Leave it to the Brits to take traffic surveillance to the next level. Worried that drivers may be getting away with violating the car share lane (carpool lane to us Yanks), Leeds is testing a new camera system that actually detects the blood and water content of human skin to determine how many occupants are in the vehicle. BBC reports the system, developed by researchers at Loughborough University, uses two wavelengths of infrared (IR) light and special algorithms to distinguish faces and count heads. If it finds more than one, it lets the car pass. If it detects only one occupant, it takes a photo of the license plate and records date, time and speed. Developers say it's accurate 90 percent of the time– and isn't fooled by large dogs, dummies or cosmetics. They didn't say if the system could be disabled by transmitting an IR signal back at it or if heat reflections from different color cars would affect its accuracy. Or what happens when there's a small child in a carrier in the back seat that may not be in the camera's line of vision. There seems to be several questions they need to address before they start using the system to prosecute solo drivers. But where there's dosh, there's development.
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Big Brother is watching you! They are 24 years late, but they are working just as hard as they can.
And yet we still have no cure for cancer or AIDS.
90% accuracy means 10% inaccuracy. But, what’s that compared to some easy revenue generation.
How is 90% even close to being acceptable when it comes to handing out violations? Hope your passenger isn’t bending down to tie their shoe when this thing takes a snapshot.
What is up with the Brits ? I once went to a traffic safety conference where the Brits didn’t understand why we Yanks didn’t go massively for Automatic Tickets.
I explained that it is in our nature. We are “Citizens”. They are “Subjects”. I made it a point to emphasize that I was not being insulting, but that it shows a fundamental difference in how government is related to.
The Aussies do a lot of scameras, but they too are or were Subjects of the British Empire. We just have a gut reaction to this sort of govt. intrusion. On the other hand, England has surveillance cameras everywhere and ASBOs. (antisocial behavior orders).
I don’t want to be england. We don’t have the same background or attitude, due to some unpleasantness in the late 1700’s.
I cannot tolerate all the American politicos who get on the soapbox and tout the latest scamera, “Just like in Europe”.
Just have to fill the blow-up doll with blood now. Body temperature? Heat it with your heated seats!
90% accuracy could mean only that 90% of solo drivers get caught. This doesn’t necessarily mean that 10% of carpoolers will be incorrectly flagged. A test for 2 people in the vehicle that has a bunch of false positives by no false negatives could work just fine.
Man that country scares me more and more every day, and makes me less likely to ever be a tourist.
SunnyvaleCA :
February 26th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
90% accuracy could mean only that 90% of solo drivers get caught. This doesn’t necessarily mean that 10% of carpoolers will be incorrectly flagged. A test for 2 people in the vehicle that has a bunch of false positives by no false negatives could work just fine.
I’m sure the government would fix that type of failure rate, I’m not so sure they would have a problem with false negatives (a person in the car who doesn’t get counted). How would you even be able to fight this type of ticket. It would be darn hard to prove that you actually did have someone in the car with you (that friend you brought along to testify is probably just lieing to help you).
That is disturbing. Another reason to not go to that real life 1984-style police state. Just as long as they don’t do that here, I should be ok, though.
Here in Phoenix, the governor, Janet Napolitano, is currently attempting to put in dozens of speed cameras, specifically for revenue. They don’t even hide it anymore. It’s never been about safety, so now they just out and say it: “We’re doing this for money.” Disturbing and scary stuff.
But it’s hard to know what to do to fight back. How do I respond to that?