Conventional speed enforcement has its limitations. You can only pull over one vehicle at a time. This method is unproductive, slow and expensive from the government’s point of view.
So now technology has developed to the point where different ways have been cleverly created to give out tickets quicker and less expensively.
The old system of traffic enforcement simply wasn’t doing the job of making the kinds of money our government wants to make.
There are just too many factors: First, they have to hire the cop to pull you over. This also means the use of a police vehicle which also costs money. Next, the traffic stop itself is a dangerous situation for the officer and potentially other drivers or pedestrians. Third, after it’s all said and done, the driver may still end up driving away without a ticket (if the officer decides to just give a warning).
And last, in the time it took the officer to pull you over and write a ticket, many more people go speeding by, so there was money lost from not pulling them over!
So the photo radar was introduced to take handing out tickets to a whole new level. They can do the job of many officers.
With photo radar also known as traffic cameras, speeding tickets are simply mailed to the offender. Talk about customer service!
Since its’ beginning, photo radar has been proven to: Save police department’s time and money. Improve conviction rates in traffic court. Maximize city resources available for traffic enforcement. Increase individual insurance rates.
Currently only 20 states or so use the photo radar for speeding detection, but it is on the rise.
The photo radar is growing in popularity simply because of the points stated previously.
Cities are starting to latch on to the photo radar band wagon because of the revenue generating potential. Its relatively simple for a city to have one installed and the photo radar pays for itself quickly.
Cash strapped cities are finding out that when they install photo radar it gives them immediate money generation.
Looking at it from the municipalities’ point of view it makes perfect sense. One photo radar can do the work of what would normally take a small army of real officers.
How does it work? Photo radar, as the name suggests, is a combination of a camera coupled with a radar gun. The two work together. The radar gun is preprogrammed to function at a particular speed.
For instance say the speed limit of a particular road is set at 45 mph, the photo radar can be set to activate if it detects a speed over 50 mph.
When a car passes the photo radar unit and is traveling faster than the predetermined cut off point it will snap a photo of your license plate. And so it goes 24/7, courtesy of big brother hundreds of people can be cited this way.
When the database of the photo radar is accessed at a later time, they photos will be examined inaccurancies.
The clarity of the license plate will be examined to see if it is readable. If it cant be it will be discarded.
When a clear license plate is found it will be run through the bureau of motor vehicles database to see who it is registered to. If its a male and there is a male behind the wheel of the car, BINGO, a citation will be on its way to the registered owner. Ah the beauty of photo radar.
This process is repeated with the next picture and so on until all available photos have been examined. Photo radar enforcement is on the rise, hopefully this article will give you a heads up about it.
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