4 ms·

Great link as it mentions Radar Detector Detectors. This is actively enforced in the US state of Virginia.

by jasonzemos 5y ago

tata71 5y ago
Which is one of very few places radar detectors are against the law in the US.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  I would love to see it challenged all the way up to the Supreme Court if necessary. These laws seem blatantly unconstitutional, and it's kind of amazing that they've held up for so long.
dguest 5y ago
It gets better than that: there were radar-detector-detector-detectors [1] which were consumer radar detectors that could detect the police radar-detector-detector and shut down. It's tagged as [citation needed] on wikipedia, but the source [2] does mention this as a feature of some radar detectors. I like to hope it's true. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector_detector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector_detector [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20100620150944/http://radar.757.org/VG2.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20100620150944/http://radar.757....
eloisius 5y ago
The lengths highway patrol go to enforce speed limits manually is insane to me. I've never understood why, if speeding is such an important thing to prevent, why don't they use camera enforcement. If you travel between cameras A and B in less than the minimum time it would take at the speed limit, somewhere along the way you were speeding. There's no way around it. You could speed and then travel slower than the limit to average it out, but there would be no point, and enforcement is already spotty. Just send the ticket in the mail, or dispatch a patrol car if someone is speeding recklessly fast. It seems like it would calm traffic, because people would travel the speed limit instead of speeding and then abruptly dropping from 90mph to 65 when they see a cop hidden behind a bridge. I've seen demonstrations that traffic waves cause jams even when there is no problem with throughput, just because someone slammed on their brakes. I'm actually not sure what it'd do to ticket revenue. If there was no way around it because your average speed gets measured, I guess people would stop speeding. Maybe the gambling aspect of it is desirable to governments because if there's a small chance of getting a ticket, lots of people will speed and thus get tickets. If tickets are a certainty, no one speeds and revenue dries up. Do police unions lobby against using this kind of enforcement because it'd mean less cops lurking under bridges for an easy payday?
- charcircuit 5y ago
  There are legitimate reasons why someone would go faster than the speed limit (safety) that your simple 2 camera setup would not be able to understand.
  - Spare_account 5y ago
    Could you elaborate on some of the safety reasons for exceeding the speed limit, to help me understand? We use average speed cameras in the UK to enforce temporarily reduced speed limits during road repairs on the motorways. It seems to work quite well, it certainly feels like most people adhere to the reduced limits. Personally, I am aware that if I speed (for whatever internal justification I convince myself of), I just need to reduce my average speed by the time I pass the next camera (they're big and yellow and deliberately conspicuous so drivers know where they are).
    - bradstewart 5y ago
      Health emergencies or something like that. Though I think it'd be pretty straightforward to say "hey I was going to the hospital, overturn this ticket please" after the fact.
  - eloisius 5y ago
    I’ve never had an officer understand my legitimate reason either, and even if they had, the time spent checking my ID and running insurance would far exceed whatever time I gained by speeding.
- derbOac 5y ago
  In a state I lived in, these kinds of camera-based enforcement of vehicle laws were ruled unconstitutional (state constitution). The argument was that traffic laws apply to the person driving the car, not the car, and it's too difficult to tell from videos who is driving the car. There were probably other arguments against them but basically the state supreme court decided there was no way a camera could establish evidence at the level of certainty needed. It's odd now that I think of it because traffic cameras used for other reasons have been used in felony investigations (eg, murder). My guess is in those cases they have to establish that the person being charged was likely in the car? I think it's the automatic charging aspect of it.

Great link as it mentions Radar Detector Detectors. This is actively enforced in the US state of Virginia.

tata71 5y ago

Which is one of very few places radar detectors are against the law in the US.

jaywalk 5y ago
I would love to see it challenged all the way up to the Supreme Court if necessary. These laws seem blatantly unconstitutional, and it's kind of amazing that they've held up for so long.

dguest 5y ago

It gets better than that: there were radar-detector-detector-detectors [1] which were consumer radar detectors that could detect the police radar-detector-detector and shut down. It's tagged as [citation needed] on wikipedia, but the source [2] does mention this as a feature of some radar detectors. I like to hope it's true. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector_detector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector_detector [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20100620150944/http://radar.757.org/VG2.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20100620150944/http://radar.757....

eloisius 5y ago

The lengths highway patrol go to enforce speed limits manually is insane to me. I've never understood why, if speeding is such an important thing to prevent, why don't they use camera enforcement. If you travel between cameras A and B in less than the minimum time it would take at the speed limit, somewhere along the way you were speeding. There's no way around it. You could speed and then travel slower than the limit to average it out, but there would be no point, and enforcement is already spotty. Just send the ticket in the mail, or dispatch a patrol car if someone is speeding recklessly fast. It seems like it would calm traffic, because people would travel the speed limit instead of speeding and then abruptly dropping from 90mph to 65 when they see a cop hidden behind a bridge. I've seen demonstrations that traffic waves cause jams even when there is no problem with throughput, just because someone slammed on their brakes. I'm actually not sure what it'd do to ticket revenue. If there was no way around it because your average speed gets measured, I guess people would stop speeding. Maybe the gambling aspect of it is desirable to governments because if there's a small chance of getting a ticket, lots of people will speed and thus get tickets. If tickets are a certainty, no one speeds and revenue dries up. Do police unions lobby against using this kind of enforcement because it'd mean less cops lurking under bridges for an easy payday?

charcircuit 5y ago
There are legitimate reasons why someone would go faster than the speed limit (safety) that your simple 2 camera setup would not be able to understand.
- Spare_account 5y ago
  Could you elaborate on some of the safety reasons for exceeding the speed limit, to help me understand? We use average speed cameras in the UK to enforce temporarily reduced speed limits during road repairs on the motorways. It seems to work quite well, it certainly feels like most people adhere to the reduced limits. Personally, I am aware that if I speed (for whatever internal justification I convince myself of), I just need to reduce my average speed by the time I pass the next camera (they're big and yellow and deliberately conspicuous so drivers know where they are).
  - bradstewart 5y ago
    Health emergencies or something like that. Though I think it'd be pretty straightforward to say "hey I was going to the hospital, overturn this ticket please" after the fact.
- eloisius 5y ago
  I’ve never had an officer understand my legitimate reason either, and even if they had, the time spent checking my ID and running insurance would far exceed whatever time I gained by speeding.
derbOac 5y ago
In a state I lived in, these kinds of camera-based enforcement of vehicle laws were ruled unconstitutional (state constitution). The argument was that traffic laws apply to the person driving the car, not the car, and it's too difficult to tell from videos who is driving the car. There were probably other arguments against them but basically the state supreme court decided there was no way a camera could establish evidence at the level of certainty needed. It's odd now that I think of it because traffic cameras used for other reasons have been used in felony investigations (eg, murder). My guess is in those cases they have to establish that the person being charged was likely in the car? I think it's the automatic charging aspect of it.