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New UK police speed gun can read license plates from half a mile away at night
- drusepth 6y agoThe less visibility police personally have on the car they're doing the reading on (e.g. half-mile away & at night), the less they're capable of introducing human bias (e.g. profiling) into who they scan and who they don't. Seems like a win-win for enforcing the law and doing so equally on everyone.
- BoorishBears 6y agoI'm for automated speed enforcement (even as someone who speeds), but attaching it to a human undoes a lot of the good. Nothing is stopping the cop for going to a place with a certain demographic and setting up shop.
- Ekaros 6y agoShouldn't that be entire point of enforcing speed limits. Setting them up in dangerous locations where demographic in general is speeding?
- BoorishBears 6y agoWhy isn't the method used to find those places also subject to bias? Widespread speed enforcement needs to be almost algorithmic in it's spread. And that algorithm would have to be closely watched. Saying "put a speed camera at every stop light" would heavily police urban centers for example, but essentially exclude wealthy communities that sprawl out with miles of stop signs between multi-acre properties
- easytiger 6y agoAlso means they can't prove who was driving
- megablast 6y agoIt shouldn’t matter. Owner is liable until proven otherwise.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- scott_w 6y agoTo the people downvoting this: this is the U.K. law in this area. If you weren’t the driver, you must tell the police who was driving. If you don’t, you’re the one who gets the speeding ticket.
- ryanlol 6y agoThis is easily defeated by registering your car overseas, as is the case with most fast cars you see in London.
- brewdad 6y agoBrexit will put the kabosh on much of that I imagine. When the borders are closed to the rest of Europe it will be quite easy to make cars from unfriendly jurisdictions illegal on UK roads or to require the equivalent of a visa to bring a car registered in one of those uncooperative nations into the country.
- t-writescode 6y agoIf this meant that we had reasonable speed limits in all areas based on current conditions, I might be more cool with that. We do not.
- rconti 6y agoI'm curious about the context of the $13,000 price tag. Is this a slight upcharge? Or an order of magnitude? I'm what the Brits might call a "keen motorist", but as someone who considers speed enforcement a necessary evil, there's a world of difference between paying a bit more for much better tech, versus way more. If this costs 4x what a normal radar gun costs, one must ask "what is the problem we're solving", and is it worth the money? Are there renegades out there going double the speed limit, then magically slowing to below the limit 1/2mi from a radar gun, somehow? I'm certainly happier with the idea of an officer-operated speed camera than one parked by the side of the road with no discretion whatsoever. Of course, there are plenty of people who rightfully point out that discretion can mean discrimination.
- xnyan 6y agoIf it were just the features (time of flight and image recognition), probably not 13k. I’m not an expert in police gear, but there are likely performance standards that the manufacturer has to prove so that the readings can stand up in court. That plus the durability required and range of operating conditions it has to perform in, and the fact that it’s a fault niche device will increase the cost. 13k still might be too high, but I wonder if an autoblog knows what a police department actually pays for it.
- spoonjim 6y agoThe point of distributing this technology is to make every motorist feel that nowhere is "safe" for them to speed. It doesn't matter if there are no cops around, their beams can get you and fine you, and hopefully that keeps people at safe driving speeds.
- mberning 6y agoI find it odd that there is so much emphasis on enforcement of speed limits. Studies have shown that speed limits above and below the prevailing speed of most drivers is a much higher risk factor that raw speed. And then there are other behaviors such as using a cell phone and driving that may be criminalized, but do not seem to receive such fervent enforcement.
- plasticchris 6y agoIt is simple: speeding tickets are a revenue stream.
- acdha 6y agoPeople who break the law like to say this but I've never lived anywhere where, if that were true, the city wasn't inexplicably leaving tons of money on the table. Usually it's a token effort at addressing safety issues caused by poor road design and an excuse officers like to use to stop someone when they want to search their car. EDIT: as a thought experiment, imagine that we went full cyberpunk hell-future and they started letting private equity companies put up cameras anywhere some MBA thought their cut of the ticket revenue would pay for the camera. How many speeding/stop sign/red light tickets do you think the average driver would get on their way to work? Now ask how different that is from the average driver's experience almost anywhere.
