Safe Speed Forums

By the way, you can also be sure that as more and more people (like me) get fed up with having to have our lives put on the line every day by dangerous drivers, they will start installing car cams. If some dickhead drives into me, I will have incontrovertible evidence that it was his fault. I, and most other people, want that sort of protection, and we want dangerous drivers to know that we will be recording their crimes.

In the other thread about this, Smeggy said:
"A fully-fledged multi camera, removable hard drive, recording system would cost less than 1k to produce and install, almost insignificant when compared to the cost of a speed camera. Imagine the coverage that could be achieved if the money for 5000 speed cameras was instead put into such a scheme. There is around 250000 miles of road in the UK, that would mean up to 1 mobile camera unit per mile! Of course, not every driver will be driving 24 hours a day, but it still means there is a good chance of a dangerous action being captured. Habitual offenders will eventually be caught. "

He's absolutely right - habitual offenders are the ones I'm after. The more you break the law, the more chance you have of being caught. If you forget to indicate and nobody noticed, then it's all forgotten about. If you forget to indicate and almost cause somebody else to have an accident because of your actions, that person will be far more inclined to send their video footage to the police. If the police have already had x number of complaints about you that week, and x number of videos sent to them, they will come and have a word with you.
But re the £1k cost- it's a lot less than that. I would think a perfectly adequate solid state camera with 1Gb of memory could sell for £50 - £80, and you could have as few or as many as you wanted. I would personally opt for four, one for each side.

I'd also be more than happy for the police to fit cameras to my car and to monitor everything I do while driving, if they would prosecute everybody who broke the law while I was out driving. The number of times I've said to myself 'I wish I had a carcam installed so I could get that ***tard arrested'!

I work for a firm that, I think, produced the first CCDs in the UK, in the early eighties. I had a hand in designing the first UK-based CCD camera. I am an amateur astronomer who has kept up with CCD design and development for many uses, including purchase, evaluation under many conditions. My wife now works for the same firm as I did in the evaluation department of new designs of CCDs. Therefore, in this particular field, I think I can legitimately make comment.

The smaller the pixel, the less photons it gathers. The smaller the lens, the less photons per unit area are collected. Noise - spurious photons and electrons if you like - are dependent on many things, but will even in the most expensive of systems never reduce below a certain floor.

For good images, you can't beat a larger chip and a larger lens. I can go into much more detail if required. however, your 5mp camera almost certainly has a physically larger chip than the webcam, with a correspondingly larger lens to make use of it.

As I said previously, there is a great deal of difference of picture quality from 1.3MP typical digital camera (almost all have a Bayer filter - one colour site per pixel) and a 1.3MP true RGB per pixel picture (normal for broadcast pictures). Then there’s the issue of compression……


The size of the lens has no impact on sensor resolution. Video cameras run with adjustable apertures to effectively reduce the size of the lens when required.

Noise isn’t a significant issue, especially now that the next gen digi cams use a CMOS imager with micro-lenses and on die noise processing.

And thanks for yours. This campaign needs all the support it can get right now with the spin doctors doing their best to brainwash the masses.

Yes, it does, but it's not THAT much bigger. i.e. it isn't so big that it can't easily be fitted to the inside of the roof of my car, and point out the window. Is 5m pixels overkill? I think so, but I brought it up merely to show that I'm not talking about low quality CCTV footage, of the type we see all the time on TV (where you can't even recognise an offender's face).
The cost will come down, year upon year, as I have said, and that includes the cost of memory, so such a 'car cam' will come into being, and will have a huge market. I can imagine insurers will offer drivers better premiums if they have 'car cams' and will provide video evidence in the event of any accident- it sounds like an insurance company's dream! If you don't use car cams, they could charge you more - it would be entirely up to them. Or you could even have a specialist car insurers that only insures drivers who have two car cams installed. (And I'd be more than happy to take a driving test every time I wanted to renew my premium, if they would give me a better rate. How many drivers here can say the same?)

By "size of lens" I meant focal length. For (physically) larger sensors (with greater light gathering power and of higher tolerance to lens abberation thanks to greater pixel size), one needs a longer lens to get the same field of view, and the lens apperture needs to be larger pro rata to maintain the same F number (light gathering power).

Utterly agree, I know exactly how you feel; I would too so long as the system can’t be used to assess my speed whilst in this misled climate of ‘speedophiles are the biggest killers’.

Personally I would be more than happy to have a recorder that measured my speed as well - I don't speed.
The widespread use of carcams would also reduce the number of incidences of road rage, IMHO. People with carcams would feel like "Got you" the next time somebody does something dangerous near them, instead of "You silly sod!". The victim in this case would now have a way of getting back at the perpetrator - by reporting them to the police. At the moment, what are we supposed to do? Pull over and dial 999 every time somebody overtakes us dangerously? Would the police be able to respond? Of course not, in 99% of cases. The driver would be long gone by the time they got anywhere near you. But having that video footage WOULD do something - you would be able to prove to the police what had happened, and habitual dangerous drivers would be being 'caught' on camera many times a day. There are drivers I see who I know drive incredibly dangerously ALL the time, and they do this because they are very angry people, and simply don't care about anybody else. Most people don't want drivers like this on the road, period. Together we can take them off.

