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Smart Cars Tell You About Road Signs
Roland Piquepaille writes "There are many systems designed to help car drivers and to improve safety. In this article, New Scientist focuses on a system developed by the National ICT Australia lab (NICTA). This new driver assistance system uses three cameras, one to look at road signs ahead and two to check what the driver is looking at. The images are transmitted to a computer which decodes the road signs and the driver's reactions to them. If you're driving above speed limits, you will be alerted. Same thing if you're about to pass a stop sign without reducing speed. You still can choose to ignore the warnings, but if you're caught speeding, you'll have to tell the police officer why you refused to slow down. This system is currently being tested and appears to perform well especially in poor lighting conditions. Read more for other references about similar helping systems and to see how the road signs are analyzed."
With the way Aussies put up road signs, you need this.
In Melbourne, they tend to have one sign indicating what the next exit is so if you miss it, your out of luck. Maybe that explains so many people making a mad dash towards the exit and the resulting wrecks.
Street name signs are even worse. On three lane roads, they use small signs that you can't read until its too late to indicate and then turn.
If your on a side street you better know the major roads because there won't be any street name signs when you cross larger roads. They also insist the the sign be on the side of the pole that the road is on so it sort of points down the road. Of course that means that 25% to 50% of all street signs are hidden from some place on the intersection where people might want to be able to read the signs. Sometimes it seems that they look at an intersection to find the one spot that won't be lit up by a street light and choose that to be the location for the street name signs.
Add in lack of lane ending signs added with the habiit of ending the slow lane on the highway. When there is a lane ending sign it will be a white with words. Not the yellow diamond picture warning signs that cost less and follow the rules about sign colors.
And maybe he/she will have to explain why they use speed "enforcement" as a means of generating revenue and a means of generating an excuse to search people's cars.
MA did a survey of traffic stops and found overwhelmingly black drivers were stopped, searched, and issued tickets more than white drivers. White women had the absolute lowest rates as well. There was one notable exception- the MA state police were almost dead even for all races, genders, and age groups. Town police departments were the worst "offenders".
Speed enforcement is just an excuse for getting into your wallet, and your car. It's extremely selectively enforced; the cops don't pull over everyone(next time you're on the road, look down at your speedo. Notice the car in front of you and behind you and all around you- they're all doing the same speed), they only pull over who they want to. It's extremely abused and results in gender, age, and racial profiling. It has absolutely nothing to do with safety(number one cause of highway deaths? Drunk driving).
Oh, and those laser speed guns? Guess who put them in the hands of your friendly local police officer? Geico. No conflict of interest there, no sir, not an insurance company giving police officers a device that, every time it is used, causes someone's insurance rate to go through the roof, despite no evidence speeding causes accidents. What a great money maker. No increased risk, but lots of increased revenue!
Please help metamoderate.