- YarickR2 6y agoIn Russia this is already the thing, private parties are setting their own licensed and verified speed traps.I don't know their revenue numbers, though
- viraptor 6y agoI don't think it's very common, but you can find places where you can plainly see that's the reason: mainly non-local tourist traffic, poor signage, no other warnings about a dangerous area or speed checks, hidden speed cameras but no police present. This translates to: we don't care you're not going to drive here again, or that you didn't notice the sign. We don't even care if you slow down or not. Not being sour here. I got caught at a well signed area in my local neighbourhood area - now I'm driving there slower.
- alanbernstein 6y agoNo info about the tech in this article, but from the video I guess it's just a very long telephoto lens? No fancy letter-detection radar algorithms or anything like that?
- sriram_malhar 6y agoIt is likely a more powerful LIDAR, a laser with a very narrow beam width (but weak enough to not affect eyesight). Combine this with retroreflective paint on the license/number plate to get both speed and the number. Here is some info about building a lidar detector. https://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/usenet-arc/sub00243/msg00000.html https://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/usenet-arc/sub00243/msg00000.htm...
- peterdn 6y agoAlso, license plates in the UK must adhere to a standard font which presumably makes them easier to read in software: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878990/vehicle-registration-numbers-and-number-plates-inf104.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- lacker 6y agoEventually cameras from orbit will be able to read license plates in real time and detect all speeding vehicles.
- koolba 6y agoThe angle of the plate wouldn’t allow it. What they can do is feed the movements of all vehicles into a big data platform and infer which car went where...
- Scoundreller 6y agoIf they went that route, they would just require a plate on the roof too.
- Ekaros 6y agoAverage speed control. For every trip... Sounds doable already. Ofc, privacy implications are really fun when they start selling journey data of each car... Now add facial recognition in mix on from CCTVs. And we are in whole new level of tracking everyone. Coming soon!
- colejohnson66 6y agoJust waiting for the Speed Enforced by Satellite highway signs... But in seriousness, the angle wouldn’t work.
- dvdbloc 6y agoUntil they just add terrible IoT transmitters to license plates
- Scoundreller 6y agoYou already have TPMS sensors in most cars... not sure how long it takes to read them.
- 6y ago
- jp0d 6y agoJames May must be really happy now. This means the "rozzers" have solved all the existing crimes and are now focusing on petty things like this. James must have gotten his telly back too!
- mhh__ 6y agoA reference to a 2 minute conversation from an episode of top gear from 10 years ago, beautiful work.
- jp0d 6y agoHahaha.. Thank you. James May is a legend. Even though he is friends with two petrol heads, he owns a Tesla and a Toyota Mirai. He has an open mind towards futuristic technologies. I like watching anything by James May. Seems like a good bloke. For some reason he doesn't like the French! :D
- tobylane 6y agoI think all three of them have owned electric cars for a while. They’re all futuristic in some way.
- jp0d 6y agoYes, you're probably right. Richard liked the Rimac a lot in Grand Tour. Jeremy liked the BMW i8.
- quicklyfrozen 6y agoGeoff doesn't count :-)
- mhh__ 6y agoIf we were worth that much money we'd probably own some too. James May alone is worth quite a few millions I do still like the show, but it is profoundly worse now that they fly around in a helicopter.
- 6y ago
- ISL 6y agoI once saw speed cameras as "un-sporting" until travelling elsewhere in the world where they are commonplace. In those countries, it seems like everyone just drives the speed limit. If the point of speed enforcement is to, you know, ensure that everyone is going the speed limit or slower, they're awesome. Norway's system of timed speed cameras are particularly wonderful -- they simply photograph a car and then photograph it again many kilometers later. If you get there too soon, then at some point, you must have been speeding. These systems are safer for police and drivers as there are no traffic stops for speeding. Yes, the bill goes to the car owner, but if you're loaning your car out to someone who speeds, at least some of the culpability falls on you. Can speed cameras be used as a revenue source? Yes. It is reasonable to place requirements on the determination of speed-limits and camera-locations to prevent abuse. Beyond that, if you don't want to get a fine, don't speed.
