From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Night Has Descended On Freedom In U K, We're Next
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 12:44:58 -0500
Message-ID: <3jolq1lfq1br9d2gkjocc4p84jo8clughm@4ax.com>

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 10:24:51 -0600, "ElAlumbrado"
<elNOSPAMalumbrado@yahoo.com> wrote:

>"tightwad" <@plum.net> wrote in message
>news:E_zqf.211$5R3.98@fe02.lga...
>
>> Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing
>> number
>> plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so
>> that the
>> police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made
>> over
>> several years.
>
>Take a look at the poles holding up the traffic lights at the
>intersections in your neighborhood. See any cameras?

I bet you don't know what those cameras are for.

Those are NOT surveillance cameras.  Those replace the in-pavement
loop sensors for car detection.  Among the advantages,

Vastly cheaper.
No pavement cuts
No re-doing after paving
Can not only detect presence but also count cars.
Not affected by weather (most are IR sensitive)
Can see any size vehicle, from bicycles on up.

These cameras are NOT capable of the resolution necessary for license
tag recognition.  Especially when placed 75 ft up on poles looking
almost directly down on the lanes to make counting cars easier.

Try to stop and think a minute what kind of resolution would be
required of a fixed, non-moveable camera at that range to be able to
see a tag well enough for OCR.  Even HDTV wouldn't do it, especially
not without very expensive glass in front.

What the government IS doing is bad enough without making this stuff
up and diverting attention away from the true evil.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Night Has Descended On Freedom In U K, We're Next
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 00:43:01 -0500
Message-ID: <652nq1l3fkvrk1tspm6m9gacbulngbmqmu@4ax.com>

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 16:04:19 -0700, Al Balmer <albalmer@att.net>
wrote:


>> and the red-light cameras adopted by at least 15 States?
>
>They don't bother me. They only take pictures if you run the light.


They should.  Check out the results of the National Motorist
Association investigation of their use.  These things are there to
extract money from the populace and not for safety.

NMA caught many municipalities violating federal law by setting the
yellow time interval below the mandated 1 second per 10 mph of speed
limit.  In some cases, the yellow was as short as 1 to 2 seconds.

This is a scheme cooked up between the government managers and the
contractor who owns and operates the cameras and who keeps most of the
revenue generated.  If the government wasn't involved, this would be
fraud, theft and conspiracy.

The law of unintended consequences is fully in effect with these
things.  Even when the yellow isn't shortened, many locations are
reporting MORE accidents in the form of rear-enders.  Seems that
people panic and slam on their brakes to avoid the ticket at the end
of the yellow instead of safely coasting on through.

From what I've read, THE most effective method of reducing accidents
in traffic light controlled intersections (as opposed to fee grabbing
or attempts at forcing blind compliance) is the delayed green.  That
is, the green is delayed a bit after the red in the other lane.  The
usual delay is a second.  A second and a half might be even better,
though I'm sure someone studied the problem and arrived at the 1
second parameter.

>IMO, your expectation of privacy is reduced when you violate the law.

Really?  So if you lived in Georgia, you'd have no problem with the
cops standing at your window watching while your wife gives you a BJ?
After all, she'd be breaking Georgia's anti-sodomy law.  That horrible
case where the supremes upheld Ga's sodomy law was loosely like that.

How 'bout we take it one step further.  How 'bout the cops set up
anti-BJ patrols in the neighborhoods?  Infrared imaging cameras and
the new millimeter radar based imagers can see through walls and
curtains so there is no technical impediment to the BJ patrol.  How
'bout if you're merely doing it doggy style but the cops think you're
hiking the Hershey Highway?

I mean, anyone who's breaking any law is fair game, right? After all,
what did those old dead white men who wrote the Bill of Rights know
about conditions these days?  Why, there might be a TERRORIST
involved.

IMO, you're the worst kind of fool - a citizen with nominally enough
education know better but refuses to.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Night Has Descended On Freedom In U K, We're Next
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 00:17:44 -0500
Message-ID: <n11nq1pidg5b1d9fv8d5c2lf1okqbtpqtt@4ax.com>

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 15:18:21 -0500, bill horne <redydog@rye.net>
wrote:


>> What the government IS doing is bad enough without making this stuff
>> up and diverting attention away from the true evil.
>>
>> John
>
>What about the face recognition cameras on Tampa streets (since
>eliminated), and the red-light cameras adopted by at least 15 States?

The face recognition stuff has failed in every attempted deployment
I've heard of so far.  The problem is the same - not enough resolution
to be able to use a fixed mount wide angle lens camera to see lots of
people and still capture enough detail for the facial recognition
software to work.  The only way this can ever work is with a camera
with a zoom lens and an AZ-EL mount so that an operator can zoom in on
a single face.

The red light camera is a different situation.  The ones I've had the
opportunity to observe are mounted just above head level as close to
the axis of traffic flow as possible.  The image capture is triggered
by the road sensor which means the victim is in a known and defined
location.  The camera optics can be set to capture just the rear of a
single vehicle.

Even at that, the system isn't very reliable.  I've read reports of up
to half the images captured being unsuitable for OCR.  Since this is a
high volume revenue generator, they don't seem to get terribly upset
about accuracy and reliability.  As long as the revenue stream is
large enough, they don't care much about who is or is not nabbed.

This will only get worse as countermeasures are more widely used.

http://www.radarbusters.com/products/photo-radar/vf.asp

This thing is rapaciously overpriced.  All it consists of is a low
powered strobe triggered by an optical slave unit.  $50 will get the
same hardware from a camera store.

I used a much simpler technique when I worked in an area using photo
radar.  I simply let my tag get so dirty that it could not be read.  I
made sure the dirt built up by occasionally misting the tag with
Krylon crystal clear spray varnish to affix the dirt.  There was a
theoretical risk of having some cop stop me for an unreadable license
tag but that never happened.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Night Has Descended On Freedom In U K, We're Next
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 13:45:46 -0500
Message-ID: <rmgoq1tobjt5qrcf1o91cadc0fr59r0uu0@4ax.com>

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 00:02:54 -0500, Frank Tabor <ftabor@gmail.com>
wrote:


>Virginia's Red light law expired July of 2005.

At least you got that one right.  One out of three is typical for you,
I guess.

>Most of the
>intersections where the cameras are have a nearly 100% increase in red
>light violations since the law expired.

Nope:

http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/news.asp?ID=117
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/news.asp?ID=68
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/news.asp?ID=29

>
>The law allowed mailing of tickets to violators captured on camera.

Nope:

http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20050202-123528-5958r.htm
(I found hundreds of other cites but this one is succinct.)

For those who want to avoid communities that use automated spys, here
is a list compiled and kept up to date by our friends (NOT) at the
IIHS

http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/rlc_cities.html

For those slow of wit out there, I will state the obvious. I'm 100% in
favor of strict red light running enforcement.  With cops.  Chartered
not to generate revenue but to reduce accidents.  When there is a
human in the loop, judgement can be applied.  The cop can decide
whether the person who squeaked by a half second too late made the
safer decision between continuing and risking a rear ender by stopping
quickly.  OTOH, if I were the cop of the day, I'd do everything I
could to pull the license of those who just have to squeeze through
2-3 seconds after the red.  At the minimum I'd write them for reckless
driving AND running a red light.

John