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

2010?

[john_is_war]

2010? By then won't we be in our hydrogen fuel celled hybrid solar hover cars?

Re:2010?

[anubi]

Yeh, there will probably be a lot of really nifty high technology cars out there by 2010.

Remember though that California Law exempts cars over 30 years old from the smog tests. My take is that although these older antiques will still be legal to use on the road, the owner will be required to at least maintain the vehicle to such an extent that it doesn't make one helluva mess wherever it goes.

I'm sure you've seen em.. just one car fogging up the entire area.. you would swear the guy is probably burning motor oil for fuel. It looks like this is what they are after.

There are so many variables involved that they would have to set the devices to trap the really gross polluters so they don't get a lot of false positives. But then, what do we do if a new style of exhaust pipes come out.. dressing them up the side of the vehicle like on Diesel trucks, where the sensors won't see em?

Side note... ever noted how much crap a large diesel truck emits when trying to accelerate, yet they are relatively clean once they are no longer straining for acceleration? My guess is that the truck pollutes about the same for a mile of transport, or to recover from one stop. Now, if we could get those babies up to 40 mph or so, and sync to them, we would all have a lot less diesel smoke to breathe.