Building a Traffic Radar System To Catch Reckless Drivers? 483
cbraescu1 writes "I live in a city with a population in the millions (someplace in the Middle East; the country is not important), and I am mad as hell. The car traffic is going from bad to worse, and I'm sick of all the car accidents that keep happening (we have one of the biggest accident and mortality rates per km of road or per 1,000 vehicles). I just witnessed a car accident a few hours ago, and in the last few months I've given first aid at two other car accidents, all happening within 500 meters of each other. Today's victims escaped alive, but the motorcycle driver who was responsible fled and the police weren't equipped to catch him. There are laws, but not much willingness to enforce them, and no traffic lights at all. After speaking with some of my friends, we decided to take the issue into our own hands: build a traffic radar system able to capture a vehicle's speed, install it at our own expense, and share the generated penalties with the city government (all subject of their approval, of course). We want to start on the main avenue (more than 15 km) and to 'roll' the income from the penalties into covering new streets (so that perpetrators will basically finance the system). We're not rich and we will not ask for our money back. We just need to make the system start and we're confident the penalty fees will cover its spread. So, I'm asking Slashdot: what would be a workable way to build such a system? It must withstand drivers claiming the system is cheating, high temperatures, high levels of humidity, and crappy electricity. Any suggestions would be appreciated. This is about technology saving lives — literally."
Why this is a bad idea. (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a terrible idea, because if it's successful it will be used to track people's movements by corrupt officials.
Um... shouldn't traffic lights come first? (Score:3, Interesting)
So let me get this straight. The goal is to spend your money on catching speeders rather than installing traffic lights? Really?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Can't enforce what is ignored. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can't enforce what is ignored. (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, it will. I saw a movie like this once. I think it had Charles Bronson in it.
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No, that was someone else.
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Go Goetz 'em!
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All I want is to make it easy and FREE for the government to start enforcing the traffic laws. They just do not have the money for these equipments. What I wants it a self-replicating system of such traffic radars, with a revenue sharing system where the government pays nothing, earns part of the generated fines, and our share goes toward installing new radars.
Okay, and everyone has a valid mailing address too, so they can receive the ticket. Oh, and there's plenty of judges to hear those who wish to dispute the ticket. Oh, and everyone has a current license plate which connects the vehicle to the household and then the driver. Oh, and I'm sure there's a system in place to catch those who do not pay their tickets, like not being able to renew their drivers' licenses because all the drivers have current licenses too.
Oh, and why speeding? Why not 'failure to
speeding vs reckless driving (Score:3, Interesting)
Cameras only catch speeding, and actually encourage reckless driving.
UK police accident stats: TRL323 for example
excessive speed (includes over the limit *and* too great for the conditions; rain/fog etc): Generously, somewhere round 15% of accidents in the UK definitely, probably or even possibly include excessive speed as a component. The largest component by far is inattention ~25%, then comes failure to judge ~20% other road users and looking but not seeing ~20%, all of which are simply reckless driving.
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I refuse to live somewhere with speed bumps. They disrupt travelling too much, damage the car (even at low speeds), cause increased pollution, increased noise and damage nearby housing.
There are other traffic calming measures that are far superior for the road users and for the local population.
Re:Um... shouldn't traffic lights come first? (Score:4, Insightful)
Catching speeders imposes no new restrictions - it's just about enforcing the rules that are already in place.
Which may or may not - probably the latter - make the roads any *safer*.
The question is whether the objective is increasing safety or increasing compliance.
Re:Um... shouldn't traffic lights come first? (Score:4, Insightful)
Reducing speed doesn't ensure a decrease i accidents though. It doesn't work in other cities because municipalities get all hell-bent on enforcing speed limits instead of enforcing more important, accident reducing laws like illegal lane changes and failure to yield.
Speeding tickets = increased driving safety is one of the most egregious logical fallacies I can think of.
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What you're saying makes sense, except that it sounds like the asker doesn't work for the government and essentially wants to be a vigilante.
