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

Can anyone tell me what municipalities they know of that use Photo Radar (automated speed enforcement)?

I was recently caught by a mobile video system that was lurking in the back of a plain-clothes Mondeo estate car. This was on the Dumfries to Stranraer road. I saw the unit as I passed. The video camera was on a tripod and was aiming out of the rear window of the car. There were no flashing lights and no indication at all that any of this was recording the car as it went by. I can only presume the "shutter" speed (or equivalent) was set to a high speed, to eliminate blurring of the picture, and the time between frames was well calibrated to enable the speed to be calculated.
Other cameras seen around the country are populated "randomly" with video tape (or film) on an unknown (to the public) basis. If you are going to be caught, then you must gamble on the camera NOT being loaded with film.

TTFN
Freddie.

From my previous message.
Areas I know of that use these cameras are:-
Sheffield
Newcastle upon Tyne
Some areas of Leeds
Doncaster
Whitley Bay
The A1 between Newcastle and Edinburgh, every half mile (well it looks like that!)
The A1 between Newark and Leicester
The A14 "next to" Cambridge.

I know of people who have been caught on all of these. But not me. Only on sneaky video cameras!

TTFN
Freddie

Damn cameras are just about everywhere in South London these days

And they're all over the Motorway network, wherever there are roadworks, narrowed lines and unusually low speed limits(50mph or 40mph). I've recently been flashed at by these cameras on both the M40 down South and the M60 up here round Manchester. I'm crossing my fingers the film wasn't loaded

Here there's a fine of $175 (call it 100 pounds) for going 20km over. I consider it a sneaky money grabbing (etc) rather than a public safety issue. Cameras esp. and speed traps in general don't take variables like weather, road conditions, traffic into account. I've been on an empty highway on a clear, dry day and the only other vehicle you see in an hour is some goof in the ditch zapping your speed (which, of course, has been reduced accordingly until past said goof).

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Speed cameras on motorways are the majo cause of people doing the speed limit in the outside lane. The outside lane is for overtaking, not doing the speed limit (or so my first (of two) driving examiners told me). So...if you're in the outside lane, doing the speed limit and there are cameras around, move the f**k over 'cos I'm coming through.

I agree with the earlier post, cameras are just a cheap way of _them_ making money.

My better half was coerced into speeding by a car carrying four coppers (count 'em FOUR for crying out loud, in one car, no wonder there's so much real crime and so few coppers on the beat). They were driving right up her exhaust pipe before they pulled her over. Dead upset she was. I had to drive her to a pub so she could steady her nerves. And I had to drink coffee, in a pub (sheesh) 'cos I had to drive.

Coppers, cameras. You gotta luv 'em or hate 'em. Personally, I don't like 'em very much. But that's only because 'hate' is so negative.

There are quite a few in South Wales, of all types. I got done outside Swansea a couple of years ago by one that had just appeared on a bridge.

If anyone from the Swansea area reads this, my police informant tells me that the 3 permanent cameras in Pontlliw are now filming again.

If you have a motor bike, (no number plates on the front) they flash at about 50mph if you drive towards them.

My police spy also tells me that these new laser type thingies that scan the number plate and automatically trigger off vehicle excise duty checks are/will be trialled in the South Wales area

I have just been told that the latest speed cameras on the A14 stretch use infra-red flash (so you can't see it) and the camera FACES YOU. Great if you're a motorcyclist, no front number plate to be seen. But the slave flash idea wouldn't work in this instance. A nice idea though.

Life? You either hate it or ignore it, but you can't LIKE it. From the first RADIO series of h2g2, said by Marvin the p.a. (I believe?)

TTFN

Freddie.

Couple of posts thought that photo radar is just a way for municipalities to make money...this is not universally true...several towns have had to discontinue the program because the costs were too high, and others keep it around, operating at a loss, because of the positive effects they perceive it to have.

I was more looking for the agencies that RUN the photo radar programs...not the actual roads they are used on...any help?

