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New Speed Cameras Catch You From Space
A new kind of speed camera that uses satellites to measure average speed over long distances is being tested in Britain. The "Speedspike" system combines plate reading technology with a global positioning satellite receiver to calculate average speed between any two points in the area being monitored. From the article: "Details of the trials are contained in a House of Commons report. The company said in its evidence that the cameras enabled 'number plate capture in all weather conditions, 24 hours a day.' It also referred to the system's 'low cost' and ease of installation." I can't wait to see the episode of MythBusters where they try to avoid getting a speeding ticket from a satellite.
This isn't about speeding tickets. This is about creating a nationwide tracking system for Britain's highways. If they have cameras that can recognize license plates along Britain's highways, with all the information from all the cameras aggregated in one database, do you think they won't give the police access to this information to help track criminals?
Given the recent history in Britain, it's a safe bet that the police will have immediate warantless access to this information, and thus the ability to track all the cars in Britain. I'm not sure this is completely a bad thing, but there are certainly some significant privacy concerns at play here. What if police officers decide to abuse this information? What sort of checks are in place to make sure it's only used for legitimate purposes? I could be wrong, and they might not be giving police access to the camera data, but, given the recent history, I would be shocked if they weren't.
Well, I'm glad you're at least that self aware.
A moment's thought would reveal that the road distance cannot be shorter than the straight line distance. If you set the cameras up to calculate speed based on the time and straight line distance, then the actual vehicle speed must be at least that speed or faster. They only have to show that you must have exceeded the speed limit, not exactly what speed you were doing.
Well, golly, you've got them there. There's no way they could set up the camera sites so that they can show that the calculated speed exceeded the maximum for any of the possible routes. I mean, an $80 SatNav can do those sort of devilish calculations, but no human is capable of such infernal feats of arithmagic!
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Technology does not have such a thing as "natural evolution". Technology's evolution is guided by human beings according to certain needs and rationales.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Speed limits and speeding tickets are a huge scam. They are mostly in place to generate revenue, not improve safety.
Speed limits should be abolished, and police officers merely told to pull over people who are driving recklessly. This would improve safety and eliminate some of the antagonism people have towards the police.
I was recently ticketed for doing 56 in a 40 zone. The problem is this 40 zone stops at the bottom of a highway offramp. I would have had to slam on the brakes to get from 70 (highway speed) to 40 in the amount of distance I was given to do it. This might have caused me to get rear-ended. Yet there was a speed trap just in front of the end of the ramp. There was hardly any traffic. I wasn't being unsafe. Yet they stopped me anyway.
They should go after the kids who do 90MPH in a 40 residential neighborhood with straight pipes on their cars making noise at 3AM. But there's not enough money in that.