Greg115

I am told by a reliable source that these blue poles that are springing up everywhere are for OCR recognition devices which can/will read your numberplate and so know if your car is on the road and where. More worringly is that you will notice that some, where there are two, are 2 miles apart. I am told that at the flick of a switch these units can read your numberplate and calculate your speed, and issue a ticket. The reason that this is not in operation yet is because the government are clarifying the EU law that says you do not need to incriminate yourself. i.e. presently if you get a speeding ticket by a GATSO and remain silent they cannot prosecute you.

Comments Please
Regards
Greg

Beef

Anyone got any piccys of one of these buggers so I know what to keep a look-out for?

Paul Wilson

Stop being so paranoid, these are used by Trafficmaster to monitor traffic flow, they only read the central 3/4 letters numbers, and only take about 10-15 readings an hour. As a term of their licence they must also dump all data the moment they have finished processing it.
The fact remains however that the technology exists to ticket you with similar devices, but we don't have to worry just yet.

Tim W

iTrader: (1)

Unless you drive along the M2 that is...

So I've heard...

ChrisB

Weired - I was just reading about Traffic Master's yearly financial results they annouced today. A link and a quote for you.

Ian Cook

This has already been discussed at very great length, they are indeed as has been said for Trafficmaster.

Rum

I thought that they were for the Traffic Master system...the ones that you get from the AA and Norwich Union etc that are meant to tell you (beep or something) when the traffic ahead is stationary etc??...Might be wrong tho *S*...

Tom

Greg115

The reliable source I mention is a policeman. You would think that he would know. He said that "these units are presently used for traffic flow only but at the flick of a switch could become speed trapping devices."

I am not being paranoid, merely passing on what I have heard, but it doesnt seem to be much of a jump for the police to deal with traffic master to supply information to them under renewal of their licence agreement.

I obviously hope that this doesnt happen,although I can see the government following this line to prevent speeding which seems to be their hot topic, however I still find it insidious that an outside body can track my movements without my consent for any reason.

Can I also refer you to page 24 of the February CAR magazine which mentions the SPECS system.

Greg

[This message has been edited by Greg115 (edited 14-03-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Greg115 (edited 15-03-2000).]

andymac

As the cameras only take a high resolution picture of the number plate and then figure out where the number plate is, all you would theoretically have to do is to take the whole picture as valid. However, as per the current legislation, this evidence is not admissable in court as it is digital. To use digital images, you are not allowed to have any compression or image manipulation and they must be of sufficient resolution / colour depth and must not be tampered with. To comply with this part, you have to store the images on read only media, i.e., CD at the point of capture. This completely buggers up any option of using the traffic master cameras to do the job.

cheers

Andy

Tim W

iTrader: (1)

Greg,

I think I'm right in saying that the SPECS system is the one on trial on the M2, it's not the same as the blue polls, which are part of the Traffic Master network, are on pretty well every major trunk road, and have been for well over a year now!

As I understood it SPECS tends to be on bridges, gantries and alike, it looks more like a CCTV camera than the blue poll devices.

Huxley

For all your info on SPECS look on this site

Greg115

Cheers Andy thats the reply I have been waiting for! I did recheck with the policeman and he is sticking by his story, but he is not in traffic so probably doesnt know any more than the rest of us and maybe its a long way off.
Sorry for alarming you all!
Best Regards
Greg

Blow Dog

Andy,
You swallow a law book?
Cem

Carp Catcher

These blue poles cropped up on loads of A roads in Staffordshire about a year ago.

The first time I went past one on the Leek to Maclesfield road I was a bit worried until I found out what they were all about.

Funny thing was about six weeks ago whilst on the same section of road I happened upon a Saxo VTR that had just lost it on one of the fast bends and before going in and out of hedges, on and off kerbs and finaly coming to rest on it's roof in the middle of the road, it had also managed to knock one of these clever blue posts into the middle of the road.

I just wondered:-

a) How much would they cost to replace? ( I'd love to see the young lads insurance renewal )

b) If the clever little post was able to determine how fast the idiot was going at point of impact and down load the data to the police traffic division before it died in a messy cable affair in the middle of the road?

C.C.

Jonathan Witts

Hi Guys

Traffic Master is owned by The AA and Vodaphone. Which is why the AA and Vodaphone offer thoses little traffice alert systems, and anti theft devices.

If Traffice master could be used to catch people speeding, how many of us would cancel our AA membership and place our Vodaphones soemwhere dark and smelly.

Market forces will never let it happen.

What the AA are doing is considering adding Web cams to the poles, so you will be able to see the traffice before leaving the office, and also developing a WAP application so you can view the traffic ahead - Cool !

Jon

TFyus

I phoned trafic master regarding this blue poles. They appeared around the areas of scotland where i drive very fast. I was well paranoid about going to a friends house and back and being banned four times over in one night.

I saw a trafic master van at one of the poles and called the freephone number on the side. They said they were for trafic flow measuring only as has been stated above.

Why would a public company that presently makes good money out of QUALITY customer service then shaft the same customers with the other end of their company?

Personally i believe it would not be in their interest as the poles would become a target for destruction and the cost of each must be quite high.

This co. would lose so much money and customers if they were associated with such deeds.

Personally i found the blue pole very sturdy. Tho i haven't crashed my car into it to check!

Steven

^Gazzer^

Here are a couple more speedtrap/traffic master related sites...