My 2010 Prius set-off NYPD Radiation Detectors

I hope my title grabbed some attention, because the event sure did!! So let me share my experience yesterday with NYPD...

Around 2:30pm I was stopped at a red light in Manhattan, at 34th St. and 7th Avenue (South bound), I'm on the right most lane. NYPD cruiser was also stopped on forward left side of the my vehicle. All the sudden, they jumped out their vehicle and started to scan the area with a little black device that was beeping.

On the sidewalk to my right, there were some construction workers. The cops scanned their area but only had a faint beep. When they walked back toward their vehicle, crossing paths with mine, the little device started to go off again.

By this point, they gave me a suspicious look, hands on their weapon, but not drawn... and began reading my plates and started to investigate further. The other cop got on the radio, and i believe was communicating the situation while the other began questioning me if "I had something" in the vehicle.

It didnt help that the President was in town either! So this made things somewhat more intense for the cops. I remained calm but very curious why I was being questioned!

They asked for my Driver's license, which gave me the oppurtunity to also present my military ID, I was prior service in the Marines, discharged about 3 yrs ago. Once they found out I was military, it calmed the situation a little bit, but they were still disturbed by the fact that I was setting off the Radiation detector.

"You or your vehicle is reading 70 uR/h in our meter". So I replied which one is it?!? Me or my car?? He asked me if I was ever in Iraq and if so, did I come contact with nuclear substance... I did deploy twice, and I have no idea if I was ever exposed, the gov't never ran any test on us... which raised another concern.

They refused to scan me independtly from the Prius. And suggested I'd go see a doctor. So tomorrow, I've scheduled an appt. to clear this out. I certainly hope its not me!!! But I certainly hope its not the car either!


I don't know what 70uR/h is, can anyone explain it?. I've read an article about Prius and other hybrids have some EMF levels, but would that be enough to set off a cop's radiation detector?

Thanks in advance,
Josephus



Hopefully, I'm clear

Can't really believe Gamma Radiation can come from the car, but not an expert in this field. I am glad your going to the Dr. though. Here was an article I found on the readings you were quoted which IMO, appear to be high. Please Follow up and let us know what the Dr. Says. This was an exposure from radioactivity in a particular area and the associated affect on the population.

Of all viltages located in the 30-km zone, only Georgievka suffered from contamination.
The values measured there are indicated below. At the remaining
14 places (Malinovka, Aleksandrovskoe, kolkhoz "Rassvet", Kopylovo, Kuzovlevo,
Bobrovka, Mikhailovka, Nadezhda, Dzerzhinski, Timiryazevo, Zerkaltsevo, Berezovka,
Porosino and Nelyubino), gamma dose rate amounted to 7 - 14 /iR/h between
April 6 and 12, 1993. At the villages of Karakozovo, Tyukalovo, Yegorovo
and Karyukina, a value smaller than 10 /iR/h was determined. At Tomsk-7 and
Tomsk, the gamma dose rate was 12 /iR/h which corresponded to the natural
gamma background. On the route from Naumovka to Georgievka, the gamma
radiation field was found to have a spot-like structure:
3.0 km away from Naumovka, 3 m away from road 150-160 pR/h
50-100 m away from road 30 /iR/h
3.5 km away from Naumovka 17-30 /*it/h
1.0 km away from Georgievka, on the road surface 70 uR/h
After the accident, gamma exposure rate at Georgievka increased tr> 28-42 /iR/h.
At certain points on the northern fringe of the village, even values of up to 60 /iR/h
were recorded. The values measured at Georgievka are represented in Fig. 3.1.
Here, the gamma exposure rates are given in f»R/h for certain points of the village.
A mean dose rate of 27 /iR/h was attained. The gamma exposure rates on
the streets were smaller, while on the untouched snow in the surroundings they
were found to be very much higher. Here, values of 40 /iR/h were attained. In
the fields outside of Georgievka, a value of 30 /iR/h was measured. The measurements
on the surface of the ground thus revealed that radioactive contamination
of the ground was extremely heterogeneous. This was attributed above all to the
existence of hot particles in the aerosol products deposited on the snow.
The results of radioisotopic analysis of two snow samples taken at Georgievka
six days after the accident (April 12, 1993) are obvious from table 3.3. According
to these data, contamination at Georgievka was mainly caused by

95Nb and 106Ru,
while 95Zr was of minor importance. Contamination by 103Ru could be neglected.
AH these isotopes are relatively short-lived and, hence, did not appear when determining
the composition of the gross radioactive background. They merely represented
accident products. Background contamination by 90Sr of global origin
amounted to about 0.03 Ci/km2.
Therefore, concentration of this isotope in the snow could also be neglected. It
must be pointed out that 90Sr was almost exclusively contained in the aqueous
fraction, while the gamma-emitting isotopes were bound to the suspended fractions.
Total density of radioactive contamination at Georgievka was 1.6 Ci/km2.
The contamination densities of the individual isotopes in the Georgievka area
were calculated at a mean gamma dose rate of the entire village of N7„ 0=27
/iR/h. They are given in the bottom line of table 3.3. The formulas applied for the
calculation are presented in Annex 1. The calculations are based on the assumption
of a natural gamma background of N7« = 10/iR/h. The calculated results are
in good agreement with the measured values. Contamination of Georgievka by
plutonium (0.1 mCi/km2) can hence be neglected.
On the basis of the data given in table 3.3, external gamma irradiation of the
local population may be approximated. For this purpose, it is assumed that no
migration of the population takes place. Shielding of the gamma radiation by the
walls of the houses and production facilities is neglected. The film contamination
of the ground (upper dose value) was calculated using the dose coefficients given
in Annex 1 and taking into account the natural isotope migration into the ground.

