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0 pointsPurpleFoxy5y ago0 comments

An interesting method that is widely used in Australia is “average speed cameras”. They set up 2 sets of cameras on a long highway and then time how long it took you to get from one camera to the next. It’s an excellent idea because you can’t just slow down for the camera and then speed up again.

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nikau5y ago

A friend told me of a similar system which I think was in Malaysia, but some vendors setup food stalls at the side of the road before the exit cameras where people would stop and get a meal to extend their drive time.

theluketaylor5y ago

Average speed cameras seem unbelievably dangerous to me. I haven't ever driven somewhere with them, but I suspect all I'd be thinking about was the speed limit, resulting in very dangerous driving. With all my focus on making to correct average I'd fail to properly track other drivers and potential hazards.

I'm much happier with a flow of traffic enforcement. Ticket those who speed excessively beyond what traffic is generally flowing and let the posted limit be more of a guideline.

hansvm5y ago

If you're trying to game the detection system to minimize travel time then average speed cameras could encourage pathological behavior (which would hopefully also be caught by careless/reckless driving laws). They're dead-simple and not subject to cosine error and sensitive closed-source calibration techniques though. Even accounting for clock skew and clock drift, if an average speed camera says you were going x+2ϵ mph then it's safe to say you were going at least x+ϵ mph for at least some small interval and some very small value of ϵ.

DevoidSimo5y ago

There are no traffic lights for the ones I've seen here, so you can just set your cruise control. I would be doing this anyway on a long drive, which again is the only place I've seen these

colejohnson665y ago

California actually explicitly bans police setting up these kinds of speed traps

endymi0n5y ago

I‘ve seen them in the Netherlands as well. These are pretty great as they completely discourage any form of cheating that is dangerous (i.e. sudden braking), but incentivize smooth flowing traffic.

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