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New UK police speed gun can read license plates from half a mile away at night

thedrive.com

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Re: New UK police speed gun can read license plates from half a mile away at night

#71

Post by roywiggins »

leetcrew wrote: post #67
ta1234567890 wrote: post #41

What 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?

from an engineering perspective, it is hard to design a car that can safely travel at 60 mph and accelerate to that speed in a timely fashion without giving it the ability to go much faster. a car with a drag-limited top speed of 60 mph would become a road hazard any time it merged onto a freeway. it's possible to program a car to cut the throttle when it hits a certain speed, but most people take a dim view of havin…

The EU has been making noises about requiring this.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/288592-eu-wants-speed-go...

Re: New UK police speed gun can read license plates from half a mile away at night

#72

Post by sjwright »

ehnto wrote: post #52
ISL wrote: post #17

I 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 photog…

My state in Australia have heavy, heavy fines, even compared to the rest of Aus. It doesn't reduce the amount of poor driving but speeding at least is unambiguous. There is no grey area. If the speed limit is 60kmph then you will get booked for exceeding it by 5kmph, and the only reason you get that 5kmph leeway is to account for camera calibration and some grace for speedometer calibration. They would ping you at 61…

In Victoria they’ll ping you for going 62 km/h in a 60 zone.

Re: New UK police speed gun can read license plates from half a mile away at night

#73

Post by megablast »

easytiger wrote: post #21
drusepth wrote: post #2

The 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.

Also means they can't prove who was driving

It shouldn’t matter. Owner is liable until proven otherwise.

Re: New UK police speed gun can read license plates from half a mile away at night

#74

Post by spoonjim »

rconti wrote: post #3

I'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…

The 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.

Re: New UK police speed gun can read license plates from half a mile away at night

#75

Post by sjwright »

ta1234567890 wrote: post #63
martimarkov wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example I can think of is emergencies. I’d be okay paying a fine but speeding so I can drive someone to the hospital.

I'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 enoug…

Indeed, 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.

Re: New UK police speed gun can read license plates from half a mile away at night

#77

Post by bArray »

> 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.

Re: New UK police speed gun can read license plates from half a mile away at night

#78

Post by xxpor »

TomVDB wrote: post #35
Scoundreller wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if you're loaning your car out to someone who speeds, at least some of the culpability falls on you. Not in Germany it doesn’t. Only the actual driver can be found guilty of speeding, even by speed-camera. I understand they’ll take pictures of the front of the vehicle and check against who’s lives at the registered address. Not sure if it’s an infraction for the registered owner to refuse to identify the likely…

Even better: in Germany, the cameras black out the passenger's side of the car automatically for privacy reasons, so that only the driver is identified. This was a problem in 2008 when a car with steering wheel on the right systematically got caught speeding. The driver knew full well what was going on an placed a muppet in the passeger's seat. The picture is fantastic: https://gizmodo.com/the-muppets-animal-caught-s…

In Washington State they go one step further: cameras can only take pictures from the rear. They're not allowed to actually take a picture of the driver.

Re: New UK police speed gun can read license plates from half a mile away at night

#79

Post by est31 »

bArray wrote: post #77

> 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…

IDK 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).

Re: New UK police speed gun can read license plates from half a mile away at night

#80

Post by speedgoose »

chrismcb wrote: post #25
ISL wrote: post #17

I 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 photog…

But to what end? Ignoring the privacy aspect, the point should not be too ensure everyone goes the does limit or slower. The point should be that people are traveling at a reasonable and safe speed. Driving fast doesn't necessarily mean unsafe. You can be driving the speed limit and be going at an unsafe speed. So the speed cameras make it more likely that people will be under the speed limit. But are the roads safer…

> Driving fast doesn't necessarily mean unsafe.

In all studies I read or heard about, speed is a huge factor for increasing injuries and deaths.

> You can be driving the speed limit and be going at an unsafe speed.

Then you are driving too fast according to the law. At least in France or Norway.

> So the speed cameras make it more likely that people will be under the speed limit. But are the roads safer?

Yes. The numbers talk for themselves whenever a new speed camera is installed in a road.

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