Ris«t-R-750(EN) 17

Hey Josephus - I hope your clear as well and the Dr. visit clears it all up.

After some searching I found some info on the CDC site about reading the meters and what to do in a first responder situation. Maybe it will give you a little info as to the measurements and what they may have been thinking when they stopped you.

CDC Radiation Emergencies

Good luck at the Dr., let us know how it goes!

That is disturbing... Thanks for the info... I'll update as soon as they let me know what the heck is going on. Can anyone interpret these measurements and what levels may be of concern to an individual's health. I haven't found anything around the internet that clearly explains it ... yet...

Ego maniacs at their best

Or go find a cop and have him run his meter again. On both you in the car and out.

It's probably the car's flux capacitor. Unfortunate but our only answer until weather can be more accurately predicted, or until the Mr. Fusion can be readied for the mass market.


(Seriously, hope everything's OK. I don't know what could be up. I doubt the Prius is radioactive, but I'd probably be a bit concerned if I were you. Actually I'd probably be a bit more concerned if I were those cops, too. I mean, either this was a concerning level of radiation in which case you'd think the cops would have done a little more investigating, or it's not a concerning level, and they shouldn't have freaked you out.)

Hell maybe they just wanted a close look at a new Prius.

10-15 uR/hr is considered safe (normal). Your exposure while higher than normal should not be an imediate health risk. My suggestion is to get it checked out and don't panic.

Thanks, I feel somewhat better. But you're right I'm not going to the doctor, I'm going to have the VA check me out, get my blood checked out. My worst fear is I may have got something while over-seas, while searching through bombed out bunkers and impact crater analysis etc... Maybe that cop's inexperience with the detector was a blessing in disguise...

I know this post wasn't truly for a radioactive prius, but I was in my prius when it happened, and I know theres have plenty of intelligent people in this forum. So I thank everyone who responded so far!

I did, not all of them carry it. I'll get to the bottom of this hopefully by week's end.

First off, ionizing radiation has NOTHING to do with electromagnetic frequencies or EMF. The cop's detector was measuring ionizing radiation.

Did you mean 70 microrad/hr? If so, that's an exceedingly low dose rate. Annual exposure limit according to the US Government for people not working with radiation sources is 0.1 rem (essentially rad). At the assumed rate, you'd reach this exposure limit in 59.5 days. Natural background (cosmic rays, trace radioactive elements in the ground, in buildings, etc) is 0.3 mrad/yr or 34 microrad/hr. Bet you didn't know you were always being exposed to radiation! So, the cops were apparently measuring something 2x background . . . a marginal measurement.

I've recently driven thru the Blaine border crossing (lots of radiation detectors) into the US in my Prius, and wasn't stopped. They have freaked out over people coming thru who have had radioisotope-based (thallium) medical diagnostics for heart issues. If my Prius were "hot", the border guards would have had me under a bright light getting the third degree.

By some chance, have you had some cardiac treadmill testing recently?

If you were in Iraq, you might have been exposed to dust from depleted uranium from armor-piercing rounds. You could go have some measurements done at a nuclear medicine dept. at a hospital. A regular doctor would have no way of making these measurements. You might want to talk to a VA doctor/hospital about this. The term "depleted" means that the uranium has been refined to remove almost all of the radioactive isotopes of uranium, leaving the stable isotope U-238. A very, very small amount of the unstable, radioactive isotopes will remain.

It's also very possible that the NYPD radiation detector was either out of calibration or not being used by someone who knew what they were doing.

I hope the Japanese didn't put radiation in these cars for some type of revenge for WWII.

You have a hot Prius.

You're kidding, right? For some reason you set off a NYC radiation detector and you decide not to go to a doctor ASAP because a complete stranger on the Internet tells you not to bother? Oh that's right, the same stranger told you the people actually responsible for taking radiation reading in NYC during a Presidential visit must have been too stupid to read the meter. Didn't your mom ever warn you about this stuff?

Hopefully you have no medical issues but I would call a specialist right away and tell them what happened -- there should be no problem finding one in NYC. I bet you can get a quick appointment. And then I would get a second opinion. The VA could be one opinion but I would still want to see a private specialist, after all it's not like the VA would ever cover anything up. So I would schedule an appointment with both and go to both. If I couldn't get a quick appointment or if my hair started falling out, I would go to the ER at a good hospital.

Good luck!

Repo Man - Wikiquote

First, after 9/11 I would bet that nearly every ER in NYC has a Geiger counter. Maybe not in Nixa, MO, but the OP should have no problem being checked out quickly in NYC. And if the hospital has its own lab, the blood work would likely be back within an hour.

Second, I seriously doubt you are an ER doctor because no doctor would say "at those levels" w/o knowing what those levels really are. How do you know the OP even got the units right? Wouldn't you want to measure them yourself?

Third, the levels were at the distance of the cop from the source. The OP was much closer and may be the source (the cop was too far away to tell which), in which case his exposure would be higher.

Fouth, if the OP is the source, then he is emitting the radiation. And I would think that quick attention would be a rather good idea.