On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, David Marshall wrote:

> Because of this example I agree with what Robert is saying... dumb cameras
> suck... you need cameras that record a series of pictures - say on a hard
> drive - it records from one second prior to the light turning yellow, the
> whole time it is yellow and it any movement is detected if it is red.  Put a
> 100GB hard drive in there and you are set!  This is the smart way to monitor
> everything.

I saw on TV the other day a camera system exactly like this.  It used an
extra couple of sensor loops, and based on the speed guessed if the car
was likely to run the light.  Then it recorded a movie of the whole
infraction, and also kept the light for cross traffic red a little longer
to prevent an accident.  The infraction was taped from a couple different
angles, so you could see if, for example, the car ran the light to get out
of the way of an emergency vehicle.

Pretty neat stuff.  The cop they interviewed said when people wanted to
contest tickets, they usually brought them in and showed them the video
first.  They generally paid up on the spot, instead of going against that
evidence in court.

             _ _
  __ _ _   _| | |  | David M. Brodbeck (N8SRE)              Ypsilanti, MI
 / _` | | | | | |  +-----------------------------------------------------
| (_| | |_| | | | @ cyberspace.org
 \__, |\__,_|_|_| "To the optimist, the glass is half full.  To the
 |___/             pessimist, the glass is half empty.  To the engineer,
                   the glass is twice as big as it needs to be."