That is to say, he probably doesn't have the authority to install traffic lights, but he might be able to gather data proving someone is breaking the laws.
Not a great solution, but maybe sometimes you see a problem and you want to do what you can.
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I'm sure that the government would be more than happy to receive the donation of traffic lights.
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But how does installing a traffic light generate money to put in more traffic lights?
red light cameras (Score:2)
red light cameras
Re:red light cameras (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly a case of the following driver not driving with due care and attention, or of not leaving a proper gap between them and the preceding vehicle?
Are you saying it would be perfectly acceptable for a rear-end shunt if the first car slammed on the brakes because a child suddenly ran out in front of it?
At least with [most] traffic lights the following driver should be able to see them and should know that they may change and that the preceding driver may slam their brakes on [in Toledo, OH] and so prepare for this by easing off the gas slightly and increasing the gap slightly (more if there is a following vehicle that is too close to them) in readiness to brake if necessary.
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I suggest you come over here for a couple of days.
There's plenty of pre-assembled cameras on our street corners, help yourself....
No doubt, and I'll be (Score:2)
Installing radar jammers in the front and rear of my car, just in case our law enforcement gurus get any ideas.
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So let me get this straight. The goal is to spend your money on catching speeders rather than installing traffic lights? Really?
I'm with this guy. You punish AFTER you inform, and if you don't have traffic lights you don't have controlled intersections -- and that means you have chaos.
Anything you do will have to have government buy-in, or it's just plain ol' thuggery. (yes, you might wind up with just government-approved thuggery. But you also might end up with law and order.) Unless you're going to fundamentally change the nature of automobiles, you should start with basic traffic signals and road patterns. They are FAR cheap
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Traffic lights also don't finance themselves... the goal of the OP is to "seed" a busy street, and then grow the system to eventually cover a large area.
They do if they have red-light cameras installed.
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If you haven't already realized, Slashdot is a terrible place to ask this kind of question. People here have a strong individualistic, anti-government slant.
Anyway, I think the best thing you can do is install some red lights, then post police officers in motorcycles around these lights. Every time they see someone break the red light rule, flag them down and give them a ticket. At first the officers will be constantly busy and will be raking in a lot of revenue. Word will spread fast, and eventually yo
ummm (Score:4, Informative)
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Traffic Lights? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I know this sounds a bit "morbid"... but how did the motorcycle operator make it out of that situation alive if they were the cause of the accident? I mean, if I were in a car and I had a choice of hitting a motorcycle who [cut me off/drove in front of me/etc.] and hitting a truck or some other car... I'm not going to do any favors for the motorcyclist.
I do pay extra attention to motorcyclists on the road... don't get me wrong. But if they "caused" the accident, they better damn well be lying on the groun
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I know it sounds like typical western arrogance to suggest it, but I think the example of major cities in Europe and North America is informative here. You'll see that people will (mostly) honor traffic lights, but they will (mostly) ignore speed limits. It's probably because traffic light violations are (pardon the expression) black and white: either the light was red, or it wasn't, and a simple still camera can prove it one way or the other. By comparison, speed is more difficult to determine and prove
Re:Traffic Lights? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it sounds like typical western arrogance to suggest it, but I think the example of major cities in Europe and North America is informative here. You'll see that people will (mostly) honor traffic lights, but they will (mostly) ignore speed limits. It's probably because traffic light violations are (pardon the expression) black and white: either the light was red, or it wasn't, and a simple still camera can prove it one way or the other. By comparison, speed is more difficult to determine and prove (as anyone who has beaten a speeding ticket can confirm). The notion that radar guns and cameras will be effective in convicting perpetrators in a chaotic traffic environment is naive.
No, it's because they understand that not obeying traffic lights is nearly inescapably dangerous, whereas speeding is frequently not dangerous at all.
