Citing Polluting Vehicles Using Roadside Sensors

Makarand writes "A regional southern Californian law will soon allow installation of roadside sensors to measure pollutants from tailpipes as vehicles accelerate. The sensors would then activate a camera to photograph the license plates of vehicles whose emissions are too high and the owner would be notified to bring his vehicle for a smog check. This would ensure that if a vehicle has developed a problem and become a polluter, the owner cannot wait till the next smog check date to fix the problem. The plan is to have these sensors in place by year 2010. As of now, the state depends on the mandatory vehicle smog checks and the Highway Patrol and travelers to report smoking vehicles."

Comments

Re:I am in shock and awed

[/dev/trash]

Probably will work better than citizens reporting cars, as they do now.

Re:Your sig

[BitGeek]

Cars do not harm you. That's the error in your logic.

Furthermore, you still don't understand what libertarianism is.

And finally, the idea that cars force us into war is absurd.

That big government socialists like you have caused hte governmetn to go to war with iraq is irrelevant to my right to drive cars. You are responsible for oyur own acctions (And I guarantee you voted for a big government socialist last election. If you hadn't you'd understand what libertarian means.)

Take the advice in the subject line, okay?

[Spamalamadingdong]

The sensors are placed on freeway entrance ramps (that's how they can catch pollution from vehicles accelerating). These are usually one lane, so only one vehicle goes by at a time; no question of nailing you for the car next to you. Further, if the sensor is reading continuously it is going to see how fast each car's plume dissipates and whether your car was actually adding to what was there before it or just driving through it.

Given California's pollution problems, finding ways to remove the gross polluters (the low-hanging fruit) means a huge savings because you can avoid having to eke out the fractional-percent in the remaining available improvements in other things. This is what cost-efficiency is about.

Re:Your sig

[Crashmarik]

While I would normally support the general concept of having government interfere in day to day life as little as neccessesary, your statement is idiotic.

The other day while driving home I was stuck behind an idiot with a shit exhaust system. After being behind him for more than 20 minutes I had the headache to end all headaches. Cars do harm you. Ask anyone who has been in an accident. Requiring that citizens do not go around harming each other is a basic function of government. Even ancient Sumer had a building code.

Please do not give me the libertarian line about letting people carry guns and sort things out amongst themselves. The only thing that would accomplish is make certain that there are alot of dead people lying around.