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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

#261

Post by ehnto »

jen729w wrote: post #253
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is the most nanny state country that I know of. The driving rules are absolutely draconian. In fact when I was growing up there, I was baffled at how aggressive the enforcement was, while at the same time the general level of driving ability was so low. Would you like to be responsible and have a designated driver to drive your inebriated friends home safely? Nope. Not allowed. Drivers on their L or P plate…

Indeed — Brit-turned-Aussie here — the drivers here are absolutely atrocious. I often say that Brits can be pretty rude until they get behind the wheel, whereupon they turn in to gracious, giving angels. Australians directly mirror this: in person, they’re adorable, yet behind the wheel they’re selfish monsters. I hate driving in this country. So much so that I don’t own a car.

Cars are truly transformative. Some of the smartest and nicest people I know are just the worst to drive with.

On top of that they are just not very good at it. I have been in 4 accidents, none of them my fault.

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

#262

Post by iso947 »

jackson1442 wrote: post #171
viraptor wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speed limiters and cruise control are pretty common in modern cars. You can set your mental intended speed lower and won't drift as much. This is from experience of switching to a car with speed notification beeper (very low tech) - it took maybe 2 weeks to stop drifting over almost completely without paying extra attention. We ended up treating it as a game with gf - shortest time for a 300km drive with no beeps.

I have a modern car. 2015 Kia Optima, and it has basic cruise control. I don't know what conditions you're driving in, but I think it's fucking scary to drive with it on unless there's a completely open highway in front of me. Not controlling my own following distance feels like I'm about to hit the car in front of me at any given moment, especially on a road where the speed limit is 75mph and you have people going a…

I pop the cruise control on lots, especially on motorways. If I get too close To car in front I’ll touch the break, but even in the U.K. roads are rarely that variable - especially near the speed limit.

The cruise control has a switch to change to limiter, I rarely use that.

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

#263

Post by ehnto »

barrkel wrote: post #215
NLips wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring whether it’s “human nature” to vary by that much, the remedy is simple: in a 60mph limit (the clue is in the name), target 54. +/-10% is now 48.6-59.4, instead of 54-66. It’s within the speed limit, and a smaller absolute speed differential between lowest and highest speed. Similar arguments have been made against average speed cameras on UK motorways - “I’ll have to be entirely focused on the speedo the who…

Interestingly, you'll fail your UK motorcycle test if you don't largely treat the speed limit as a target. If you stick at 40mph or thereabouts going into a 50mph zone, the examiner may think you haven't seen the speed limit change. More importantly, if you don't keep up a good pace on a clear country road with good visibility where the speed limit is 60mph, they won't have confidence in your riding at higher speeds,…

The reasoning I see is that objects moving at the same speed in the same direction tend not to collide.

I have seen advice to motorcyclists that they should be just a bit faster than most traffic. Slow enough to manage changes in traffic ahead, but fast enough that no one is approaching you from behind.

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

#264

Post by compsciphd »

LeCow wrote: post #229
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably you could measure the speed at a distance then image the number plate as the car gets closer.

Anything 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.

it looks like its manually operated, so I don't see why that would be any different than a normal cop speed gun and pulling the driver over.

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

#265

Post by bluecalm »

scott_w wrote: post #102
XorNot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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 ti…

There are exactly 0 situations that require you to break the speed limit to become “safe.” The UK Highway Code and driving lessons are very explicit in how you respond to emergencies and “speed up” is not on the list.

There are very rare situations when speeding saves you. One example is someone going into your lane and driving into you for a head on collision. Assuming there is space to swerve you should also accelerate to escape faster.

That being said it's so extremely rare there is no point debating those cases. If speeding was physically not possible it would be a better and safer world.

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

#266

Post by krapp »

lillecarl wrote: post #240
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.

What privacy implications? The government already knows who you are, they processed your vehicle registration and issued that license plate specifically to make your vehicle publicly identifiable.

Are you also terrified that just anyone can read your house numbers or the address on your mailbox?

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

#267

Post by jen729w »

ehnto wrote: post #261
jen729w wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed — Brit-turned-Aussie here — the drivers here are absolutely atrocious. I often say that Brits can be pretty rude until they get behind the wheel, whereupon they turn in to gracious, giving angels. Australians directly mirror this: in person, they’re adorable, yet behind the wheel they’re selfish monsters. I hate driving in this country. So much so that I don’t own a car.

Cars are truly transformative. Some of the smartest and nicest people I know are just the worst to drive with. On top of that they are just not very good at it. I have been in 4 accidents, none of them my fault.

I hire one when I need one, but living a ten minute walk from my city centre is more transformative to me than the car would be. :-)

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

#268

Post by lillecarl »

iso947 wrote: post #258
lillecarl wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don’t have ring doorbells?

If you're refering to doorbells with a camera facing the outside then no, they're very uncommon.

There's very strict rules about how you're legally allowed to point a fixed installation camera in Sweden, you're not allowed to have a fixed installation that'll record anything that isn't your property. Not even the corner of the pavement. All in all, Swedes don't want cameras pointing all over, you have to put up signs if there are cameras and usually you should apply for a permit before installing cameras.

Inside your house you're free to record as you like though.

https://bit.ly/37dMVx2 <- Translated law regarding cameras.

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

#269

Post by peterdn »

sriram_malhar wrote: post #19
alanbernstein wrote: post #6

No 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?

It 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.htm...

Also, 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/...

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

#270

Post by bluecalm »

Felz wrote: post #196
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…

Keep in mind that how strict the speed limits are seems to vary significantly by local laws and driving culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_Sta... So what might be unacceptable "speedo pedo"ism where you live might be completely normal going 5 miles over the posted speed limit elsewhere. My personal experience is that people tend to drive at a speed they feel safe at, and don't pay that…

That's the reason we need to enforce speed limit. People are terrible at assessing what's safe. Even if they can somehow manage to assess their personal safety they have terrible judgement when it comes to other road users. You may feel very safe going over speed limit in a residential area but pedestrians, cyclists etc. won't.
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