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I love having my Radar Detector here in Michigan, USA. Perfectly legal here, which I am assuming it is not across the pond.
Ever been followed by a cop knowing that he was radaring the opposing traffic? I did this morning and my ears are still ringing like bells
-noweb4u

Radar detectors are legal here but they take all the fun out of it and stop people driving as cautiously as they do here. Then again we do seem to have more reasonable speed limits too.

There's a UK company called Sureway that is involved with some of this; I don't know how big their involvement is, but they were definitely talking about it a few years back.

The UK police are experimenting with a new type of speed camera.

Located on bridges on the motorway, the camera takes a digital image of your car as it passes a known location on the road. The date and time are also recorded. When you pass the next bridge, another image is taken and so on.

The software can "read" your number plate and knows the precise times you were at location 1 and location 2. As it also knows the distance between these 2 points it can calculate your average speed between them. If your average speed is over the limit - expect a ticket!

As there is no expensive and time consuming film developing to be done, expect this new type of camera to be appearing near you soon. Yet another way for the Government to extort cash from the already overtaxed motorist!

Of course, you could always stick to the speed limit. Just a suggestion!

A good way of limiting traffic speed is to stand on motorway bridges with a torch and a couple of toilet rolls.

I doubt the slave flash idea would work with the current UK speed cameras (made by Gatso?), since they take 2 exposures with a short fixed interval between to allow the determination of speed by comparing the distance the car has moved between the flashes relative to the white road markings.
You'd either need a flashgun sophisticated enough to not dump all its stored energy into the flash tube in one go, and with circuitry that was capable of retriggering after a minimal delay, or two flashes with some extra circuitry to disable the second flash until after the first one has fired.

The photodiode detectors in most slave units actually trigger off infrared light already. For triggering distant slave flashes in cave photography without burning out nearby objects, I already use a 'darkflash' (a flashgun shielded to block visible light generation), constructed by taping a couple of layers of developed, but unexposed slide film over the front. I believe something like half the energy generated by a flash tube is actually IR light, so there's plenty to trigger the flashes.

If the use of slave flashes became widespread, it would be terribly easy for a police car to be set up with a darkflash firing at intervals to trigger the slave unit on any cars in range, and make it blindingly obvious who has fitted slave flashes in an attempt to defeat speed cameras.
I doubt the police would be at all impressed by someone trying to cheat the cameras, and I'm sure the attachment of flashguns would rapidly be made illegal, if it isn't already covered by the provisions of some existing motoring law. Alternatively, the speed camera itself could easily be fitted with a darkflash to pre-trigger the car's slave unit(s).

The only way to make things work would be to have to have a slave unit that only triggered on visible light. Even then, the camera could simply send a few low-intensity visible preflashes, and you're back to square one.

Regarding the IR cameras - they could also send out a stream of IR preflashes to defeat any IR detector / IR flash unit.

Watch out for Speed Cameras The Next Generation. Set at anything from about a mile to, well unlimited distance apart really, these log who you are and the time. As they no the distance you have travelled between and works out the speed needed to cover that distance. If you have gone too fast, the tough. But as someone says Speed Kills, I always stick to the limits where there is mixed traffic (cars, bikes, pedestrians, children, animals) but on the open roads well....

CH

Speed absolutely does not kill. Many things about accidents will be worse if they happen at faster speeds, but it's still the bad driving that kills. To say that speed kills makes an assumption that every driver on the road is as bad as the worst possible driver. It certainly is possible to driver faster than your skills or reaction time can compensate for, but decent drivers know where that limit is.

This isn't an argument for no speed limits, just an argument for sensible limits and sensible enforcement. How about stopping that idiot who was mostly going the speed limit but moving recklessly back and forth between lanes and tailgating each car until he could get around? Cite the cars that squat in the passing lane going too slow (for not moving over), cite the tailgaters, cite the people not using their signals. And require retesting every few years in order to keep a license. (And, coming from a definite US perspective, how about making the test more rigorous? Our tests here to get a license don't make you demonstrate much in the way of knowledge of rules or skills.)