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Get your picture taken at traffic lights and more!

T

Texmaster

Banned
Thats right. Its bad enough that we have to endure HoV lanes so local cities can drive shiny new "transit police" squad cars with their only purpose to catch people driving alone in the Hov lanes, now they want our picture at traffic lights and they're playing dirty.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/6/25/195458.shtml



From the article, just one example and it outta scare the crap out of you:

A Connecticut man is suing the Acme Rent-a-Car after it used GPS (Global Positioning System) technology to track him and then fined him $450 for speeding three times.
 
I don't have any problems with them using a GPS in their cars. I think they should. As for the tickets, he won't have to pay that. They aren't the police and can't enforce the law. I'm wondering how they can tell how fast he's going from a GPS. Anyway, it'll probably just go away for him and rental companies may have to disclose when they have a GPS in the car and when they don't to the the customer when he rents it.
 


<< I don't have any problems with them using a GPS in their cars. I think they should. As for the tickets, he won't have to pay that. They aren't the police and can't enforce the law. I'm wondering how they can tell how fast he's going from a GPS. Anyway, it'll probably just go away for him and rental companies may have to disclose when they have a GPS in the car and when they don't to the the customer when he rents it. >>




They can turn that information over to the police. Cant you see that?

This is a flagrant abuse of privacy.
 
Tex - the old news was in reference to the story about the man being fined.

If and when he signed a contract to rent the car and it did have something stating &quot;if you speed you will be fined&quot; it's not a privacy issue.
 
pulse8:
Point A, Point B, how long the distance is between A and B, and how long it took to get from the Point A to Point B. That's how I would do it.
 


<< Tex - the old news was in reference to the story about the man being fined.

If and when he signed a contract to rent the car and it did have something stating &quot;if you speed you will be fined&quot; it's not a privacy issue. >>



What it doesn't say is that &quot;we are tracking you&quot; Thats the problem. Everyone knows if they speed and are discovered they will be fined.

It is a privacy issue if they do not disclose the tracking ability of the GPS system.
 
If they state that someone will be fined for speeds in excess of 80 mph, it would be logical to assume that they have a way of enforcing that.

You're effing stupid if you think &quot;They can't see me, so how will they know?&quot; It wouldn't even have to be done by GPS, there are recorders that are sold to parents of teenagers to record speed, acceleration, braking, etc.

And determining speed by GPS would be very, very easy. 80 mph is roughly 117 feet per second, GPS is more than accurate enough to determine that kind of speed.

Viper GTS
 
Tex - that's a good point, but originally they were intended to catch red light runners. The issue really is with the greedy city councils who mess with the system to milk cash out of those stoplights. (I've ran one stoplight with a camera once but never got fined luckily) I still believe it's a good idea to have them but not when they're being abused.
 


<< Tex - that's a good point, but originally they were intended to catch red light runners. The issue really is with the greedy city councils who mess with the system to milk cash out of those stoplights. (I've ran one stoplight with a camera once but never got fined luckily) I still believe it's a good idea to have them but not when they're being abused. >>




I agree completely about the abuse but I dont agree with their placements at all because there are no guidelines about what they can do with that information.

Oh I see your from the dallas area. Tell me, what do you think about those pathetic HoV lanes on 635? You know from the shiny transit police cars they are only there to catch people violating that lane alone in the car.
 
Around here they only put them at intersections that have a higher than normal amount of accidents. It works in reducing accidents.
GPS easily can tell you how fast you are going in fact we used it to prove out the wifes car speedo was out, but the repair was reeeealy expensive.
My buddy &quot;notorious speeder&quot; said after his 4 th photo radar ticket he started to slow down.
These technologies if used sensibly work well.
I have a problem with some setting it up on zones that change speeds for the cash cow for council, that is examples of what doesn't work.
 


<< I agree completely about the abuse but I dont agree with their placements at all because there are no guidelines about what they can do with that information.

Oh I see your from the dallas area. Tell me, what do you think about those pathetic HoV lanes on 635? You know from the shiny transit police cars they are only there to catch people violating that lane alone in the car. >>



I thought the cameras were just used to take photos of your license plates to write tickets with?

Regrading the HoV lanes - I hardly ever traverse 635 except to visit a friend's restaurant. (I do hit 35 often though and see cops all along the HoV lanes there) I think we could have spent our money on other things. I see people pulled over all the time (not necessarily for the hov thing) and people just blow by the traffic cops/real cops without caring. It's a waste of time and manpower.
 


