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Police Use James-Bond-Style GPS Bullet
mrspoonsi writes "The BBC reports that police in the U.S. are now using 'GPS bullets,' a device they can shoot at fleeing vehicles in order to track them. They're designed to make high-speed chases safer. The pursuing police car presses a button, a lid pops open, and a GPS bullet is fired which becomes attached to the fleeing car. The car can then be tracked from a distance in real-time without the need for a high-speed pursuit."
Not slashdot's fault... This is news from around 2009!
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-7000/first-gps-projectile-tracking-device/
I had a sucky sig.
ghost in the shell invented it first
Well, we might find Scorpio's lair finally!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
The StarChase system is a pursuit reduction technology that contains a miniature GPS module encased in a tracking projectile/tag and a launcher mounted on a police vehicle. It is neither a bullet nor a weapon as the BBC story claims. It doesn't use gunpowder, it uses compressed air. The word bullet does not appear anywhere on the company's website - except where another ignorant journalist has used it. You'd think the BBC would be better and more educated than the Des Moines, Iowa local news. You would also be incorrect in that assumption.
You can argue that 'weapon' means 'tool used to achieve a goal' - but come on, this is the BBC we're talking about. You put the words "American police" and "bullet" together and quite naturally scare words like "weapon" come out. Look at the quote on the page: "There are other ways to track vehicles and this could raise some civil liberties issues." What does that even mean? Fleeing from the police, endangering the lives of everyone on the road and all the BBC can think of is how the criminal's rights might be violated...somehow. Unfortunately this mental rot extends throughout the entire organization and its journalists are simply no longer able to think straight. I doubt anyone even thought for a second about the bias. Sad, because once the BBC was a paragon of honesty. Look back at newsreels and 80s broadcasts and you will see a very different organization.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Really. Slashdot.
Even earlier than that: The movie Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die" (1966) had one.
Not a bad movie for its time. The movie is a spoof of James Bond movies featuring a completely tricked-out Rolls Royce. (You can watch the trailer here.)
What issues are those?
A hot pursuit is the perfect situation to tag a vehicle with a GPS device and then back off.
The social benefit of not chasing someone far outweighs the social cost of the transient tracking.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
If this becomes popular, then so will GPS jammers for any who expect a need to make a getaway.
"GPS bullets that can track the location of a suspect's car"
"There are other ways to track vehicles and this could raise some civil liberties issues" -- Dave Allen of Leeds University
shh! nobody tell him about PRISM or his head might explode.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
If your car is being GPS tracked, and the police aren't giving chase just park up and run off. Idelly push it down a hill empty so they don't notice it's stopped (because that's not dangerous at all). Let the police have their fun and GPS track an empty car.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
If you drive away with the tracker attached to your car, can the cops charge you with stealing it?
sustainable living
It costs $5,000 (£3,108) to install and each bullet costs $500 (£312).
Apparently the exchange rate was updated while they were in the middle of writing that sentence.
This is why I keep the back of my car coated in vaseline. Checkmate, Johnny Law!
It seems you've skimmed the article, but not actually noticed an important point that was even mentioned in the summary:
The pursuing police car presses a button, a lid pops open, and a GPS bullet is fired which becomes attached to the fleeing car
I think since it could potentially save a lot of money on damages to public roads, cars, buildings, etc, that it probably would be used. It could even be funded by local insurance companies.
which is totally what she said
BWhahahahahaa....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Surely the criminals would pick up on this new technique very quickly? If its a stolen car (which I would assume most police chases are caused by), wouldn't the criminals just dump the car and flee on foot since there is no cops chasing right up behind them? I guess one could argue that its better that a car thief gets away and no one gets hurt rather than a car chase were innocent people might be injured or killed, but I don't see how this system would catch even close to the same amount of criminals as the police catch today...
The thing to remember about the BBC is that is the elite, who know they are the elite, getting an elite salary living in the elite section of London being quite ashamed about being elite, ridled with white guilt but not to the point of you know, hiring a "black" person. It is fun when you watch a show like "Have I got news for you" and you realize that 99% of the presentors and guests make more per episode then most Brits make in a year. "Deayton's salary was halved to £25,000 a show but the latest revelations forced Ms Heggessey's hand." http://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/oct/29/broadcasting.bbc6
That was ten years ago. HALVED TO, so it USED to be 50.000 pounds. Per episode. The series used to do two seasons per year of around a dozen episodes. And 50.000 pounds was his fee PER SHOW!
Now I don't know the exact economics of the UK but I think it is fair to assume that for most people, 50k a YEAR would be a nice salary to have. This guy gets it for a couple hours "work". His co-hosts frequently portray themselves as either being "working class" or defender of the down-trodden but they get similar fees and have other jobs besides this show.
Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson made a joke about the UK soldiers who were captured by Iran that they made quite a nice salary "oh that is per year!?! never mind" he then quipped. It is funny but it shows the complete separation between normal people (the audience of the BBC) and its stars. What do these people, whether they host a popular entertainment program, a news show or the news itself about losing their job and not knowing how you are going to pay next weeks rent (and no, not knowing how you are going to pay the mortgage on your 3rd 5 million pound summer home is not the same thing).
Or do you think Angus Deaton getting his salary halved from a mere 50k to 25k for an half hour show is on the same level as a pensioner having their benefits cut?
The BBC used to be a rare mix of working class and oxford silver spoon people making TV if not together then at least in the same building. This has changed. The pay has gotten so good that even if they were working class when they started, they aren't after a few years. This has rotted the BBC to the point you can see it in their news service, they just don't get the working class, let alone the class without jobs anymore. They feel sorry for them but like a nobel who sends his butler with the remains of the turkey dinner to the orphanage. Watch some HIGNFY eps were there are working class union reps on. The hostility is palpatable, how dare these people who make less then 20k a year tells us what it is really about.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
3. $500, get the fuck outa here. Nobody cares that much except the BBC who suckered you all into looking at ads over their vaporware story anyway.
This is the key though. A police pursuit is expensive –really expensive. First, you're likely to involve at least 5 vehicles (if not directly in the pursuit, then trying to close the driver down into a net), that means 10 drivers being paid, 5 engines burning a lot of fuel. Then you're likely to call in the helicopter, because otherwise the chance of losing them is very high. The chances that one of the cops hits something during the pursuit are increased, increasing the chance of damage to a police vehicle. Add to that the the fleeing driver may deliberately hit the police car, causing significant damage. All this added up together likely means that it costs more than $500 to run a pursuit. Thus, this could well be a cost saving.
This also addresses points 1 and 4 (which were actually 3 in disguise). Point 2 is just plain wrong. Point 5 isn't a point.
Here, in the US, the police helicopter is called in, as often as possible. But, that doesn't end the ground chase at all - the chopper just witnesses the ground chase, and if the occupants bail, help to direct ground forces to the suspects.
The ONLY times I've seen a ground unit break off pursuit, is when he has been left in the dust so badly, that he can't even pretend to be chasing any longer.
Before anyone asks - that generally happens when some damn fool on a motorcycle comes flashing by at speeds over 150. Not that I would ever think about committing such a heinous crime, LMAO!!
Parenthetically, I often wondered what it SOUNDED like when a bike blasted past. Found out one late night in Chicago, when several dozen bikes passed me, well over 150 mph. Then, several more at slightly more sane speeds like 120 or so, then a couple hundred running merely 100 mph or so. My own speed at the time, was 85, and those first bikes blasting past startled the hell out of me!
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