Britain: Plate Reading Cameras Combined with GPS Will Automatically Issue Speeding Tickets; System Calculates Average Speed Between Two Points in ‘SpeedSpike’ Network
April 20th, 2010Via: Telegraph:
A new type of speed cameras which can use satellites to measure average speed over long distances are being tested in Britain.
The cameras, which combine number plate reading technology with a global positioning satellite receiver, are similar to those used in roadworks.
The AA said it believed the new system could cover a network of streets as opposed to a straight line, and was “probably geared up to zones in residential areas.”
The Home Office is testing the cameras at two sites, one in Southwark, London, and the other A374 between Antony and Torpoint in Cornwall.
The `SpeedSpike’ system, which calculates average speed between any two points in the network, has been developed by PIPS Technology Ltd, an American-owned company with a base in Hampshire.
Details of the trials are contained in a House of Commons report. The company said in its evidence that the cameras enabled “number plate capture in all weather conditions, 24 hours a day”. It also referred to the system’s “low cost” and ease of installation.
The system could be used for “main road enforcement for congestion reduction and speed enforcement”, and could help to “eliminate rat-runs” and cut speeds outside schools, it added. It could also reduce the need for speed humps.
Ah, “There will always be an England.”
News Flash:
Based on this idiotic idea, here’s a dandy new business idea — Open a franchise of restaurants located just before plate-reading cameras. Couple them online with a GPS service add-in and advert vendor that allows the beleaguered traveller to go 85 mph, and then stop for a relaxing meal for an hour or so while the idiotic satellites recalcuate his average speed down to 55 mph, or whatever the State-employed retards expect to see.
Traveller Cost: $10 for GPS module (and saved fines)
Government Cost: One Hundred Million for satellite infrastructure (plus costs for swollen, micro-encephalic government bureaucrats’ salaries.)
Watching your taxes swell to 100% as the State tries to squeeze the last penny out of you: Priceless.
Side benefits of a network like this:
– Vehicle tracking.
– Congestion charging in more places
– Pay-per-use roads.
Think the Northern Gateway toll road north of Auckland: http://www.tollroad.govt.nz/
This uses plate-reading cameras. Now wouldn’t it be a great way of increasing revenue if you simply set one up on an existing road?