- XorNot 6y agoI agree speed camera are necessary but "time of travel" speed cameras are absolutely violating the intent of the law, which is to have people drive safely. Part of driving safely is that you may need to speed up to avoid a situation, or change lanes safely or what have you - a time of travel camera (in the way they get implemented which is identical to single-point speed cameras AFAIK) is essentially just a random ticket generating machine. If we're going to use these things, let's just require them to publish the license plate and time online, so our phone's can download the number and tell us if we're currently going to get ticketed going past them. Because tickets aren't just monetary - at least in Australia, license demerit points mean you eventually lose your license, thus your ability to drive and very likely your job as a result.
- ISL 6y agoDriving slightly under the speed limit (and perhaps bumping existing speed limits slightly upward before increasing the efficiency of enforcement) should address most of those concerns.
- ceejayoz 6y agoThe speed limit is an upper bound. If you cannot safely pass someone without speeding, slowing down is generally an option too. If you're speeding to escape a homicidal maniac, challenge the ticket later.
- est 6y agoReminds me of a similar news in China recently. A guy's car had issues and pulled over on a high way, police remotely helped him dialing the tow truck company, via speed cameras and a loud speaker. The best part? The police was able to look at his phone screen clearly and yield over the speaker "no dude you got the third digit wrong with the phone number!!!" https://m.weibo.cn/detail/4558925167075110 https://m.weibo.cn/detail/4558925167075110
- overscore 6y agoThat's a nightmare.
- ta1234567890 6y agoWhat doesn't make sense to me is why can most cars go so much faster than any speed limits? Why not just have the manufacturers build slower cars, or at least limit them somehow. Then make it ilegal for people to tamper with their cars to make them faster. Is there any other reason than playing this game in which law enforcement/governments get to make additional money through tickets?
- martimarkov 6y agoOne example I can think of is emergencies. I’d be okay paying a fine but speeding so I can drive someone to the hospital.
- ta1234567890 6y agoI'd love to see some data that can tell if speeding to the hospital (by random people, not by a trained ambulance driver) has a net positive effect on the outcome of the patients, as well as what the risk of car accidents happening as a result of the speeding. I also wonder if maybe by forcing cars to go slower we could: 1) reduce car accidents by a lot and 2) reduce current spend on emergency response by a big enough amount that could then allow to use it to cover faster response times (e.g. sending a helicopter)
- sjwright 6y agoIndeed, it wouldn’t be speeding that would get you to a hospital many minutes faster; it would be judicious disregard for red lights and centre markings—much like ambulance drivers normally do by virtue of their sirens and lights. Speeding doesn’t save nearly as much clock time as it feels like it does, especially if you’re regularly blocked in by other cars and traffic signals.
- _flux 6y agoSpeeding might get you through the lights before they turn red, though. A bad luck red sequence might altogether be avoided with some speeding. You might include "old green" in this as well, different regions have a different time from you getting red to others getting green. Red lights themselves could often be somewhat safely ran through with some attention and a fast-accelerating vehicle—slow down first, check directions, etc. Preferably in particularly paying attention to pedestrians..
- bArray 6y ago> To the inevitable dismay of U.K. street racers who > primarily partake in their favorite illegal motorsport > after hours, the TruCam II also features night mode > whereas the first TruCam, which has already reportedly > been in use for the past six years, only worked during the > daytime. I think this really comes down to the letter of the law vs the spirit of it. To the spirit of the law, i.e. saving third-party lives, on a non-busy road doing 35 mph in a 30 mph really going to kill anybody? Is doing excessive speed on an empty well-lit motorway going to kill anybody? Ultimately if you're only a danger to yourself then personally I think the responsibility is on the individual. For example, as I understand it, persons living in Scotland can drive back home drunk in rural areas as the only person they are ever likely to hurt its themselves. As a free person I think you need to have the right to make bad decisions and accept their consequences, as long as those do not impact others. For a long time there has been an unwritten rule (at least where I live) where greater speed is generally more acceptable at night with fewer road users. It's not uncommon for the local police to overtake you at 90 mph for example.
