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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

#411

Post by tomp »

mschuetz wrote: post #408
tomp wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speeding is one of the most obvious examples of government overreach. 1) The speed limit obviously an arbitrary choice - the chance of death is decent at 50k/h (standard "town" speed limit in Slovenia) (so why not 40hm/k or 30km/h), and e.g. Germany has no speed limit on the highways (in some places) so there's really no good reason to set a limit of 130km/h (why not 110km/h or 150km/h)? 2) The easiest objection to (…

Speed limits are important for non-cars. As a cyclist, I don't want people overtaking me 100km/h with a 1m gap. As a pedestrian trying to cross a small city or town street without dedicated crossing, I don't want drivers to suddenly appear with 100km/h from a small curve. I'd argue that 50km/h in a city is still too much. 30km/h should be the limit.

As a pedestrian, I'm not ok with someone overtaking me at 30km/h with a 0.5m gap.

See? It's all discretionary. As should speed limits be (at the discretion of the driver, based on the current road conditions).

The problems you mention have other, better, actual solutions (e.g. cycling lanes, speed bumps before road crossings, ...).

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

#412

Post by DanBC »

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…

Speed cameras free up police allowing them to spend more time dealing with these other forms of dangerous driving.

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

#413

Post by ptr2voidStar »

hhmc wrote: post #361
swarnie_ wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its the "one size fits all" rule which annoys me. My car will comfortably sit at 110mph all day long, if I'm alone on a motorway in the early hours who am i hurting or endangering? It certainly isn't about safety because that same car will stop from 100mph in less distance than the highway code requires for 70.

> I'm alone on a motorway in the early hours who am i hurting or endangering? - your loved ones - the emergency services that have to clean your body off the road - subsequent road users -- when the road is closed -- to clean your body off the road

Lol. Harsh, but true. Why do people only think about themselves?!

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

#414

Post by BonnieBrown »

BonnieBrown wrote: post #409
tomp wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speeding is one of the most obvious examples of government overreach. 1) The speed limit obviously an arbitrary choice - the chance of death is decent at 50k/h (standard "town" speed limit in Slovenia) (so why not 40hm/k or 30km/h), and e.g. Germany has no speed limit on the highways (in some places) so there's really no good reason to set a limit of 130km/h (why not 110km/h or 150km/h)? 2) The easiest objection to (…

Gosh isn't that the truth. I remember reading on reddit years ago about a "study" where college students drove on freeways in a wall, one in each lane, going exactly the speed limit no faster and no slower. It backed up traffic for miles. Where I am in Southern California the freeway speed limit in most places is 65 MPH. EVERYONE drives over 65 MPH on the freeways. I think you are more likely to get pulled over on th…

fund, since I can't figure out how to edit and correct that typo

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

#415

Post by ptr2voidStar »

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.

"Gracious,giving angels"?!

Obviously, you've never driven in London before.

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

#416

Post by iso947 »

lillecarl wrote: post #268
iso947 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Similar restrictions in the U.K. with signs. CCTV signs are usually up for commercial companies, but residential wise it isn’t enforced, and from the local Facebook group people seem shocked at the very idea recording te street and posting pictures of troublemakers is illegal.

I was disappointed by the number of people with them when I went door knocking for the election last year.

The police actually advised me to get one for my grandmother who has been suffering from door to door scammers.

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

#417

Post by iso947 »

thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #373
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.

That's surprising, drivers on the M60 near Stockport drive like they're at Oulton Park.

It’s on the anti-clockwise part when the limit drops from 70 to 50 round the bend. I got caught at 60, showing how little attention I was paying to the speed limit (I was preoccupied with the tailgater)

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

#418

Post by cortic »

mschuetz wrote: post #408
tomp wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speeding is one of the most obvious examples of government overreach. 1) The speed limit obviously an arbitrary choice - the chance of death is decent at 50k/h (standard "town" speed limit in Slovenia) (so why not 40hm/k or 30km/h), and e.g. Germany has no speed limit on the highways (in some places) so there's really no good reason to set a limit of 130km/h (why not 110km/h or 150km/h)? 2) The easiest objection to (…

Speed limits are important for non-cars. As a cyclist, I don't want people overtaking me 100km/h with a 1m gap. As a pedestrian trying to cross a small city or town street without dedicated crossing, I don't want drivers to suddenly appear with 100km/h from a small curve. I'd argue that 50km/h in a city is still too much. 30km/h should be the limit.

Have you ever consider that 1m gap is a product of speed limits? If we didn't have such limits, dedicated cycle lanes set apart from roads would become the norm imo.

Its not uncommon for cheap inadequate safety measures to supplant real ones.

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

#419

Post by everybodyknows »

TecoAndJix wrote: post #397
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically you can pretty much only get caught by the irregular ones if you’re on a quiet road too - otherwise someone will flash you as you approach to let you know. At least in some places anyway.

Flashing my lights to warn another driver about a speed trap makes me feel like I’m part of some underground resistance

Resistance to government by rule of law?

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

#420

Post by rootsofallevil »

tomp wrote: post #404
Lio wrote: post #321

There's the old joke: "All those present that object to receiving speeding fines please raise your right foot". People object to speeding fines but receiving them is entirely optional. Personally, I'd rather they clamped down harder on tailgating, poor lane discipline and uninsured drivers than on motorway speed limits.

Speeding is one of the most obvious examples of government overreach. 1) The speed limit obviously an arbitrary choice - the chance of death is decent at 50k/h (standard "town" speed limit in Slovenia) (so why not 40hm/k or 30km/h), and e.g. Germany has no speed limit on the highways (in some places) so there's really no good reason to set a limit of 130km/h (why not 110km/h or 150km/h)? 2) The easiest objection to (…

> 1) The speed limit obviously an arbitrary choice - the chance of death is decent at 50k/h (standard "town" speed limit in Slovenia) (so why not 40hm/k or 30km/h), and e.g. Germany has no speed limit on the highways (in some places) so there's really no good reason to set a limit of 130km/h (why not 110km/h or 150km/h)?

As are most limits.

I get that driving on a motorway at say 85 mph is probably not that much dangerous than the speed limit (70 mph) but 100? 120? 140?

I know about Germany, but would you say that Britain's or Slovenia's road are designed and kept to the same standard?

> 2) The easiest objection to (1) is "society has jointly decided about acceptable risk limits" but that clearly isn't true. Speed limits are simply a bad idea. A much better idea is speed constraints - roundabouts, speed bumps, chicanes [0] - i.e. actually forcing people to drive slower or else they ruin their cars.

how do you constrain speed on a motorway?

> The fact that governments default to traffic cameras etc. is proof (revealed preference) that they don't actually care about safety and people driving slowly, but what they want most is making their citizens live in fear, punishing them and extracting money from them. This is particularly obvious when there's a hidden police / traffic control on some section of the road where it's obviously safe to drive fast, but it's just technically within city limits so it has a low speed limit.

In this country (UK) there is this myth that the cameras are money making devices, when during the 2008 crisis they were turned off to save money for some constabularies, this is the same type of argument.

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