A lot of this is common knowledge now. You can check out guys of LIDAR who research these types of guns & how accurate their findings are. This is also why cops should be taught to do several speed readings & to point at the vehicle, not the headlights. Also, depending on the paint, it can also cloak the vehicle's speed or make it take longer to get back to the gun.
The Lowdown on Lidar
41–50 of 284 posts
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#42Can anyone tell me why speeding tickets aren't enforced with video cameras (like red-light tickets are)? It would seem to be much more accurate, much easier to enforce, and much harder to dispute. Irrespective of the rights or wrongs of speed limit laws, I do believe that consistent and efficient enforcement can only be a good thing.
Because video cameras are arguably illegal. You can't face your accuser in court, therefore it should be thrown out. Got a speeding ticket from one of these lovely cameras in the state of Iowa, then I was sent a bill from some company in Phoenix with bold threats that if I didn't pay the fine, it'd be submitted to a collection agency and negatively impact my credit score (because otherwise I'd just have not paid it.…
> Because video cameras are arguably illegal. You can't face your accuser in court, therefore it should be thrown out.
You can go to court and ask to challenge the evidence the camera has provided.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because video cameras are arguably illegal. You can't face your accuser in court, therefore it should be thrown out. Got a speeding ticket from one of these lovely cameras in the state of Iowa, then I was sent a bill from some company in Phoenix with bold threats that if I didn't pay the fine, it'd be submitted to a collection agency and negatively impact my credit score (because otherwise I'd just have not paid it.…
This is a common myth. The camera is not your accuser; the state is, using the camera as evidence of your violation. It would be no different than a security camera catching you breaking into a building. The camera doesn't sue, the owner of the building does.
Moreover, I'd think it would be quite trivial to place the camera in the court room if any judge were to seriously consider that defense, while the camera furiously exerts its right to silence.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#44Well, he fought with half science: he came up with a set of testable hypotheses, but didn't actually run any of the tests. I guess that's as scientific as cosmology :-)
It's not even half science, it's just a big slide deck of FUD padded with a healthy amount of entitlement.
Can you cite some parts which reflect entitlement?
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#45Speed radars are good for speed traps, but not so great to prevent speed related incidents. They share the same fatal flaw with all other single-point speed meters: You can just slow down for a minute, while you pass by the speed trap, and then speed up for the rest of your trip. Instead, a 2-point speed meter (i.e. license plate readers every few miles, measuring time between matching reads) system is superior becau…
Possibly because the cost/benefit just isn't there. In the UK, the data shows that speeding (excessive speed for the conditions above the speed limit) is the primary cause in single digit percentage of accidents. I believe there's data from 1996 and 2007 for this, will dig it out when I'm not on mobile. If you want to spend money on accident prevention, there's much better things to target than speeding.
I have yet to get into an accident, but I actively avoid walking across several streets in Seattle because of a combination of entitlement thinking (This road is mine because I'm in a car!), and pervasive speeding. I'm not the only one...I recently found out almost nobody on my side of a local road will cross the road due the same problem. The road, therefore, has become a barrier to commerce and has split a community in two.
Preventing accidents isn't the only reason to enforce traffic laws.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it's because you're ticketing the vehicle's registered owner, but not necessarily the driver.
That argument works in some countries while in others it doesn't. In UK only people who are explicitly listed on the insurance document can drive the car, and the police can demand that you tell them who was driving the car at the time. In some other EU countries like Poland, you buy insurance for the car,not the driver,so literally anyone can drive it(with your permission of course). Then if you are caught by a spee…
> In UK only people who are explicitly listed on the insurance document can drive the car
That's not entirely true, it depends on your insurance. It's an offence to drive a car without insurance, and an offence to allow someone who is uninsured to drive your car. Some insurance policies do not extend the insurance you took out to driving other peoples cars. However, some fully comprehensive policies do have third party insurance while you are driving someone else's car with their permission. In that case it's fully legal to drive.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#47I hope this information, or the equivalent, filters into the awareness of judges. I was in traffic court in Virginia last year and, as I was waiting for my case, heard the judge explain to several defendants who were there to challenge their lidar tickets that the lidar was essentially infallible and could not be confused by other cars on the road. And this was an intelligent judge who seemed unusually sympathetic to the accused.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#48Can anyone tell me why speeding tickets aren't enforced with video cameras (like red-light tickets are)? It would seem to be much more accurate, much easier to enforce, and much harder to dispute. Irrespective of the rights or wrongs of speed limit laws, I do believe that consistent and efficient enforcement can only be a good thing.
The goal of speeding tickets is revenue generation not lowering speeds. It's essentially random taxation on people who drive quickly. Because of that they need mobile, disguisable, hand held units. Video from a handheld unit wouldn't be great for determining speed. Now, they could easily create combination LIDAR-Video boxes and mount them above traffic for clear speed calculations. But then people would learn where t…
> The goal of speeding tickets is revenue generation not lowering speeds.
This depends on the country. In the US and Canada it certainly can be and is a cash grab, but in Switzerland, for example, it's not. Fines are in place, but they are also almost always accompanied by deterrent measures as well. Going 120 km/h through a tunnel where the limit is 80 km/h can earn you a week in prison sleepovers (that is you have to go to the prison for the night) with all earnings for that week withheld as a fine. Also, there's a lot of stationary speedguns, which you can spot at a distance. I also saw semi-portable automated speedgun that was placed in a specific spot where people tended to go over posted 60 km/h limit. It stayed in place for a week and then was removed, presumably after the average speed dropped to the limit.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it's because you're ticketing the vehicle's registered owner, but not necessarily the driver.
That argument works in some countries while in others it doesn't. In UK only people who are explicitly listed on the insurance document can drive the car, and the police can demand that you tell them who was driving the car at the time. In some other EU countries like Poland, you buy insurance for the car,not the driver,so literally anyone can drive it(with your permission of course). Then if you are caught by a spee…
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