h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There is an industro-military firm in Southern California that has developed a system that uses a sensor to detect automobiles in the middle of an intersection. It snaps licence plate level photos (ostensibly) after the light has turned red. This is interesting, in that not everyone is being watched, only those who are actually violating the law.

The system seems to be being abused by that company already, however, as it contracts with the government that maintains the signals (this is usually a city or a county in California) to get a share of the resulting fines. There are lawsuits about.

Dear Sea Change,

Great. Here in the UK, traffic fines used to go to central government - but they will soon go straight to the local authorities that enforce them, so doubtless new levels of creativity in catching drivers will be reached.

You don't by any chance happen to know the name of the company, do you? (Or have any web-links?)

Cheers,

SA Mathieson

Lockheed-Martin Information Management Systems - Photo Enforcement Group (known as LMIMS-PEG, which was formerly known as U.S. Public Technologies, Inc.)

If you cut and paste the above into the Google search engine, you will get a page or two that have many useful links.

The cities in question are Oxnard (the original city) and San Diego (where the lawsuits are happening). Los Angeles and West Hollywood have this system on only a few of their most dangerous lighted intersections.

I take the bus and walk as I can (not too often, you really do need a car in LA). During the twilight and night the system uses a flash, and so you can see the priceless facial expressions made by those caught from the sidewalk.