Leadfoots Beware: Future Speeding Tickets Will Come from Space


Think you’ve trained yourself to spot a police car hiding behind a bush or a roadsign? You’re wasting your time. They’ll just get you by satellite.

The U.K.’s Telegraph reports, “A new type of speed cameras which can use satellites to measure average speed over long distances are being tested in Britain.” The “SpeedSpike” system would enable enforcement over a wider area than a simple speed trap or speed camera, which can monitor only one road at a time.

Ground-based cameras are still part of the system. The U.K.’s Mirror explains, “When a vehicle passes a camera on its linked network the number plate is recorded and timestamped on the SpeedSpike server. This computes the average speed of every vehicle at every SpeedSpike site and compares it with speed limits. If someone is found to be breaking the speed limit the information is used to form a record of the incident.”

The system was designed by Tennessee-based PIPS Technology. The company, according to Kicking Tires, says its cameras “can capture license plate numbers in ‘all weather conditions, 24 hours a day.’”

The AA (the British equivalent of America’s AAA) has a few questions about the new technology. AA spokesperson Paul Watters tells the BBC, “We have some concerns about how far these systems extend along roads with many different speed limits impacting on a driver's journey, how well drivers understand them and how well the zones are signed.”

Kicking Tires has questions as well. “If this is the stuff being dreamed up to nab speeders,” KT asks, “why exactly haven’t we caught Osama bin Laden?”

We should note, however, that the system isn’t actually being used to issue tickets yet. The Mirror reports, “It is not known when the cameras might come into use.”

Still, the increasing prevalence of speed cameras, and the possibility of linking them all together through a satellite network, means we can foresee a day when drivers are never out of the sight of law enforcement. If the SpeedSpike experiment works, in a few years, every road could be a speed trap, all the time.



http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1436/leadfoots-beware-future-speeding-tickets-will-come-from-space/

Drat. I like the occasional speed. xD

Isn't this an invasion of privacy?

reminds me of this comedian that was sent a picture from a traffic light camera, sent a picture of him running a red light. with a 100 dollar fine. so he sent them back a picture of a 100 dollar bill. lol

LOLz to the comedian thing.

Even if they do that with the cameras and what not, all those tickets will be so easy to fight in court.