Looks like a clever iPhone App to me...
There is now an iPhone application that allows users to find and avoid DCs traffic cameras.
Police chief denounces 'cowardly' iPhone users monitoring speed traps (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Devices-that-warn-drivers-of-speed_-red-light-cameras-draw-police-ire-7930619-50074717.html)
As many comments on this article state, if what DC really wanted was for people to slow down, this app will still make people do this. But, if they're mainly looking for revenue...
Ofcourse, traffic safety is there first to generate money, then for the good-looking statistics.
By the way, such apps are very common on GPS's in Europe.
My GPS also has built in speed camera warnings. There's one available now that uses GSM to store temporary mobile sites. If a user spots a mobile speedtrap he presses a button which immediately updates all the other units out there via GSM so other customers with the same brand/model GPS will get a warning if they travel the same stretch of road. The warning will remain for 3 hours after which time it is expected the speedtrap will move on.
It's a game of cat and mouse. One side will come up with something new and the opposition will find some way of countering it. If traffic enforcement was carried out properly there would be no need for any of it :banghead:
Quote from: Truvelo on July 17, 2009, 06:42:54 AM
My GPS also has built in speed camera warnings. There's one available now that uses GSM to store temporary mobile sites. If a user spots a mobile speedtrap he presses a button which immediately updates all the other units out there via GSM so other customers with the same brand/model GPS will get a warning if they travel the same stretch of road. The warning will remain for 3 hours after which time it is expected the speedtrap will move on.
It's a game of cat and mouse. One side will come up with something new and the opposition will find some way of countering it. If traffic enforcement was carried out properly there would be no need for any of it :banghead:
Ah, but in the UK, the speed cameras are much more prevalent and common. Here, the speed cameras are limited to metropolitan areas, like DC, and specialized apps like this can be made.
The Netherlands alone (16,000 square miles or the size of half of South Carolina) has 1,425 fixed speed cameras.
Quote from: mightyace on July 16, 2009, 10:48:25 PM
As many comments on this article state, if what DC really wanted was for people to slow down, this app will still make people do this. But, if they're mainly looking for revenue...
But they would only slow down by the speed trap, not all the time like they should be.
Quote from: deanej on July 17, 2009, 05:13:26 PM
Quote from: mightyace on July 16, 2009, 10:48:25 PM
As many comments on this article state, if what DC really wanted was for people to slow down, this app will still make people do this. But, if they're mainly looking for revenue...
But they would only slow down by the speed trap, not all the time like they should be.
Well, if you put in enough speed traps, then they will have to slow down all the time. :sombrero:
Two words: "section control". They measure your speed from point A to Z on a certain stretch of freeway. If you average too fast, you'll get fined. We also have that in the Netherlands :banghead: (especially on freeways with a hardly enforcable speed limit of only 50 mph)
I use Trapster (http://www.trapster.com/) on a BlackBerry so she wasn't talking about me. :)
Cowardly? Like letting a machine do the job and mailing the fine without any face-to-face interaction? :D This reminds me of a story I heard of a guy who got a ticket in the mail with a picture of his license plate, so he sent the cops back a picture of the money in the amount of the fine.
Quote from: Chris on July 17, 2009, 05:20:03 PM(especially on freeways with a hardly enforcable speed limit of only 50 mph)
tourists from off the continent will obey. In Norway and Iceland I obeyed every speed limit, including the absurd 90 km/h on utterly abandoned roads, because I had heard somewhere that the fine for speeding could be as high as 3000 euro!
When were these cameras implemented in DC?
DC has had red light cameras since 1999. Don't have a specific year for the speed cameras, but language on MPD's website suggests they've existed since 2002 or 2003.
I got my first DC speed camera ticket in January 2003, if that helps. "For safety" my rear...it's just DC's way of implementing a commuter tax. They are pretty easy to spot and avoid though if you know what to look for.
I need to get active enough on POI Factory to qualify for the red light and speed enforcement camera POI file.
What is the brand of the GSM-enabled GPS? That might be handy in a place like VA or DC where they don't allow the use of radar detectors. I'll be making my first lengthy trip through VA since buying my Valentine One last winter and I don't relish the thought of having to take it down and turn it off. That thing has already saved me hundreds of dollars in speeding fines and allowed me to get to where I"m going a little quicker.
