Slashdot Mirror
Multi-Target Photo-Radar System To Make Speeding Riskier
mrquagmire writes with this excerpt from Engadget:
"Go easy on the gas, Speed Racer, because Cordon is on its way. Developed by Simicon, this new speed sensor promises to take highway surveillance to new heights of precision. Unlike most photo radar systems, which track only one violator at a time, Simicon's device can simultaneously identify and follow up to 32 vehicles across four lanes. Whenever a car enters its range, the Cordon will automatically generate two images: one from wide-angle view and one closeup shot of the vehicle's license plate. It's also capable of instantly measuring a car's speed and mapping its position, and can easily be synced with other databases via WiFi, 3G or WiMAX."
I am dubious...
Fortunately South Carolina has Bubba.
Bubba comes in many shapes and sizes (mostly rotund). Bubba likes to shoot and shiny objects that Uncle Sam sets up alongside the road.
Bubba works for the good of mankind by filling full of holes things like street signs, street lights, and traffic cameras.
A speed limit sign, or deer-crossing sign you can just about still use even when it is full of holes. Speed cameras are pretty much useless after the first shot.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
How about you just don't speed, you jack-off...
Research has repeatedly shown that the safest drivers are around the 85th percentile by speed. If lots of people are breaking the speed limit, then it's set below that level. If the limit is set below that level and you drive below it, you're a more dangerous driver than many of those who are speeding.
Instead of complaining about tickets, run for office or attend government meetings and propose changes.
Yeah, that'll work.
'Look, I know you get a sizeable amount of your revenue from taxing those who drive at more than X mph, but you really should stop because it's very silly.'
You! The Google car team is clear about that, I am not sure why this keeps coming up again and again. Its you driving the car with aids, what ever they may be.
Seems like a very complicated way to collect taxes.
A useful application would be to target those vehicles which are going more than 10% (or 10km/h or whatever) faster than everyone else. That would actually improve safety and make the highway system more efficient (homogenous traffic reduces braking/lane changes and increases throughput). However, that's not the primary goal of highway speed enforcement so it will never happen
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
The 85th percentile of what?
Oh, of the speed people are going because of where the speed limit is set.
All speed limits are initialized to federal standard guidelines.
Almost never is a speed limit changed, except when the local OCD mommies get a hair up their ass and lower a perfectly good 50 to 35 for a 24/7 school zone, or a 40 to a 25 because their similarly brain-addled kids can't be trusted to stay the fuck out of the street.
I would be tempted to say that if you can't speed anymore, then the device has done its job. Supposedly, speed limits are here for the good of the people.
Now, if only those speed limits were defined in a sensible fashion. How many times have I seen 2x 3 lanes highway limited at 50kph ? (I live in France)
I'm sure in the US there are also those places where the speed limits are just... insanely ridiculous.
So, when it was down to getting caught by the occasional police officer hidden in the bushes, the game was fair. If those automated radars become commonplace, then for the game to remain fair, they *must* revisit speed limits in most places. Because if we have to respect those speed limits *everywhere*, driving is going to become a PITA pretty soon. And nobody will benefit from this.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
You meant driving the car with ads, right?
This is google we're talking about.
wow, those are interesting claims. data references please?
because my sources say speed cameras DO work, and on TWO DIFFERENT continents.
http://www.physorg.com/news140443278.html
http://alttransport.com/2010/10/7966/
nice try, Speed Trollster.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
It is safest to pass quickly and get back into your lane. It's unsafe to pass at a differential of 2-3 mph ("micropassing") because you end up on the wrong side of the road for a long time, giving more opportunity for bad things to happen (an intersection approaching, other people pulling out to pass, the guy you're passing speeding up, etc.)
The earlier poster who gets angry when someone passes him quickly, is sadly symptomatic of a lot of so-called "good" drivers. They have to feel in control of the other traffic, or else they become angry and uncomfortable. The speed that they like to do is "perfect", anybody who wants to pass them should have left earlier, and anybody slow in front of them needs to start paying attention.
If it weren't on the road, we would call these people "control freaks". It's the same people who speed up when they see someone is trying to pass them. They don't give a crap about any other human being on the road, they only care that the lemmings behind them stay nicely in line behind.
If that poster is still reading: why does it make you so angry? What is wrong with someone going past? You're going to get to your destination at a pace you are obviously happy with , since you chose to go at the speed you are doing; so what is wrong with someone else getting to their destination at their pace? It doesn't affect you..
If police would just enforce the keep-right-except-to-pass law, 90% of the traffic problems go away within a year. It would do a hell of a lot more to reduce speeding too, as most of that is born out of a desire to not get stuck behind one of the assholes you mentioned.
This is true of Illinois as well.
A person, driving at less than the normal speed of traffic, shall drive in the right-hand lane available for traffic or as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway. See 625 ILCS 5/11-701(b).
Man, you need to be modded up. People passing me aren't doing anything to me. It doesn't phase me in the slightest. The person who cuts me off just to prevent me from passing because they think it would be safer (or slamming on their brakes when you get a little too close to the guy doing 15 under in the "passing" lane), are the ones who are actually risking people's safety. Stop playing games! The rest of us are just trying to get from point A to point B. This whole country is filled to the brim with busy-bodies whose only method of elevating themselves is to bring other people down.