- est31 6y agoIDK about the UK, but in Germany street racers have killed many innocent bystanders, just for the crime of crossing the street at night. So yes please, enforce rules more strongly. In fact, even ambulances crash into each other every now and then at night, because they usually drive without their horns (technically then they aren't allowed to run red lights, only if it's been sounding for at least 15 seconds, but people want to sleep).
- Sebguer 6y agoAmerica, as well, even in broad daylight: https://www.fox13news.com/news/suspected-bayshore-street-racers-get-january-trial-date-as-victims-father-criticizes-delays https://www.fox13news.com/news/suspected-bayshore-street-rac...
- spoonjim 6y agoI'd have no hesitation as a juror sending these scumbags to life without parole.
- jsiepkes 6y agoMaybe I'm missing something but the "The Drive" article and the article they reference [1] talk about reading license plates up to half a mile (750m): > read the license plates of speeding cars almost half a mile (750 m) away. In actuality, the TruCam II itself is technically capable of clocking plates up to almost a full mile (1.5 km) But the actual product spec of the device [2] says: > Quickly view license plate details and collect crystal-clear images up to +/- 150 meters away! I don't see anywhere it can actually read a license plate half a mile away. It only says in the specsheet it can do a speed measurement about a mile away: > Maximum Measurement: 1,200 meters/1,500 meters; extended range can be modified by request [1] https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/353821/new-police-speed-camera-can-catch-drivers-750-metres-away https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/353821/new-police-speed-c... [2] https://www.lasertech.com/TruCAM-II-Speed-Enforcement-Laser.aspx https://www.lasertech.com/TruCAM-II-Speed-Enforcement-Laser....
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoPresumably you could measure the speed at a distance then image the number plate as the car gets closer.
- LeCow 6y agoAnything involving fines needs to be absolutely 100% infallible. Taking a speed reading then the plate leaves a lot of loopholes. I don't think any speed operation would work unless the car has been sighted, number plate read and speed detected simultaneously.
- Spare_account 6y agoI was prosecuted and fined for speeding in the UK on the basis of two Police officers' testimony that they observed their own speedometer while following me. A UK Police officer can assert that he saw a thing recorded on a calibrated device and it will stick in court. I would imagine that a Police officer could testify that he measured the speed using the calibrated device and continued to observe the same vehicle until it was possible to read the number plate.
- tempestn 6y agoMy issue with the strict enforcement of speed limits is that safe speed for a given stretch of road varies drastically based on conditions. These would include weather, light level, traffic density, vehicle capabilities and condition, and driver experience and aptitude. It's not possible to set an optimal speed limit for all these conditions, so normally speed limits are set quite conservatively. Of course it is theoretically a limit, not a target, so you could instead set it closer to the target speed for ideal conditions and expect people to slow in other conditions. That is done in some parts of the world, but not most. And so in somewhat of a causal loop, many drivers therefore consider the speed limit to be a target rather than a maximum, and don't apply a lot of judgement in determining safe speed. My belief is that (with sufficient time and training to reach a status quo) a system with less strict or no speed limits, and instead a focus on safe driving, would encourage drivers to be more thoughtful and attentive, and result in fewer accidents and possibly even fewer injuries and fatalities. This could include design elements such as traffic calming where appropriate to encourage an appropriate speed without using conservative speed limits. Perhaps an increase in consequences for at-fault collisions would make sense in conjunction as well. I do recall seeing some evidence that increasing or removing speed limits can reduce collisions, although perhaps not fatal ones. On the other hand, I can certainly understand if one did believe that lower speed limits save lives, one could argue it's better to over-enforce the limits and risk wasting people's time than under-enforce them and risk wasting lives. Also any increase in legal subjectivity increases the risk of unfair enforcement. So I don't think there's necessarily an obvious best approach.
- Closi 6y agoThe U.K. does have variable speed limits on most major motorways that change with conditions, congestion etc, with LED signs that display the current speed limit.
- remus 6y agoSmart motorways will readily adjust the speed limit down (often for no discernible reason), but they don't increase the speed limit were it may be appropriate e.g. good weather and very limited number of vehicles on the road.