Quote from: hbelkins on August 30, 2009, 12:19:50 AM
I need to get active enough on POI Factory to qualify for the red light and speed enforcement camera POI file.
What is the brand of the GSM-enabled GPS? That might be handy in a place like VA or DC where they don't allow the use of radar detectors. I'll be making my first lengthy trip through VA since buying my Valentine One last winter and I don't relish the thought of having to take it down and turn it off. That thing has already saved me hundreds of dollars in speeding fines and allowed me to get to where I"m going a little quicker.
It said in my original post that this is an Apple iPhone app.
Yes, but POI Factory also has a downloadable POI file with enforcement cameras. I could grab that and put it on my Garmin Nuvi. And someone else mentioned the GSM-enabled GPS.
How about a simpler solution: avoid the District and stop for red lights in Virginia...
Quote from: froggie on August 30, 2009, 12:36:30 PM
How about a simpler solution: avoid the District and stop for red lights in Virginia...
Well, I do make it a practice to stop for red lights anywhere I travel. But sometimes they change all too quickly when you're approaching a light and it turns yellow when you're at that "tween" speed where it's difficult to stop without slamming on the brakes and even if you accelerate you may get caught in the intersection when the light turns. It's nice to have tools to use as a defense to prevent such from happening; if you know there are cameras in the area you can slow down a bit so as not to get caught in an unfortunate position accidentally if a light changes on you.
It should be illegal for a yellow phase to be that short.
In the District, there's 2 things I've noticed to which that shouldn't be a problem:
- The yellow phases have all appeared to be within standards.
- Most traffic signals, at least downtown and in Southeast, have pedestrian countdown timers which you can use as a guide to determine when the light will change.
QuoteCowardly? Like letting a machine do the job and mailing the fine without any face-to-face interaction?
And therein lies the problem. Who's to assume that the person the car is registered to was the person driving it at the time? Don't let anyone else ever drive your car! :colorful:
QuoteThis reminds me of a story I heard of a guy who got a ticket in the mail with a picture of his license plate, so he sent the cops back a picture of the money in the amount of the fine.
And then the cops sent him a picture of a pair of handcuffs and he paid the fine.
Yeah, that's one of
those stories. But it's still funny.
The iOS app is legal on First Amendment grounds. DC can just pay Apple for exclusivity in that category and they will wipe all competing apps off the store. Justifying the expense would be the easy part... 'advancing traffic safety' or something like that. There was also a fuss up in Baltimore about an app that shows sobriety checkpoints.
The yellow phase is definitely too short, especially at locations with redlight cameras. Simple purpose: the camera operator is looking for profit. If the cameras reduce tickets, they lose money. Decrease the yellow phase, increase revenue. Safety and rear end accidents be damned.
Sykotyk
The very defination of coward is traffic cop, IMHO. While others in our society do serious useful work, they, at the point of a gun, extort money from people. They are thieves.
QuoteWho's to assume that the person the car is registered to was the person driving it at the time? Don't let anyone else ever drive your car!
Former PennDOT employee here. The following comments are true in PA. I would guess that most other states are probably similar; some may be wildly different.
In PA the registered owner of a vehicle is responsible for the use of that vehicle, no matter who they allow to drive it. It is incumbent upon the registered owner to only allow individuals they believe to be of sound judgment and character to operate their vehicle.
Of course, that excludes most of my family on my wife's side. (insert rim shot here)
So yes, the registered owner is at least partly on the hook for whatever happens with their vehicle when someone else drives it. The owner must be very judicious in who they allow to drive their vehicle.
This is also why, in the event of auto theft, the registered owner must report the vehicle stolen as soon as possible.
Quote from: SP Cook on April 13, 2011, 07:36:22 AM
The very defination of coward is traffic cop, IMHO. While others in our society do serious useful work, they, at the point of a gun, extort money from people. They are thieves.
correct. there should not ever be a revenue aspect to traffic enforcement. it should be just points on your system. get enough points, lose your license for a while. 85 in a 70, get a point. park in the same spot for over 24 hours, get 1/10th of a point or whatnot. get 3 points in 12 months, lose your license for 6.
but take the cash element out of it, and you instantly get rid of corrupt sheriffs riding your tail from one end of the county to the other, just itching for you to go faster than two under the limit.
