DC Police Chief Says It's 'Cowardly' To Monitor Speed Traps With Your iPhone

from the real-men-prefer-ignorance dept

Jeff Nolan points us to the news that Washington DC's police chief is denouncing users of an iPhone app to monitor speed traps/speed cameras/red light cameras as being "cowardly." Apparently, real men prefer ignorance about where the police are hiding to give them tickets for driving a couple miles per hour over the speed limit. The app actually sounds pretty useful, alerting users if they're near one of the cameras or a known speed trap. The creator of the software makes the most salient point:

"If police come against us, it's going to make them look like they are only [after] revenue"

Indeed. Shouldn't the police be happy that a software product is helping people slow down or avoid running red lights? How could that possibly be seen as a bad thing... or "cowardly"?

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Speed Camera Exec Loses His License For Speeding

from the karma dept

In our recent post about speed cameras, Matt pointed us to the news that a top exec at a speed camera company has been banned from driving for six months for (you guessed it) speeding. He was apparently going over 100 in a 70 mph zone in the UK. If that's not karma...

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Man Beats Speeding Ticket After Pointing Out It Was For 50 mph Faster Than His Car Could Go

from the physics-101 dept

Red light cameras and speed cameras continue to stir up controversy as police and local governments increase their use. The general claim is that they're used to make roads safer, but scams like in Italy, where people have been accused of shortening yellow lights in order to catch more offenders, do little to quell the idea that revenue generation is the real goal. The good ol' radar gun is generally pretty widely accepted by people, even though on more than one occasion, they've proven fallible, too. The latest story comes out of England, where a guy has gotten out of a ticket for driving 173 miles per hour -- after pointing out that his unmodified car's top speed is 127. He admitted to driving 105 in a 50 mph zone, but wanted to avoid the jail time a conviction for driving at the higher speed would bring. In this case, rather than technology fouling up, it looks like human error: the guy was busted with a time-and-distance device, which measures the time it takes a car to travel between two points. Police officers have to press a button or take some other action when the car passes the points -- opening up tremendous scope for error, particularly at high speeds.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Another YouTube Speeder Found Not Guilty Due To Lack Of Evidence

from the be-careful-when-you-speed-and-youtube dept

It seems that it's becoming somewhat common for police to scour YouTube for videos of people filming themselves speeding. However, at the same time, we're seeing at least a few of the tickets handed out for such YouTube speeding thrown out. The latest is over in the UK, where a guy charged with speeding due to a YouTube video has been found not guilty because there's not enough evidence that he was the one actually driving the car -- or that the car was really traveling at the speed shown on the speedometer. This doesn't mean that folks posting their speeding videos on YouTube won't still be fined, but it appears that (at least in the UK) courts are making sure that there's enough actual evidence there to make the fines stick.

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Australia To Test Cars That Won't Let You Speed

from the slow-down,-dave dept

About a year and a half ago, we wrote about plans by transportation authorities in London to test a system that would force drivers to slow down if they were going over the speed limit. We haven't heard much about the tests since then, but it appears that similar tests will soon get underway in Australia (found via TLF). The system involves a GPS-based device that would track where you are against a database of speed limits to determine if you were going over the limit. The system can be programmed to react in three ways. At the lowest level, it would beep at you if you're speeding. A step up from there is where it would automatically cut the gas to slow you down, though there would be a manual override if the driver needed it. Then, there's a third level, where there would be no manual override. It's unclear how widespread the use of this device would be, but apparently there are some discussions about requiring it on all cars -- or (more likely) just for repeat speeding offenders. As we noted when the London tests began, this is attacking the symptom (speeding) rather than the actual disease (bad driving).

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