- punnerud 6y agoSupport for WiFi - IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n; https://www.lasertech.com/TruCAM-II-Specifications.aspx https://www.lasertech.com/TruCAM-II-Specifications.aspx Seems like something that could open up for vulnerabilities.
- homero 6y agoWhy is the handle facing backwards?
- fierarul 6y agoI think society will soon discover that a certain % of rule breaking is absolutely necessary for it to function. My car has a speed limiter, radio and a computer. Imagine a near future where speed limits are sent via radio then enforced by the car computer. No more infringement!
- toxicFork 6y agoPeople would rip the limiter out. Or they would chip/crack it.
- fierarul 6y agoSome, but most would not since I assume that would be a felony.
- konschubert 6y agoIf a law is bad when enforced, then the law needs to be changed, not the enforcement. Arbitrary enforcement leads to discrimination and corruption. Regarding the speed limit, I think the laws are just finde and should simply be enforced.
- jdbernard 6y agoI think the concern is not so much a desire for arbitrary enforcement as it is a fear of perfect enforcement at all times. I think some degree of freedom is a fundamental need of the human being, even from the rules we set for ourselves. We don't actually want all of our laws to be perfectly enforced all of the time, for a lot of reasons. For one thing, the laws themselves are unlikely to ever be perfect, even if perfect enforcement leads to more scrutiny and tweaking.
- bluntfang 6y agoperfect enforcement sounds like it could be a great way to combat racism and other bias a police officer might have. laws being enforced imperfectly creates a class divide since the upper class won't feel the impact of bad laws on their communities.
- Lio 6y agoThere's the old joke: "All those present that object to receiving speeding fines please raise your right foot". People object to speeding fines but receiving them is entirely optional. Personally, I'd rather they clamped down harder on tailgating, poor lane discipline and uninsured drivers than on motorway speed limits.
- Traster 6y agoMy main objection is that enforcement, at least in the UK is absolutely useless. The likelihood of actually coming across a speed trap is tiny, the likelihood of coming across a speed trap that isn't one of the ones that are regularly used is close to 0. So it's not like people who speed get fined. It's people who speed and get unlucky get fined (and points). I just think it's bad policy to have relatively huge penalties and relatively rubbish enforcement. It's capricious and ineffective. People still speed because being caught is highly unlikely, people who get caught face a penalty that is disproportionate for something so common. The increase of tools like this don't actually address that. Tools like this don't actually address the policy failure in speed enforcement.
- mcintyre1994 6y agoIronically you can pretty much only get caught by the irregular ones if you’re on a quiet road too - otherwise someone will flash you as you approach to let you know. At least in some places anyway.
- noir_lord 6y agoMotorcyclists tap their helmet or occasionally hold index figure straight up and spin it. Either works - I've had them do it for me but since I don't speed I just nod and continue my ride.
- Daho0n 6y agoThis is a speed trap working as intended though. Lower speed is the goal, not fines.
- CraigJPerry 6y agoThere’s too much focus on the easy to measure speed problem. I’m not saying inappropriate speed should not be enforced against but i strongly believe more effort should be applied to avoid the more common cause of major road traffic incidents - inattention. You can’t easily measure inattention but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. The solution doesn’t only have to be in penalties, it could be in making it harder to be inattentive to begin with. That said, this is all low priority stuff in the UK. In the UK today there are basically zero road traffic police, you are exceedingly unlikely to come across any. Their numbers have been cut relentlessly as miles driven have increased. And yet... road deaths are down over the same 20 years and mobility is up. Road traffic enforcement isn’t even in the top 1000 issues facing the UK today.
- yholio 6y agoInattention is hard to measure and results in accidents that are made much worse by excessive speed, which is easy to measure. If the goal is to reduce overall traffic victims, then investing in speed control seems like the low hanging fruit. The energy of vehicle (thus, the energy absorbed during impact by every object contained or hit) is proportinal with the square of the speed. Meanwhile, the reaction time available to avoid the collision drops linearly with speed, while the braking or turn distance increases more than linearly. So the overall probability of accidents and their severity increases exponentially with speed.