The majority of accidents happen at under the speed limit. The strictest speed enforcement in the world won't help when people are driving recklessly, or too fast for the conditions [but not over the speed limit].
the better alternative (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:the better alternative (Score:4, Informative)
Re:the better alternative (Score:5, Funny)
I had no idea the Ethiopian government had sold the name of their capital [wikipedia.org] to the peddlers of sports shoes [adidas.com] and middle of the road music [wikipedia.org] or fish picklers [www.abba.se].
Private technological gizmos (Score:2)
will never replace rule of law.
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are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid. No, wait...
Re:Private technological gizmos (Score:4, Informative)
will never replace rule of law.
My understanding is that the story submitter is trying to provide the police / government with a means to enforce the law. You'll note the phrase, "but the motorcycle driver who was responsible fled and the police weren't equipped to catch him," implying that the police do not have sufficient means.
You'll also notice that the summary states, "build a traffic radar system able to capture a vehicle's speed," and "[t]here are laws, but not much willingness to enforce them," and hopes with the hypothetical new system that fines will be levied. This, along with the general tone and explicit suggestion of rolling fines into additional technology, would all suggest that the submitter is looking to bootstrap rule of law.
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Yes, I want to work WITHIN the existing legal framework, by bootstrapping its enforcing. The radars are not some Charles Bronson vigilante tech toys, but should be installed with government consent under a revenue sharing agreement.
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You've clearly never heard of guns.
Force them to slow down (Score:5, Interesting)
Speed bumps may be more effective than radar traps.
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I live in a city with a population in the millions (someplace in the Middle East; the country is not important)
private citizen wants to put down speed bumps. Best to do it at night when it's cooler and the roads are less busy.
A couple of guys pouring cement onto a lump on the road in the middle of the night is not suspicious at all..... except to the predator flying overhead...
Re:Speed Bumps (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Force them to slow down (Score:5, Insightful)
And now I am not moderating anymore. I used to agree with you, but then someone pointed out that this is not nearly as good of a solution as it seems. Apparently, all it takes is one trip in an ambulance over a few speedbumps and you'd see things differently. A non-discriminating solution that slows all traffic to 5-10 miles an hour on a city road is an overkill.
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You want to give a government that can't enforce the laws they have an automatic ticket writing system which they will then use to write tickets for those who can afford to pay but cannot afford to fight. Marvelous.
How the US does it is a terrible mix of mandated corporate monopolies, confiscatory taxes and fines based on a confusing number of laws spread across an insane number of jurisdictions and some jack booted thuggery. I don't recommend it.
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Enforcement? (Score:2)
If there was any will of the authorities to enforce speed laws, they'd do something. Apparently there isn't so what are you going to do about that? Vigilantism?
Misdirected efforts (Score:3, Interesting)
You cannot solve a social problem with technology, or strict laws.
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Mod parent up. He gets it. This is a social problem, and requires a social solution.
ORGANIZE.
Any suggestions would be appreciated (Score:5, Insightful)
Move.
No seriously, the real issue is training/caring, not more policing. If your population is too dumb to be trained how to drive responsibly or don't care about their follow man as a rule, its time to move elsewhere.
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The test to be allowed to pilot a 2-ton metal projectile down a poorly constructed, crowded roadway is among the easiest you'll take in your life. This is not okay.
OP
Out Source It (Score:2, Interesting)
Find a country willing to provide
lower quality services for less money -
then when they continue the downward trend,
complain about the cost of returning the
services to the local level to improve the quality.
3) Profit !
First define "Reckless" (Score:2)
Is Reckless speeding? Weaving in and out of other cars? Sudden/frequent lane changes?
Do you need video of the vehicle driving recklessly in order to prosecute?
Forget the radar trap... (Score:2)
Laws first (Score:2)
First you need a law that says if you can get a "calibrated" radar reading and a picture you can issue a ticket to the owner of the vehicle.
Note that with the radar photo thing you cannot identify the driver. You need a law that says you can issue a ticket to the vehicle owner by mail or the equivalent and you do not need an officer actually chasing down the speeding vehicle.
Wait (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone in the mid-east is mad as hell? they deuce you say~
"s I've given first aid at two other car accidents, "
good for you, well done.