Then this is where we depart with our agreement. I do speed, but only where it’s safe to do so i.e. where the limit is well below what the majority reasonably consider to be unjust (usually on motorways, especially where they have been reduced to 50 (or DCs to 30) - for no reason). Such speed monitoring will be as useless and dangerous as speed cameras.

If such car cams could measure speed on an admissible basis, many will be put off because:
* the great majority do speed (rightly or wrongly) and
* private cars fitted with the system would be subject to a greatly increased chance of vandalism from Catpain Gatso wannabees (just like 4x4 brigade are currently targeted by the greenies)

Broadcast quality, or just better than typical webcam quality?




What's the make and model? I've yet to see any consumer-grade digital camera in the 4MP and above range which doesn't suffer from noise. If on the other hand it's a digital SLR with the correspondingly larger sensor they use, then you're comparing apples with, umm, coconuts...




Nope, but we've already hit the point where increased resolution doesn't really give us anything other than bragging rights, and to get around this you'll need to use larger sensors and the correspondingly larger lenses they require, or you'll need to figure out some new sensor technology which doesn't suffer from the problems of current types.






You're missing the point. It's not that your TV can't display the extra data (although since I'm sat across the room from a HD plasma panel, it actually could...), it's whether or not the camera is capturing enough detail to make full use of the broadcast format. A consumer grade camera using a single small CCD, with the image focussed onto it via a cheap lens, will NOT produce the same quality as a 3-chip large sensor camera with a couple of thousand quidsworth of glass up front. It doesn't matter one bit if the sensors themselves both claim to spit out the same resolution images, if the images from one are blurred, have poorer contrast and colour reproduction, compared to the other.




Onboard footage from some motorsport coverage compared to the trackside cameras, and footage from RC vehicle mounted cameras used in wildlife documentaries compared to the footage shot with larger shoulder/tripod mounted cameras, are the two examples that instantly spring to mind.





Fine, you can catch people who screw up when they're behind you. I hardly think it's clutching at straws to point out the obvious flaw in that you can't similarly catch people who screw up when they're already ahead of you.




So evading the congestion charge is dangerous driving?





Indeed, and I doubt the cheap and cheerful cameras mosis is suggesting will be true RGB, or will have enough storage space to record a useful amount of footage in anything other than a compressed format.

The point is, simply quoting sensor resolution as if that alone is the deciding factor in image quality is a mistake.




I didn't say it did. But it does have an impact on the effective resolution of the captured image. Stick a lens which can resolve 500 lines in front of a 1000 line sensor, then stick a lens which can resolve 1000 lines in front of the same sensor, and tell me there's no difference in the captured image. Many, if not all, of the cheap cameras have lenses which physically cannot resolve sufficient detail to make full use of the sensor behind them.

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Chris

Why stop at car cams? What about pedestrian cams, cyclecams, pramcams, lollipop lady cams, shop assistant cams, traincams, planecams and buscams? Great! All that lovely evidence. Now, all we will need is a massive increase in police numbers to sift all this evidence and visit offenders. These extra police will need to be specially trained in traffic issues, and of course be very good drivers in order to make qualified judgements. They'll also need cars to go about their business in...

All this will cost a lot of money. More than would ever be raised by fines. The resulting drop in driver numbers would have a huge implications for the treasury. The fall in fuel and vehicle duty receipts, coupled with the spiralling costs of policing and the dozens of new courts and prisons that will be needed to process and house all these criminals will be a troublesome combination for the chancellor. The loss of family wage earners to prison will find local authorities overburdened with applications for council tax and housing benefit. Those who are still free to earn a living will have to pay more and more tax to pay for it. This would not bode well for a healthy economy.

Let's just have a few more coppers, some incentives to improve our driving, and some common sense. Carcams might be of some use in accident investigation but, do we really want to be turned into a nation of snoopers and snitchers?

I'm not clutching at straws, so far I've been very reasonable considering your bigotry. It is precisely the bigotted mindset that makes video evidence alone so unreliable. Let's face it, you have made up your mind and no amount of evidence will make you see differently. You will search through whatever evidence is presented to you and twist it to your own point of view. Strangely, so will many others (including the magistrates - jury not being available for most motoring offences - that try you).

In my previous post I explained the difference between data and information. Data would be the video evidence, information would be the interpretation that you make of that data coloured as it is by your bigotry.


I'm worried about the perverse interpretation that others might make. Surely I've given enough examples (motoring and otherwise) of how video evidence can create an erroneous impression in the mind of the viewer!


You've obviously made up your mind about video evidence that has yet to be captured - and that mindset goes towards creating information from the video data - and thus your interpretation could well be wrong. The most obvious interpretation of data is by no means guaranteed to be correct. There thus exists reasonable doubt - which is enough to mean that video evidence alone should not be used to convict.

