Re: Speed limiters

On 07/07/2024 10:03, Jeff Layman wrote:

On 06/07/2024 22:53, Don Y wrote:

On 7/6/2024 5:23 AM, Martin Brown wrote:

 

There has been talk of using cameras and license plate trackers to infer
the speed vehicles have traveled "across town" (i.e., at XX:XX:XX you
were seen at intersection X and are now at intersection Y at YY:YY:YY;
you could only have made that trip in that time interval if you exceeded
the average speed of...")

 That has been very common here in the UK for several years, particularly when there is a lot of construction and repair work for several miles on motorways. There are "averaging" speed cameras at the start and end of the roadworks, and at intervals too along the way (and always at sliproads for those entering and leaving the motorway within the roadworks). The first notice you get if you've been speeding is a letter of intending prosecution which suddenly arrives several days after you've driven along that stretch of road!

Specs average speed cameras are on quite a few of the UK's main motorways and especially on roadworks (of which there are quite a lot). They caught a lot of people out around Manchester and on the M62.
Guilty or not depended on how rich you were and the quality of the get you off a speeding charge lawyer you could employ. Footballers and celebrities usually got off. But for a while everybody did!
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/m60-speed-camera-smart-motorway-8386970
Gatsos instant radar speed cameras used to be huge boxes on the gantries but are now streamlined yellow tubes on the edges of the lanes.
Investment in "smart motorways" which allows them to use all 4 lanes as live running lanes (3 properly designed to be running lanes and one hard shoulder intended as a refuge for broken down vehicles).
It didn't take account of dumb drivers or of the need to properly maintain the camera systems used to monitor the road situation. As a result they are having to add a lot of extra refuges to the "smart" motorways to make them safer after several very high profile nasty high speed collisions between motorway traffic and broken down vehicles.
The smart motorways I drive regularly I have such totally misleading and misguided signs that I no longer trust them to tell the truth. Worst example I saw was alternate gantries showing 40mph speed limit(as low as it actually goes on a motorway) and 60mph. I think the control room were messing about to see what traffic chaos they could cause.
Every other trip there is a claim of "animals on the road" but I have yet to see one.
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Martin Brown