop in the United States and display them all on a real-time navigation map in your car. Four-wheelers, of course, are free to join in the fun.

"It will come to that,'' says John Turner, a retired Marine who used to guard the sensitive nuclear parts of aircraft carriers and now makes high-end, custom-fit radar detectors under the brand name Tiger Lily for motorists. Serious motorists like us. "It's on the way; it's just a matter of time.''

But that doesn't mean the end of the shark-and-bait game of highway speed enforcement. Now, imagine a traffic cop sitting in the comfort of his Crown Vic and watching your bright yellow Z06 zooming eastbound on his laptop's real-time Google Earth image. He's 20 miles in front of you on I-70 in Hays, Kansas. He clocks your speed while watching the satellite-provided live motion picture and distantly, silently and undetectably waits until you're soon the catch of the day (if the courts agree that live images are the same as being there; thousands of tickets are automatically sent daily from the approximately 2000 red-light enforcement cameras in the United States without benefit of a live witness).

Today's technology is a steppingstone to the above far-off scenarios. Lidar (light detection and ranging) and legal lidar-jamming devices are here now. In 2006, lidar made up more than one-third of new enforcement weapon purchases, and that percentage is growing. There are at least eight legal lidar jammers available to motorists; several of them work effectively.