Quote from: mightyace on July 16, 2009, 10:48:25 PM
Police chief denounces 'cowardly' iPhone users monitoring speed traps (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Devices-that-warn-drivers-of-speed_-red-light-cameras-draw-police-ire-7930619-50074717.html)
As many comments on this article state, if what DC really wanted was for people to slow down, this app will still make people do this. But, if they're mainly looking for revenue...
"Brave" people can use radar detectors to sniff out the traffic cameras, as I do most every time I visit camera-infested Montgomery County MD. Of course, radar detectors are illegal in DC (as well as in Virginia, which fortunately has no speed cameras and seems not to have abusive red-light cameras).
Quote from: oscar on April 13, 2011, 11:41:33 AM
"Brave" people can use radar detectors to sniff out the traffic cameras, as I do most every time I visit camera-infested Montgomery County MD. Of course, radar detectors are illegal in DC (as well as in Virginia, which fortunately has no speed cameras and seems not to have abusive red-light cameras).
I've always figured that by the time the radar detector lights up, you're toast. a modern radar gun needs about 1/10th of a second to get a reading. the radar detector will respond that quickly, but unless you're Michael Schumacher, there's no way
you will.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on April 13, 2011, 11:43:02 AM
Quote from: oscar on April 13, 2011, 11:41:33 AM
"Brave" people can use radar detectors to sniff out the traffic cameras, as I do most every time I visit camera-infested Montgomery County MD. Of course, radar detectors are illegal in DC (as well as in Virginia, which fortunately has no speed cameras and seems not to have abusive red-light cameras).
I've always figured that by the time the radar detector lights up, you're toast. a modern radar gun needs about 1/10th of a second to get a reading. the radar detector will respond that quickly, but unless you're Michael Schumacher, there's no way you will.
For a speed camera to spot targets without human assistance (as is usually the case), it has to have its radar gun turned on all the time. The radar gun might have a short range, so you don't necessarily get much advance warning from your detector, but you get enough to slow down before the camera can get a fix on your speed.
Quote from: SP Cook on April 13, 2011, 07:36:22 AM
The very defination of coward is traffic cop, IMHO. While others in our society do serious useful work, they, at the point of a gun, extort money from people. They are thieves.
:clap: :clap: :clap:
Quote from: oscar on April 13, 2011, 02:49:08 PM
For a speed camera to spot targets without human assistance (as is usually the case), it has to have its radar gun turned on all the time. The radar gun might have a short range, so you don't necessarily get much advance warning from your detector, but you get enough to slow down before the camera can get a fix on your speed.
I can't find the article this second, but I thought I read somewhere that some of the fixed speed cameras that Arizona DOT used on their freeways were using loops in the highway in some fashion (not sure if it was like vascar, measuring speed between loops or just using them to tell the radar gun to wake up or what). But even if they weren't there are technologies out there which don't require radar at all (or don't require radar to be on all the time) to catch speeders autonomously. Whether these states decide to use them is another story.
autonomously recognizing vehicles is a real challenge... how to correlate that the red '04 Corolla you saw around the bend back there is the same one passing the camera right now. there's a colossal amount of visual processing necessary that a human can do instinctively, but is just out of reach of machine technology.
even if you did it by license plate number: assuming you can read a license plate number far enough away that you can do VASCAR-style speed calculations, you have to actually find the license plate in the field of view - a needle in a haystack.
this is the sort of thing that maybe the NSA could pull off in real time - maybe! - but not Arizona DOT.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on April 14, 2011, 11:46:32 AM
autonomously recognizing vehicles is a real challenge... how to correlate that the red '04 Corolla you saw around the bend back there is the same one passing the camera right now. there's a colossal amount of visual processing necessary that a human can do instinctively, but is just out of reach of machine technology.
even if you did it by license plate number: assuming you can read a license plate number far enough away that you can do VASCAR-style speed calculations, you have to actually find the license plate in the field of view - a needle in a haystack.
this is the sort of thing that maybe the NSA could pull off in real time - maybe! - but not Arizona DOT.