" we decided to take the issue into our own hands: build a traffic radar system able to capture a vehicle's speed, install it at our own expense, and share the generated penalties with the city government (all subject of their approval, of course"
It can be done. You will need several traffic engineers, radar specialists, and about 100 million dollars. . . . and it still won't be perfect, and require law enforcement to use it. Don't forget you will need cameras, people to review the data, maintain the system.
I know everyone thinks keeping a city running is easy and cheap, but it is neither.
You don't need a technical solution, you need at social one.
You need to get the police enforcing the laws, you need to get a system with minimal corruption, you need to educate drivers on why they need to obey the laws, you need people to shame bad drivers.
You can do that for a lot less money and time then the technical solution you proposed.
yes, I do know what I'm talking about.
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They say necessity is the mother of invention. THEY are right. If it's needed, it can probably be
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You have _never_ in your life shipped code. (Score:3, Insightful)
Much less built out anything other then a non-working prototype.
I can tell just by reading your comment.
Moron.
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You need to get the police enforcing the laws, you need to get a system with minimal corruption, you need to educate drivers on why they need to obey the laws, you need people to shame bad drivers.
Bogota hired a few hundred mimes about 6 years ago to make fun of people breaking traffic laws. It was reported to be quite effective actually as the people were more apt to change their behavior because of shame then because of fines. Probably much cheaper than radar as well.
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Probably a great way of getting rid of 100 mimes in "traffic accidents" too.
Israel (Score:2)
This query has to be coming from Israel, probably Tel Aviv.
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An Angeleno agrees with you on that, and this is someone who drives the 5 and the 405 semi-regularly during rush hour.
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Tel-Aviv has plenty of traffic lights and a reasonable level of law enforcement.
From what I've seen in other countries in the area, Israeli drivers are still kinda tame, though.
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Already been done (Score:2)
Speed cameras are already installed in many systems.
Unless you plan on doing something new here, like catching "Reckless drivers" as your title implies as opposed to simple speeders there is nothing to discuss here.
There are companies that specialize in this. But that does not mean that any city is going to sanction a vigil-anti approach using private cameras of questionable certification maintained by non-certified private enterprises, producing tickets that will not survive the first court challenge.
(Cit
You really expect to get your "share"? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are laws, but not much willingness to enforce them, and no traffic lights at all.
Let me get this straight. The police aren't enforcing the existing laws. There's no political infrastructure to install and maintain traffic lights.
Who is going to collect the fines? You aren't.
Why do you think the police will collect the fines? They aren't enforcing existing traffic laws.
In the unlikely event they do so, what makes you believe they will give you your share? It's more than likely to go directly into someone's pocket.
It sounds like your problem goes far beyond enforcement of traffic laws. And until that problem is addressed, it's unlikely that any technological solution will help.
Abrams A1 (Score:3, Informative)
beh (Score:2)
Well lets go through the roll call of early North America and how we got to the transportation system we do today.
Lotsa cars/buggies/horses - mass chaos
Solution: Install traffic system(person or machine driven).
People fail to heed traffic system.
Solution: Use law enforcement that wants to enforce traffic laws, or specialized traffic divisions enacted via municipal code.
Issue: People pay fines, disposable income increases, issues begin to creep up.
Solution: Higher fines or scaled fines to correct bad behavio
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Total agreement.
Instead of trying to catch the culprit, shame the culprit into being a responsible citizen. With a catch the culprit solution, you don't solve the problem; because, if the reckless drivers thought they were going to cause accidents that might take their lives, they wouldn't be driving recklessly.
Offer to set up a "driving awareness" program with the local law enforcement and go school-to-school teaching the children the consequences of poor driving behavior. Deliver the message that it's n
Start by calling then car wrecks (Score:2, Insightful)
Toll system (Score:2, Interesting)
Whenever I drive on the tollway, I think tolls should be charged based on lane changes. You'd get left lane changes for free. Every left lane change after that would cost. That means you'd be able to get into the left lane once and it would charge anyone who insists on weaving back and forth between lanes to speed themselves up by a few seconds at the cost of slowing everyone down.
