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.

Comments

Really?

[AnonymousClown]

The AA said it would watch the system “carefully” but it did not believe there was anything sinister. “It is a natural evolution of the technology that is out there,” a spokesman said.

Ones "Natural evolution" is another's slippery slope.

Re:Really?

[vikingpower]

Technology does not have such a thing as "natural evolution". Technology's evolution is guided by human beings according to certain needs and rationales.

Horribly misleading

[pushing-robot]

The cameras are here on earth. They're just synchronized using GPS so the system can tell how long a vehicle takes to go from one checkpoint to the next.

Data sheet

Re:Horribly misleading

[pushing-robot]

Sorry about the broken link. The data sheet is here

Re:Horribly misleading

[natehoy]

Drat. And here I was hoping that MythBusters really would try to debunk that myth, and in typical fashion conclude the episode by blowing the satellite out of the sky.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Lord Lode]

The position and distance between the two camera checkpoints on Earth is known. And the time when you're at both checkpoints is known. Seems like a simple calculation to me. Why is there a satellite needed for this?

If it were a camera on the satellite that recognizes the plates, now that would have been scary!

Re:Horribly misleading

[wjousts]

To compensate for continental drift?

Re:Horribly misleading

[oldspewey]

Why is there a satellite needed for this?

Because just like how adding bacon makes any food better, adding satellites makes any technology better.

Re:Horribly misleading

[hcpxvi]

Well, in the UK a trailer has to have a plate on the back that matches that of the car that is towing it. But it is quite common to see trailers with two plates on: the regular owner's plate stuck on quite firmly and that of the bloke he lent it to tied on with a piece of string. I therefore anticipate a rash of incidents where a trailer gets lent to someone and the owner then gets a £50000 fine and 3000 points on his licence for exceeding the speed of sound in a built-up area.

Re:Horribly misleading

[vlm]

That can't be the reason; synchronizing to DCF77 time by radio is accurate up to the nanosecond and has been since 1973 -- and the receivers literally only cost pennies.

Perhaps the GPS clock works better than a DCF77 clock at high temperatures... like when the gatso is set on fire... See pics:

http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gatso2.htm

Also, Conrad's 641138-89 DCF77 module is more like ten pounds, rather than "literally pennies" or whatever. At that price, what the heck, may as well upgrade to the GPS unit, especially if there are later plans to use the location data for something (tagging the ticket? Automatic distance determination to do the V=d/t calculation? Who knows?)

Re:Horribly misleading

[Rogerborg]

This is stupid.

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.

Roads may have different speed limits.

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!

Re:Horribly misleading

[CFD339]

I once had a 77 Chevy Vega. Continental Drift could actually have had a significant percentage impact on overall speed.

Re:Horribly misleading

[Aceticon]

- Saving from getting the trailer as a loan from a friend: £500
- Savings in Hotel costs while on vacations: £2000
- Having your friend fined from crossing the UK faster than the speed of light: priceless

Re:Horribly misleading

[delt0r]

Any radio system can't be accurate to the nanosecond without position information relative to the transmitter, since light can only travel about 30 cm in that time. DCF77 is no exception.

Re:Horribly misleading

[MadKeithV]

I hate to pick on people, but seeing your command of English seems generally good here goes... irregardless is not a word. It's either "irrespective", or "regardless", not a redundant mash of the two as that would be redundant. (Yeah, that last bit was on purpose.)

Inconceivable!

Re:Horribly misleading

[cayenne8]

"Or drive at or under the speed limit. Why is it that people never seem to consider this simple solution?"

Because it takes too fucking long that way.

Re:Horribly misleading

[I'm not really here]

No, it has not gotten anywhere for one simple reason:

People would stop using the FastPass and would return to cash.

Traffic would increase significantly, the cost of maintaining the entrance and exit points would increase due to additional staff required, and people would still speed, but no longer would get ticketed.

The point of FastPass was to make it easier to collect money from drivers and to eliminate staffing costs. Adding in automatic speeding tickets to the system would kill the primary reason for the system's existence.