<<

<< I agree completely about the abuse but I dont agree with their placements at all because there are no guidelines about what they can do with that information.

Oh I see your from the dallas area. Tell me, what do you think about those pathetic HoV lanes on 635? You know from the shiny transit police cars they are only there to catch people violating that lane alone in the car. >>



I thought the cameras were just used to take photos of your license plates to write tickets with?

Regrading the HoV lanes - I hardly ever traverse 635 except to visit a friend's restaurant. (I do hit 35 often though and see cops all along the HoV lanes there) I think we could have spent our money on other things. I see people pulled over all the time (not necessarily for the hov thing) and people just blow by the traffic cops/real cops without caring. It's a waste of time and manpower. >>



No they have to take a picture of you because they couldn't write the owner of the car if others in the family are insured over the same car. Its the same reason you cannot charge a specific person in a house of more than one with telephone harassment unless you can prove who the person was making the call.

I hit 635 every day westbound and I completely agree. Its a waste.
 


<< Around here they only put them at intersections that have a higher than normal amount of accidents. It works in reducing accidents.
GPS easily can tell you how fast you are going in fact we used it to prove out the wifes car speedo was out, but the repair was reeeealy expensive.
My buddy &quot;notorious speeder&quot; said after his 4 th photo radar ticket he started to slow down.
These technologies if used sensibly work well.
I have a problem with some setting it up on zones that change speeds for the cash cow for council, that is examples of what doesn't work. >>



See this is where they get really sneaky. Yes they set them up in high traffic accident areas which make sense but they also have been accused in seattle for example of setting the yellow lights at a faster rate in the same intersection.
 


<< If they state that someone will be fined for speeds in excess of 80 mph, it would be logical to assume that they have a way of enforcing that.

You're effing stupid if you think &quot;They can't see me, so how will they know?&quot; It wouldn't even have to be done by GPS, there are recorders that are sold to parents of teenagers to record speed, acceleration, braking, etc.

And determining speed by GPS would be very, very easy. 80 mph is roughly 117 feet per second, GPS is more than accurate enough to determine that kind of speed.

Viper GTS >>



That is all very true. My friends and I use his GPS to tell how fast we are going in crappy older american vehicles with speedometers that top out at 85. We got his '87 Bonnevile doing 119! An '81 Buick Regal to 92. And an '89 Chevy Cheyenne to 102.
 


<< Oh I see your from the dallas area. Tell me, what do you think about those pathetic HoV lanes on 635? You know from the shiny transit police cars they are only there to catch people violating that lane alone in the car. >>


Actually, that HoV lane on 635 is for me to drive 90-100 during rush hour... with someone else in the truck, of course! 😀

I don't have any issues with traffic cameras tracking red-light runners... if you ever sat at the intersection of 121/Preston in Frisco you'd understand why they're needed. The light there turns red and 10 more people turn left from Preston onto 121... it's utter BS.

I also believe that the HoV on 635 should be renamed the &quot;tirechange lane.&quot; 🙂 Damned thing feels more like Pit Row than a fast lane at times.
 


<< pulse8:
Point A, Point B, how long the distance is between A and B, and how long it took to get from the Point A to Point B. That's how I would do it. >>



Well, I figured that much. I didn't know that GPSs had that detailed of a map. Or can the GPS itself track how far you've gone?
 
All the GPS has to do is take the distance between two points (say 235 feet), the time between samples (say two seconds), &amp; voila. You're going 80 mph.

It's not a matter of a map, it could be done on a completely devoid plane.

Viper GTS
 
In Toledo, the cameras only take a picture of the license plate, nothing more. Several tickets have been contested b/c they weren't driving the car. The fines were upheld in every case.

I've never heard of them taking a picture of the entire car. It would be difficult to get a picutre of a speeding car with which you could ID both the driver and read the plates, IMO.

What possible privacy violation could come out of a picture of your car? The camera's can't be controlled remotly, so they couldn't be used to spy remotly. Most of the ones in Toledo are sparsly scattered. I cross 10-12 major intersections on my drive to school, and there are 2 on my trip, neither of which are very close.
 
Yeah the fines are upheld because the owner is ultimately responsible for how his car behaves on the road.
Therefore if you lend your car to a jackass your gonna pay even if the jackass is your mother or something.
They don't count as point violations on your license and the fines are typically smaller than if you get pulled over.
 
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