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

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

#331

Post by 5h »

jimnotgym wrote: post #326

In the UK fixed speed cameras are common. The problem for me is that they are put at places where people tend to speed, and that is often because it is a major road running through a village. Instead of building the proper infrastructure to allow traffic to pass through we just slow it down. My second problem with speed enforcement is it has caused a shift in policing. Speeding is an absolute and so is cheap to polic…

Average speed camera zones are the only speed control device that works (for many via congestion rather than willful compliance I suspect), unfortunately it also encourages tailgating, aggressive and distracted driving (often in reduced width lanes) - I wish there was more of a focus on that.

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

#332

Post by rozab »

konschubert wrote: post #297
fierarul wrote: post #286

I think society will soon discover that a certain % of rule breaking is absolutely necessary for it to function. My car has a speed limiter, radio and a computer. Imagine a near future where speed limits are sent via radio then enforced by the car computer. No more infringement!

If a law is bad when enforced, then the law needs to be changed, not the enforcement. Arbitrary enforcement leads to discrimination and corruption. Regarding the speed limit, I think the laws are just finde and should simply be enforced.

It's a hell of a lot harder to have perfect laws than strict enforcement. Especially when revenue-raising is involved.

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

#333

Post by buran77 »

manquer wrote: post #294
buran77 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many countries the word of a police officer carries more weight by virtue of the authority they represent. It's considered that they are qualified to be entrusted with a lot of responsibility, so they are also inherently more trustworthy. This sounds reasonable especially given how many incidents are witnessed with no hard evidence - like jay walking, littering, disturbing public peace, etc. and probably also a lo…

Their testimony is given more weight not because of virtue of authority but by the familiarity and working relationships they enjoy in judicial system. Same reason they get lesser punishment, a familiar colleague or someone from the organization you work daily with, or any persona you identify with better ( same school, ethnic/ racial background etc) will likely be treated more favourably .

Lawyers enjoy an even better familiarity but not the same level of trust. Police officers are trusted to run after criminals and catch them so implicitly with the authority to do this also comes that trust. They need it to do their job. Otherwise they would face the same reaction when doing their job as you would as a normal person trying to act like a police officer.

As for the punishment, there is no reasonable analogy here. They only get the privileges enshrined in law and are treated equally everywhere else (e.g. punishment), it's not a matter of favoritism. I'm not aware of cases where a country imposes substantially harsher punishment for police officers convicted of a crime, especially when during the line of duty.

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

#334

Post by avianlyric »

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…

> i.e. saving third-party lives, on a non-busy road doing 35 mph in a 30 mph really going to kill anybody?

Yes, the stats show quite clearly that 30mph is the point where pedestrian fatality rates really start climbing. [1]

At 30mph, if you have a collision with a pedestrian there’s a 20% chance the pedestrian dies.

At 35mph it’s 50%

At 40mph it’s 90%

The article mentioned the car was doing over 35mph. Additionally in the U.K. 30mph zones are normally residential areas and city centres, places where pedestrians are very common.

[1] https://www.roadwise.co.uk/using-the-road/speeding/the-chanc...

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

#335

Post by [deleted] »

_Wintermute wrote: post #300
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…

> 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. What an absurd comment. Scotland has stricter drink-driving laws than England.

[deleted]

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

#336

Post by yholio »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #323

There’s too much focus on the easy to measure speed problem. I’m not saying inappropriate speed should not be enforced against but i strongly believe more effort should be applied to avoid the more common cause of major road traffic incidents - inattention. You can’t easily measure inattention but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. The solution doesn’t only have to be in penalties, it could be in making it harder t…

Inattention is hard to measure and results in accidents that are made much worse by excessive speed, which is easy to measure. If the goal is to reduce overall traffic victims, then investing in speed control seems like the low hanging fruit.

The energy of vehicle (thus, the energy absorbed during impact by every object contained or hit) is proportinal with the square of the speed. Meanwhile, the reaction time available to avoid the collision drops linearly with speed, while the braking or turn distance increases more than linearly.

So the overall probability of accidents and their severity increases exponentially with speed.

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

#337

Post by Shivetya »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #323

There’s too much focus on the easy to measure speed problem. I’m not saying inappropriate speed should not be enforced against but i strongly believe more effort should be applied to avoid the more common cause of major road traffic incidents - inattention. You can’t easily measure inattention but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. The solution doesn’t only have to be in penalties, it could be in making it harder t…

It has not been all that long that we had technologies we could put into cars to determine if a driver was paying attention; though exactly what that is is also subject to interpretation

With my Tesla I am able to have it chime if I exceed the speed limit by a set amount and even if a light turns green.

however the big danger is still cell phone usage and no one wants to take the step of disabling them while moving and the technology is there.

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

#338

Post by lmm »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #323

There’s too much focus on the easy to measure speed problem. I’m not saying inappropriate speed should not be enforced against but i strongly believe more effort should be applied to avoid the more common cause of major road traffic incidents - inattention. You can’t easily measure inattention but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. The solution doesn’t only have to be in penalties, it could be in making it harder t…

> And yet... road deaths are down over the same 20 years and mobility is up.

> Road traffic enforcement isn’t even in the top 1000 issues facing the UK today.

Road collisions are one of the biggest killers of young people in the UK. It's absolutely a big issue.

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

#339

Post by Closi »

Reason077 wrote: post #313
iso947 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woodhead Pass and A14 come to mind. Tower bridge too. And the A9. Cat and fiddle. Only time I got caught speeding in 20+ years was an avcam at the bottom corner of the m60 near Stockport. Perhaps not as common as gatsos but not very rare.

In 10+ years of driving in the UK, the only time I got caught speeding was in France! Oh, and once in New Zealand. I see signs for the the UK average speed cameras all over the place, but I guess they're tuned to only trigger for vehicles that are significantly exceeding the limit?

They are usually tuned for the speed limit + 10% + 2mph, as that’s the national guideline for fines/prosecution.

Technically you can get caught for any speed over though.

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

#340

Post by lmm »

tdeck wrote: post #95
ransom1538 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take it another level. Every car should have a chip. Once you are in a speed limit - your car can't go faster. Oh wait, this wont generate revenue - so it wont work. Never mind.

This idea goes back a long way. In 1923 42,000 Cincinnati residents petitioned for mandatory speed governors to limit cars to 25 miles per hour [1]. This was an era when pedestrians typically owned the streets, so the advent of high-speed traffic caused a lot of pedestrian deaths. 1: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Cincinnati-speed-gov...

You say that like high-speed traffic isn't still causing a lot of pedestrian deaths.
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