Getting passed while in the left lane would put the charge on the person in the left lane if they weren't doing the limit. T
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I love this idea. I want it!
Average speed cameras (Score:2)
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The country is important (Score:2)
"I live in a city with a population in the millions (someplace in the Middle East; the country is not important)"
Some folks that I worked with did a mobile pilot project in a Middle East country to control speeding. One of their "discoveries" was that the higher you were up on the political ladder in the country, the lower your license plate number. And that number, really determined, whether you got a ticket for speeding or not.
So with a system of government like that, you can dump all your monitoring stuff into /dev/null.
Dear anonymous (Score:2)
Unfortunately you have probably initiated a different conversation than you intended. In principal you have a fair question and the location really shouldn't matter for your question.
All that being said, you have given a bit of a mystery as the name of the city that you are talking about. This being slashdot people are going to start querying for cities in the middle east with a population of a few million. They will than expand this with those large cities in the middle east that have the highest traffic a
An idea I have used before (Score:2)
An idea that I used when I helped my friend try to set up a wireless, no-collar alarm system for his pets involved multiple cameras that were set up to triangulate position, and track it as it moved between cameras. His goal was to play an alarm any time the cats got near the fish, or got into his room, or when his dogs got past their fence, etc. Disclaimer: we never really got it working well, but we got it working sometimes.
The system worked fairly simply: The cameras were stationary and usually ~10 ft hi
I also... (Score:2)
Crowdsource it (Score:2)
There's plenty of eyes already on the road who see these reckless drivers in action, and could catch them red-handed. How about we "crowdsource" it and put all those people to good use? They're already pissed-off by these reckless drivers and possibly motivated enough to actually volunteer.
A dissenting voice (Score:2)
Unlike many people posting here, I've traveled enough to understand what you want to do, and why it is likely to work, and I applaud you!
That said, England is full of these devices, and I would suggest you buy one rather than roll your own. My quick searches didn't turn anything up, but I know they exist, as there are websites devoted to pictures of people burning them down in England. : ).
For slashdotters with complaints about this:
A fine can be sent automatically. Social circumstances in much of the Middl
Jumping to solutions? (Score:2)
Yup, this sounds like a clear case of jumping to solutions. The problem is stated as a solution, rather than the difference between the way things are and the way you would like them to be.
On the other hand, getting rich off reckless drivers sounds like a classic case of privatization of law enforcement. Good entrepeneurial thinking.
Which is more important to you?
If you are interested in actually improving driving conditions, try analysing the problem using a reliable problem-solving/troubleshooting approac
Vigilante with a Radar Gun (Score:2)
If you really want to make a statement, dump the Radar Gun and get yourself a real gun. Find a nice secluded spot and when you see a recless driver coming towards you, put a bullet through his windsheild. Or pop a tire. Either way, he gets the message.
If you're saying you're in the Middle East, chances are the people doing the reckless driving are wealthy because they are driving large, armored vehicles and are generally immune to small arms fire. So, even with a decent rifle, you're unlikely to be killing
Your radar... (Score:2)
... like all police radar, will only catch fast drivers, not bad drivers. It will be great at raising revenue but it will have little to no beneficial effect on safety.
In general you can't solve social problems with technological means. Get your government to focus on better driver training, better highway engineering. Possibly try raising fines and penalties for genuinely reckless behavior, and put more cops on the street in problem areas.
Speeding != bad driving (Score:3, Insightful)
Speeding does not necessarily equal bad driving.
If anything, speeding is a subset of bad driving -- for people who are already bad drivers.
You need to lobby your local government to more heavily regulate/test drivers.
