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

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

#231

Post by LeCow » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:45 AM UTC

b112 wrote: post #217

jl6 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, you’re totally wrong. The spirit of the law is not just to save third party lives. When you cause an accident, you drain society’s emergency response resources (and increase the premiums of those in your insurance pool). 35mph vs 30mph is a terrible example - this is the scenario where pedestrians and cyclists are most likely to be around. 75mph vs 70mph would have been a better example. Driving at night is mo…

The "when you do $x, you drain society's emergency resources" is, IMO, an absurd argument. If this is true, then you need to point the finger at so many things. Rock-climbing. Mountain biking. And it progresses, to "anything even remotely risky", where "risky is now the absolute lowest common denominator". And of course, so many sports? Banned. This sort of "walking on eggshells" view of life is quite disturbing to m…

You've just described the world's attitude to Coronavirus.

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

#232

Post by _flux » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:46 AM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #75

ta1234567890 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Speeding 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..

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

#233

Post by globular-toast » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:48 AM UTC

timc3 wrote: post #147

mhh__ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reference to a 2 minute conversation from an episode of top gear from 10 years ago, beautiful work.

Its a fair point though. They couldn’t even be bothered to look into my Dads stolen boat engine because it was only worth £10,000 - even though he had a pretty good lead about the organized outfit that did it.

My brother's car was destroyed on the side of the road in a hit and run incident and even after finding the uninsured car that did it via friends in the know the police wouldn't do anything at all.

Just like most organisations common sense is gone and it's all about following regular protocols etc.

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

#234

Post by globular-toast » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:50 AM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #210

bradlys wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, does anyone really think these cameras and fines are really to ensure public safety? Seems more like taxation and fear mongering. If the UK police are anything like the US, they don’t care about theft even if you have a solid lead and evidence. Theft reporting is purely for statistics.

The UK police are not like the US. They aren't very well funded, and they police by consent rather than shooting people (They probably would do more, but you have to realise that in many parts of the UK we don't see police even driving about let alone on the beat i.e. fear mongering)

As someone who actually remembers seeing policemen on the beat I can tell you it was a million miles away from "fear mongering".

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

#235

Post by buran77 » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:51 AM UTC

_ph_ wrote: post #219

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…

German here. Indeed only the driver of a car is punished for speeding. The burdon is on the officials to determine the driver. But they will send an official inquiry to the car owner to name the driver of the car, if the identification is not obvious by a photo. There are cases where no one gets the ticket, because the driver is not named by the car owner, sometimes for very valid reason. With a larger group of peopl…

In other European countries where it's also illegal to just fine the owner rather than the actual driver, the police sends an official inquiry about who was driving the car at the time. Providing false information or refusing to provide information at all is punishable by law, you have to name someone and take responsibility for the veracity of that information. The owner is legally responsible for knowing who is driving their car at all times, with the exception of the car being stolen.

In practice this just leads to a lot of penalty points or license suspensions for the 80 year old (grand)parents, or anyone who has a license but never drives.

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

#236

Post by goodcanadian » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:51 AM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #23

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 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…

In Alberta, Canada, speed camera tickets are treated more like parking tickets (at least last time I checked which was quite a while ago). They are issued to the owner of the car. There are no license penalty points, however, as they don't even attempt to identify the driver.

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

#237

Post by forest_dweller » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:51 AM UTC

dazc wrote: post #228

forest_dweller wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree visibility can be poor but is easilly mitigated by driving at a suitable speed. Not at all. I've been driving at what seems like a sensible speed for the conditions and suddenly there is a deer right in front of my car. You cannot see some of the animals until you are right on top of them. The fact is that there is too much traffic, there is insufficient infrastructure (and you probably can't add a lot beca…

Yes, I suppose there are extremes and I've had a similar experience although, regarding the original link, I find it difficult to believe it possible to kill 3 donkeys in one go by driving at a sensible speed in such circumstances?

I find it hard to believe as well. However without knowing specifics it would be impossible to judge fairly.

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

#238

Post by Ichthypresbyter » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:53 AM UTC

brewdad wrote: post #135

ryanlol wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is easily defeated by registering your car overseas, as is the case with most fast cars you see in London.

Brexit 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.

Even without Brexit it is illegal for a British resident to drive a foreign-registered car on British roads. Though the law is rarely enforced, it does exist. Many EU countries have similar laws- and yes, they do apply to cars registered in other EU countries.

Actually banning foreign-registered cars driven by non-residents from the roads would require withdrawing from international conventions that long predate the EU, and result in British tourists abroad not being able to drive a rental car until they pass a local driving test...

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

#239

Post by b112 » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:54 AM UTC

LeCow wrote: post #231

b112 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "when you do $x, you drain society's emergency resources" is, IMO, an absurd argument. If this is true, then you need to point the finger at so many things. Rock-climbing. Mountain biking. And it progresses, to "anything even remotely risky", where "risky is now the absolute lowest common denominator". And of course, so many sports? Banned. This sort of "walking on eggshells" view of life is quite disturbing to m…

You've just described the world's attitude to Coronavirus.

Not even remotely true. The world has responded with "lockdowns", "masks", and more, which is the result of an unprecedented, 100 year class event, that being a pandemic.

Your comment isn't really about normality, but instead about an extreme edge case scenario. The only thing worse than a pandemic, might be nuclear war, a massive nuclear accident, or large-scale disaster.

Normality need not be conflated with actions during emergency scenarios.

Lastly -- imagine if people DID engage in more, "only affected themselves' risky behaviour. It would mean more hospital visits, therefore more hospital capacity, more doctors/nurses/etc etc, which would mean more ability to absorb and deal with large scale emergency issues.

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

#240

Post by lillecarl » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:55 AM UTC

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…

We do not have average speed cameras in Sweden and I hope we never will. The privacy implications of taking a photograph of everyone, process "who they are" (reg plate, generally driven by family member) is horrifying.