You just know the tech will get better, so get ready for getting a tickets for distracted driving for picking your nose.
Developed by Simicon, this new speed sensor promises to take highway surveillance to new heights of precision. Unlike most photo radar systems, which track only one violator at a time, Simicon’s device can simultaneously identify and follow up to 32 vehicles across four lanes. Whenever a car enters its range, the Cordon will automatically generate two images: one from wide-angle view and one closeup shot of the vehicle’s license plate. It’s also capable of instantly measuring a car’s speed and mapping its position, and can easily be synced with other databases via WiFi, 3G or WiMAX.
Plus, this device is compact and durable enough to be mounted upon a tripod or atop a road sign, making it even harder for drivers to spot. Fortunately, though, you still have time to change your dragster ways, as distributor Peak Gain Systems won’t be bringing the Cordon to North America until the first quarter of 2012. Cruise past the break to see some footage of a field trial that’s currently underway — cars tagged with a green dot are traveling below the speed limit, those with a yellow marking are chugging along within an acceptable range above the limit, while vehicles with a red tab are just asking for trouble.
Desire for anonymity is not the same thing as Right to Privacy. Big Brother will constantly frustrate both though. Pick the right battle.
The Navy’s retired F-14 Tomcat could do this with their Phoenix missiles, tracking 8 targets at once. And that was in the 1970’s.
They’re going to stick black boxes in every vehicle and measure your speed and location non stop. The tech is here now. They haven’t done it yet but they will.
Progressive insurance offers the modules in trade for a discount.
A string of IR LEDs around your license plate will fool most cameras.
Had a friend mount some under the bill of his baseball cap. Cameras (video and still) couldn’t see his face.
This will work on any camera without an IR filter (which is most BW CCD cameras). I’ll leave it as an exercise for the student to determine if the camera he wants to fool has an IR filter in place or not.
Of course, once “they” realize what you are doing, they might want to find out what you are hiding . . . then you just pull out your Trunk Monkey.
I question the accuracy of the system. At 0:35 there are two cars traveling the same speed (at least it looked like the same speed in the video), yet the device claims the one in back was going 4-6 mph (kph?) faster than the one in front. There did not appear to be any closure in the distance between the vehicles, and the difference in speed (assuming mph) would mean closure between 5-8 feet/second.
Imagine these will be deployed everywhere quite soon. Traffic citations are more about raising revenue than safety anyway, and being able to issue citations without even needing to pay a cop to pull you over will be a boon.
Once again, technology that can be used for good and evil.
Evil: Revenue generation under the guise of a public safety service.
Good: Tracking down crotch-rocket gangs attempting new land speed records on the Interstate.
The impetus for getting behing the wheel of a Google automated car and letting it do all the driving will be:
1) It will be safer.
2) It will be faster.
3) It will be easier.
4) It will know how to get there.
5) It will know what the various speed limits are.
6) It will save you a crap load of moving violations.
Hint: its 6.
(Added bonus: You can’t get hit with a distracted driving charge if you’re not driving. All of that traffic monitoring equipment becomes useless.)
hope it happens soon.
Wonder what it’ll do for insurance quotations
Wouldn’t standard issue cruise control do the same job at saving you moving violations? Even Google can’t save you if you don’t use it.
As soon as they have Gas Detectors and Transponders in every car, they will be able to Ticket you for FARTING !!!
There are rules that need to be followed in order for you to be safe/safer when you are driving and following the rules. The jackasses that weave in and out of traffic at high speed in heavy traffic don’t have any right to do so. That’s what these cameras and technology are for. They are not necessary on country roads where 2 cars pass in 15 minutes, and you won’t find them there. It’s not because there is no money to be made.
Until they are actually used to fine you for picking your nose, or farting… I’m all for them. If that time ever comes, which I doubt it will in our lifetime, you can fight back with invasion of privacy claims. Until then, lets use technology to weed out the shits who think they freedom means you can do anything you want, and screw everyone else.
If the only thing the camera is capable of doing is to allow for a ticket to be mailed to a reckless driver a week after the fact, then how has any of it actually made the roads safer?
No, these are about generating maximum revenue at minimal cost.
A week later the reckless driver will be out a few hundred dollars for each offense, possibly a lot more if he drives that way every day. That’s incentive.
Also, my taxes pay for the police. They are the single most expensive item on the city tab. So maximum revenue at minimal cost is desirable.
I can’t see faces. Until the law is changed making the registered owner responsible – whether driving or not – this is just an exercise in futility. Or, Congress can always change the legal system to “guilty until self-proven innocent” … which, of course, is really the way the US system is working, anyway.
Good point. We need more cameras at road level with zoom lenses, face recognition and a high powered laser.
Deficit reduction program in motion, nice!
Complete waste of taxpayers funds yet again. Compare these to red light cameras which are coming down everywhere (ref: camerafraud.com) where in Los Angeles the public finally found out that paying their red light tickets has always been VOLUNTARY!