There is no technological solution that can take the place of that.
can't be done (Score:2)
No automated system can beat the 'drivers claim it is cheating'. If your laws don't explicitly allow mechanical surveillance of this kind, you are out of luck. Even very expensive red light camera systems in the US lose in court basically every time they are challenged.
what you are talking about is vigilantism (Score:5, Insightful)
the problem with vigilantism is it is not accountable, except to the vigilante, whose principles may be quite out of whack
you can complain about the abuses of the police all you want, but the police, at least in theory, serve the people. of course they can be corrupt, but this is a structural failure that can be remedied by the government. if the government is unwilling or unable to control the police, then your country is screwed anyways, so start building molotov cocktails
vigilantism can never be reviewed, criticized, or policy changed. plus, the usual guys who like the idea of vigilantism and are attracted to the idea are of a sort of personality that has serious psychological issues with control and power and dominance, and are therefore exactly the wrong kind of person you want to be enforcing anything. yes, people with the same sort of psychological issues are also attracted to becoming cops, but at least with the police, there exists (again, at least in theory, where it doesn't exists its a failure of policy and execution of the government) a feedback system that can weed out such people
i'm sorry, but vigilantism sucks, and is not a solution to anything. the only valid solution is to kick your government in the ass to fix the failures in your society that make the idea of vigilantism seem remotely appealing at all
Don't bother (Score:2)
The hardware has already been developed and deployed in cities around the world. Southern California has lots of intersections where cameras will take pictures of cars going though red lights. I've heard of other places that can even detect rolling stops. I encountered what you are talking about in Brasilia, Brazil, about 13 years ago. They were pretty smart in that more structures to place cameras/radars were constructed than the number of cameras/radars they had. Drivers all knew where the structures
Radar Triggered RPGs with followup ticket in mail. (Score:2)
I heard that RPGs are pretty available in the Middle East.
You need a much lower tech solution (Score:4, Informative)
Topes are what they call speed bumps in Mexico (the word means "limit"). They are usually found on the highway as you approach a village, though large cities will put them at strategic places to control traffic speed. They are very effective. They do not require vigilance from law enforcement. They work even if the government is corrupt. They are cheap. They require little maintenance.
Topes [mexadventure.com]
Topes in Yucatan [yucatanliving.com] (including photos of ganada falsos used as topes)
These systems are not what you think (Score:5, Insightful)
Counterintuitive (Score:3, Insightful)
You can check the studies, the state here in the USA that removed speed limits reduced traffic accidents.
When the speed limits were put back in, accidents increased again.
In my state, officials openly admit speed enforcement generates revenue. The figure was a significant proportion of the state budget.
It's not for safety, it's an indirect tax.
If you look at the hard data on accidents, the vast majority occur at low speeds.
I have yet to be at fault in an accident, but I have been hit multiple times. Each time it was at low speed. Each time it was due to a driver not paying attention.
As much as I hate to say it, if you consistently have accidents in a situation, a study might reveal WHY accidents occur there. If it were do to speed, all our police officers, ambulance drivers, firemen and race car drivers would all be dead by now.
As others have pointed out, I'm afraid the technical solution won't be to fine fast drivers who avoid accidents, but to change the circumstances encouraging accidents.
Re:One additional improvement (Score:4, Funny)
Re:One additional improvement (Score:4, Insightful)
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Your biggest challenge will not be finding a solution, but getting the solution implemented. You will deal with a lot of officials who are ignorant, arrogant, or just don't care about human life as much as you do. Even when they do care, you have to deal with their ignorance. They will likely not lean on experts for advice, but instead rely on the local computer guy Bob for advise, or they will shell out big bucks to a local consulting firm where their acquaintance works, even though that firm has no exp
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BTW, reckless driving and speed are two different things. Speed makes little difference if you don't drive intelligently or are distracted and unfocused.
Bingo!
You can drive like an idiot without even approaching the speed limit. A lot of accidents could be avoided if only one party was paying attention. Sure, there is generally someone who is responsible, but it's been my experience that driving defensively and assuming that everyone is out to get you goes a long way. Don't just go speeding through green lights, pay attention to the traffic that's supposed to be stopped. Watch cars up ahead that are waiting to turn out, because it could be right in front of
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