Do you know how I can tell you've never driven in "reasonable and prudent" Montana? There are no speed limits except for trucks. So therefore, how could the posted speed limit be 65?
http://www.us-highways.com/montana/reasonable.htm
http://www.us-highways.com/montana/mtspeed.htm
However, that law doesn't appear to be in effect anymore. reasonable and prudent was literally, what you and the officer agree is a safe speed due to the conditions. If it is 80, go 80.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States#Montana
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I'm surprised that fuel consumption, being a big national issue, hasn't gained traction with the speed limit people. The state next to mine even recently increased their speed limits on a major road from 65 to 70, so all those SUVs can go even faster and burn even more fuel (no engine technology in the world will save you from speed-squared drag).
Lowering the speed limit is an extremely inexact way to reduce fuel consumption. Plenty of people will simply ignore it as they do already, and to the extent that they don't, you create a disincentive for people to buy vehicles that consume less fuel because their gas-guzzling monster truck won't hit them as hard in the pocket book at a lower speed. If you want to reduce fuel consumption then you raise the gas tax. Then if I still want to drive fast, I can buy a car that gets 30MPG at 80MPH and everybody's happy.
I also think that all those people who speed on their commutes must have failed math, because going 75 instead of 70 only saves you a theoretical 100 seconds (not even 2 minutes!) over 30 miles, which is generally erased by slowdowns at an interchange or a traffic light. Going 75 versus 65 only saves you 220 seconds - less than four minutes - over 30 miles. About the only time speeding makes sense is on very long trips or if every second counts.
And driving 85 instead of 55 will save you more than 10 minutes. Each way. If you're commuting five days a week that's a hundred hours a year. I don't know anybody who couldn't use an extra hundred hours a year.
Depends on the autobahn, only some are unrestricted.
It used to be (here at least) that the speed of a road was set at close to the 85th percentile (no one wants to read that the speed limit is "46.8734mph", so there's a bit of rounding).
When the hand-wringers got all uppity about a few bad crashes (hello, random cluster) the limits were reduced. This was hailed as the answer due to the lower accident rate next year (oh, hi there Regression to the Mean). Then there were a few more accidents (cluster), speed cameras brought in, accidents dropped again and the hand-wringers went away happy. Until the next cluster of course.
Meanwhile the various councils and private companies/partnerships who run the cameras realised they were cashing in big-time. So more cameras went up, more limits lowered, more money made; all was good with the world if you were a civil servant (or an importer of cameras, as some "expert" witnesses were...bias, really?) until the cracks began to show.
i.e. people started to ask why regression to the mean hadn't been accounted for? Why other measures were not tried first? Why cameras were place in areas without a history of speed related accidents? Where was the money going? Why was speed the only focus? etc.
Then, of course, there is a bit of human psychology. Negative reinforcement is one. You break the limit, nothing happens, so you feel safe to break the limit again.
The limit feels too low, so you start to do other things (e.g. tailgate, make more lane changes, whatever) to try and bring the state or arousal back to a level you feel comfortable with. Or you stick to the limit and nod-off due to boredom. Crunch.
Trials have been done with removing traffic lights, road markings and other measures to make roads "feel" more dangerous. Result? Drivers took more care. Problem is these measure cost money to implement and raise no revenue.
And finally, there is my one of my pet hates. Moronic parents who *MUST* drive their brat to the school gates. There are the same hand-wringing excrement who campaign for cameras and cause major problems by double-parking and disgorging their progeny into traffic. Here's an idea: park away from the school and WALK your little precious to the gates. Not only will that ease congestion, but you can take the time to teach them road safety (assuming you know any). And let's face it, it's probably the only exercise the wee bugger will get.
The best thing they could do is bring back the traffic police. But then a trained traffic officer does on raise revenue, they merely help make roads safer, catch criminals and save lives. What does that matter when one has beans to count, eh?
FYI: Montana was coerced by the federal government to switch from reasonable and prudent to fixed limits by the threat of losing federal highway funds.
Interesting read about accident rates related to the reasonable and prudent years.
Summary for the tl;dr crowd:
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
while I'm cruising at 70mph in the "fast" lane
That's precisely the problem. Even if you're driving faster than everybody on the road, nobody should be "cruising" in the left hand lane. It's for passing only and that's the law in a lot of places.
If you think changing lanes is so dangerous, then yes, you probably should stay in the right lane all the time. Because it's really not that big a deal for thet vast majority of drivers. Some people aren't comfortable behind the wheel and that's ok, but you shouldn't make everyone else pay for it (especially when there's a sign every mile telling you to get out of the way).
Or they can get you to plea to a non-moving violation. I didn't properly stop at a stop sign once (did a rolling stop) and got a ticket. The judge told me to go speak with the prosecutor who immediately offered me a deal to lower it to a non-moving violation (parking on the pavement). My choices were then a) Try to fight the ticket, possibly losing and getting a fine plus points on my license, or b) accept the plea in which case I pay a smaller fine and have no points added. I picked b.
In hindsight, it's the perfect setup for the government. They don't need to do whatever administrative work is needed to do to add points to your license (contacting insurance companies and the like), they don't need to deal with people fighting the tickets, and they tend to collect the somewhat smaller payments right away.
Oh, and since that day, I come to full stops at all stop signs. Not getting a second ticket for that!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.