Actually, here's a company which installs them:
http://www.lochwynd.com/services-inductiveloop.html
From that page (and several others if you google speed camera inductive loop) seems to indicate that they measure your speed using two loops in a row. If you place the two loops close enough to the camera that you don't have time to change lanes between the measurement and the picture, I can see that working. Not sure how it handles tractor trailers or multi-trailers (ie, there's a break in the field between the two trailers, how does that reconcile that as not being two cars?), but there you go.
that does not sound like a camera. it does not depend on visual identification, but rather measuring the time that the magnetic signature of a vehicle takes to go between one loop and the next. far easier problem to solve!
Quote from: qguy on April 13, 2011, 09:26:33 AM
QuoteWho's to assume that the person the car is registered to was the person driving it at the time? Don't let anyone else ever drive your car!
Former PennDOT employee here. The following comments are true in PA. I would guess that most other states are probably similar; some may be wildly different.
In PA the registered owner of a vehicle is responsible for the use of that vehicle, no matter who they allow to drive it. It is incumbent upon the registered owner to only allow individuals they believe to be of sound judgment and character to operate their vehicle.
Of course, that excludes most of my family on my wife's side. (insert rim shot here)
So yes, the registered owner is at least partly on the hook for whatever happens with their vehicle when someone else drives it. The owner must be very judicious in who they allow to drive their vehicle.
This is also why, in the event of auto theft, the registered owner must report the vehicle stolen as soon as possible.
I think you're talking about liability and it's generally true that the owner is always liable for a vehicle they own. I don't think too many of us have a problem with that.
What the author of the first quote is talking about is that speed and traffic light camera fine the owner of the vehicle not the driver. That is NOT how it is done with live cops.
If my brother is driving my car and gets pulled over for speeding, he gets the ticket, not I. However, if my registration or insurance has lapsed, I still get the citation for that.
As far as I know, most of the automated enforcement nowadays is carried out by loops--both speed cameras and red light cameras. The only real exceptions are the mobile photo radar systems, where it's obviously not practical to lay down loops.
Some of the red light camera systems (including some here in Oregon) have rather nasty little loop systems that also measure one's speed approaching a signal, and they can actually go off if they merely
think you're not going to be able to stop in time for the light, as happened in
this prominent case (http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/05/portland_attorney_proves_red-l.html). A little extract:
Quote
In an interview with The Oregonian Wednesday, Sgt. Todd Davis agreed that it's possible for the red-light camera to snap a photo of a driver who doesn't end up running a red light. If a driver approaches a red light fast, a sensor under the pavement alerts the camera that the driver won't likely be able to stop before the signal turns green. The camera takes a photo before the car enters the intersection, then takes a photo of the car in the intersection.
All the more reason to ban the damn things.
Quote from: Tarkus on April 16, 2011, 03:56:07 AM
As far as I know, most of the automated enforcement nowadays is carried out by loops--both speed cameras and red light cameras. The only real exceptions are the mobile photo radar systems, where it's obviously not practical to lay down loops.
Maybe where you are, but Montgomery County MD's numerous speed cameras -- including the stationary ones -- use radar rather than loops.
Quote from: mightyace on April 16, 2011, 03:11:13 AM
I think you're talking about liability and it's generally true that the owner is always liable for a vehicle they own. I don't think too many of us have a problem with that.
What the author of the first quote is talking about is that speed and traffic light camera fine the owner of the vehicle not the driver. That is NOT how it is done with live cops.
If my brother is driving my car and gets pulled over for speeding, he gets the ticket, not I. However, if my registration or insurance has lapsed, I still get the citation for that.
Take the following with a grain of salt as I am not a lawyer (just a citizen who likes to know his rights):
I was under the impression the reason why red light cameras (until recently) and speed cameras (still, I think) aren't/weren't legal in NJ was because of that exact reason. I'll see if I can find it in the codified law (Title 39 if you have nothing better to do), but NJ explicitly (or maybe implicitly through case law) required that moving violations be issued to the driver of the vehicle, not the owner. I think the only exception to this was running a school bus with its red lights on. I think the new red light camera statute doesn't assign points for those tickets to sort of get around that.