- Silhouette 6y agoThe problem is that naive arguments about speed and laws based on fixed numbers don't really help anything except ease of prosecution. Inappropriate choice of speed can obviously be dangerous, but what is appropriate to the conditions and what the fixed numerical speed limits dictate can be wildly different. For example, the default speed limit in the UK on most residential roads is 30mph, but if you drive past a school at 30mph at the end of the afternoon when the kids are coming out and there are lots parked cars obscuring your view, that is still inappropriately fast for the conditions. However, slower isn't always safer. On a motorway, the speed limit is usually 70mph, but in poor weather conditions and heavy traffic, everyone travelling at lower and similar speeds may be the safest choice. If you're the one driver insisting on unnecessarily doing 20mph when everyone else is doing a steady 40mph, you're also increasing the danger to yourself and others. Another example is that the speed limit for heavy goods vehicles on many of our major roads was increased by 10mph in 2015, having previously been 20mph below what cars were allowed to do on the same roads. The results were notable for several reasons, among them that the actual average speed of those heavy vehicles only increased a little but the safety of the roads appears to have increased. This was attributed primarily to closing the gap in speeds between different types of vehicle and thus, among other things, reducing instances of queues behind and overtaking of the slower vehicles, both of which increase the risk of an accident. Finally, we have the classic motorway speeding situation, where on an open road in good conditions, a competent driver with a suitable vehicle could do far more than the legal limit of 70mph with negligible increase in risk. Moreover, statistically our motorways are both our fastest roads and yet also among our safest. You could certainly print money by setting up a covert speed camera watching some stretches of motorway, but whether it is a good use of police resources if your objective is to increase road safety is a different question.
- jimnotgym 6y agoIn the UK fixed speed cameras are common. The problem for me is that they are put at places where people tend to speed, and that is often because it is a major road running through a village. Instead of building the proper infrastructure to allow traffic to pass through we just slow it down. My second problem with speed enforcement is it has caused a shift in policing. Speeding is an absolute and so is cheap to police and prosecute so gets 100% of the enforcement effort, ignoring tailgating, undertaking, lane hogging, lane indiscipline...etc. All of this can be just as serious, and I feel (as a regular driver of some of the UKs busiest roads) are getting worse. I would much prefer to have a police officer in a car enforcing the rules than any fixed speed camera
- 5h 6y agoAverage speed camera zones are the only speed control device that works (for many via congestion rather than willful compliance I suspect), unfortunately it also encourages tailgating, aggressive and distracted driving (often in reduced width lanes) - I wish there was more of a focus on that.
- thrwyoilarticle 6y ago>Instead of building the proper infrastructure to allow traffic to pass through we just slow it down. And then they might build a road hump. So now the nearby residents and pedestrians get a noisier road and anyone on a bike or in a car gets less comfort and less control even while following the speed limit.
- DanBC 6y agoSpeed cameras free up police allowing them to spend more time dealing with these other forms of dangerous driving.
- jimnotgym 6y agoI'm guessing you don't drive in the UK. Speed cameras allowed the government to cut back on traffic policing completely, whilst still enforcing something. From memory there are something like 40k fewer police on our little island than before the financial crisis.
- kwhitefoot 6y agoNot very many roads in the UK that have a clear line of sight that far!
- everybodyknows 6y ago> ... uploads speed and license plate data to a database and the appropriate fine is then mailed to the car's registered owner. Somewhat raises the stakes on deciding whether to lend one's car to a casual friend.
- wojciii 6y agoI have a dashcam with GPS because I want to be able to prove that I have not been speeding or taking in handheld device etc. if stopped or photographed. The dashcam video shows current speed from GPS. I usually drive the speed limit where it makes sense. The speed traps here in DK are placed in easily guessable locations and mostly avoided. The chance to get caught by the traffic police is very low in my opinion - 130 km/h zones on highways are not policed according to my experiences.
- umvi 6y agoIn Maryland I-270 is capped at 55 mph. However the general flow of traffic is closer to 75 mph. This gives police the ability to turn on the money faucet (speeding tickets) at their whim and leisure which I think is bogus. If 90%+ of cars are going more than 10mph over the limit, it means the limit is way too low.