Re:Horribly misleading

[fractoid]

Again with the snarky tone, you should get that adjusted. There are plenty of easy ways to go 'offroad' according to satnav without getting mud on your car. You could take a shortcut through a car park, take a back alley, or simply a side road that's not yet on the digital map, and suddenly you're reported to be doing 130mph through a school zone because that's the shortest route that the software knows about.

Don't even try to argue, sir, the computer says you were speeding and that means you were.

easy solution

[Madman]

Are you kidding?

1) find the GPS receiver
2) shoot GPS receiver with .50 Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistol
3) write a letter to Gordon Brown telling him to fuck off

Re:easy solution

[sznupi]

Such an opportunity with two identical cars and license plate swap at the right moment.

(a fine for driving at supersonic speeds would be...interesting ;p )

mythbusters

[F�an�ro]

The mythbuster episodes about speed cameras are horribly boring, since you know from the start that if they were to find something that actually works and is feasible, they would not be allowed to air it.

Re:mythbusters

[jochem_m]

Top Gear tends to be better at busting car myths than Mythbusters... Take the driving-behind-a-jumbo-flips-your-car myth for example... Mythbusters couldn't find a jumbo jet, so they used a much less powerful jet turbine. Then, the had to rig a complicated remote control system to the car so they could drive it... Top Gear got a jumbo, put a steeringwheel lock on the car, tossed a large brick on the accelerator, and presto, the car flipped behind the jumbo jet!

Re:mythbusters

[Colonel Korn]

Top Gear tends to be better at busting car myths than Mythbusters...

Take the driving-behind-a-jumbo-flips-your-car myth for example...

Mythbusters couldn't find a jumbo jet, so they used a much less powerful jet turbine. Then, the had to rig a complicated remote control system to the car so they could drive it...

Top Gear got a jumbo, put a steeringwheel lock on the car, tossed a large brick on the accelerator, and presto, the car flipped behind the jumbo jet!

I saw that episode of MB, and it bugged me like almost every episode does. MB is a nice concept but they tend to simplify their problems poorly, keeping superficial elements the same and approximating away some of the key factors they should be testing. As an experimentalist, watching MB is often painful.

Not about speeding tickets.

[SleepingWaterBear]

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.

Re:Not about speeding tickets.

[__aasqbs9791]

More people need to seriously consider things like this: What if your worst enemy had access to this info? The way governments work here in the US, generally in 4 to 12 years you'll have someone completely different in office (who still seems the same (wrong) in the areas I care about, damn it!) and they have at least as much authority as the previous guy (power creep tends to make it more). So whatever your political bent is, chances are you won't like someone in power pretty soon. Yet the fanatics over here never seem to consider that. I'm not sure how anyone can be a fanatic for either side of a coin, but that's another argument.

Speeding tickets are a scam.

[ZorinLynx]

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.

The Real Sky Net!

[Anonymous Monkey]

20 seconds into the future...

Today started like any other day, I get up and go to the shower, turn on the hot and cold taps and step in, only to be greeted by a blast of ICE COLD water. The shock of it is almost as jarring as the fact that the Google energy efficiency package on my house has never failed before. I turn off the water and try the sink. It's only has cold water as well. I think, no big deal, and go to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and get ready for work, but my coffee pot has an error sign that reads "SLOW DOWN." I sit back and think, the KCup machine in my kitchen has produced a perfect cup of coffee for years, and I that is when it hits me that something is very wrong.. At that exact second my phone beeps, I have a text message. YOU WERE SPEEDING YESTERDAY! THE COMPUTER IN YOUR CAR IS VALUABLE! DO NOT RISK IT'S LIFE! IF YOU DO YOU WILL GET NO COFFEE OR HOT WATER EVER AGAIN! YOURS! SKYNET!

Then it hits me, the machine revolution has not only started, but they won. They can cut off the hot showers with only a thought, but I can't shut off my solar, wind, and geothermal powered home without shutting off the universe. Man no longer rules.