Of course I watch TV, listen to the radio, read your words. But I'm not relying on any of those to convict someone. At best, all your examples are hearsay - and so would not be acceptable in evidence. Now you are clutching at straws.


It's not so much about me, but about justice in general. Of course I'm worried that safe, law-abiding drivers can be convicted because of misinterpretation. After all, there have been enough miscarriages of justice without the ones that would inevitably occur should the judiciary accept video evidence alone to convict!



Not at 1.3m pixels or higher resolution (although I don't know what the original resolution was) - but then the resolution doesn't matter where the identity of the person is not in doubt. However, there are certainly examples where video evidence suggests the wrong picture. For example, the overtaking situation that I cited up-thread. Your response to that was that I would certainly be guilty of driving dangerously even though you would have been about twenty feet too far left to appreciate that I could clearly see for about half a mile and that I knew there was no oncoming traffic and that it was safe to overtake. Again, your mental attitude would colour your translation of data to information that suggested the wrong picture.

• Autofocus that blurs some essential detail, thus denying the viewer the full story.
• Auto-exposure causes some essential detail to be lost in flare or shadow.
• Foreshortening that makes someone seem to be tailgating when they are not.
• A slight flaw in the lens that makes the subject seem to be moving faster (or slower) than they are.
• etc.

Again, you are jumping to conclusions and the information that you would derive from video evidence would be coloured by that. You assume that I must be guilty of whatever offence you think you see, and would be looking for something that might not be there but to which you could make the evidence fit. However, your interpretation might not be the only one, and might not be the correct one. I would be an innocent party at risk of unsafe conviction.


I think that I have explained why video evidence cannot be solely relied upon and have described incidents where video from the cameras you advocate would give the wrong impression.

There was an advert on TV not so long ago - if anyone has a link perhaps they could post it - that showed a youth clutching a handbag and running full pelt. Most people would assume that the youth had stolen the handbag. The advert then showed a more complete version to show that the owner of the bag had left it behind and the youth was running to return the bag to its rightful owner. The conclusion was something about seeing things differently when you have the complete picture - and the danger of incomplete pictures is one of my objections to your scheme.

Here's a for-instance. Let's assume that you capture the following scenario at 5m pixels or better. You're parked by the side of the road when you see a car moving down the road towards you. The driver is without a seat belt, with his door open. The car veers off the road and into the ditch throwing the driver clear and knocking him unconcious. A minute or so later a pedestrian runs down the road screaming that the man has stolen her car. Has a crime taken place? If so, who is the guilty party? Note that you may use only the video for evidence and cannot interview any suspect or witness!

I'll wait for your response before telling you what really happened.

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Will

All this talk of recording images leads us back to the "cure" for town centre problems -CCTV - till the problem people started wearing hats/hoods etc, and the only way to be certain that the right people were caught was ( yes you've guessed) the old fashioned , worked for years, cure - A REAL LIVE POLICEMAN.

Then you end up foul of the liberties people - usually the ones who don't want to be filmed , in case they're up to somat, but you'll find they've got human rights --lots of them ,and they will use them

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Imagers are becoming alarming cheap nowadays. A 1.6MP (or better) Bayer imagers (enough for 0.4 true RGB) are still fairly cheap, you only need to look as far as the cheap camcorders which can also take higher resolution (Bayer) pictures to know that.


A 1280x720p imager running at 25fps will need 231 uncompressed GiB in one hour, enough for many offences to fit on one reasonably sized hard drive.


Of course, but I think the original point was that the image from a HD sensor is less liable to be doctored convincingly. It will also capture more detail so zoom lenses may not be needed.


Apologies if I misunderstood you. You are right; however, the size of the lens doesn’t govern how well it can resolve (but there are tradeoffs).


It depends on how you define cheap. As I said in the other thread, a £1k setup (mass produced) will give you a decent setup with multiple cameras.

Hmm I see when watching Police Camera Action on telly, that the momment the scroat in front realises there is a police car with onboard CCTV fitted, they just pull over and give up!

What degree of zoom, or wide angle would you anticipate? As the camera is "unattended" you will have to ensure that you can capture the whole of the incident - you mention detail at the edge of the frame (more on that later) so I assume a degree of wide angle?

There you go, a 3.2 mp still shot, through my rear window. The reason I dont bother the police with it, is because you cannot see who the driver is, even when you zoom in for a closer look. The speed cams we have just passed might have - but they dont give a toss, and would not have stopped the driver anyway - even if they had been speeding while on the phone, so I would be just as much at risk AFTER the camera as I was before!

Care to hazard a guess (No, make that a certainty, beyond reasonable doubt) as to the number of the car on the left?
And what measures will you be taking to ensure your rear window is scrupulously clean? Or that the angle/curvature does not distort the image?

This sign is soon distorted by a little rain on the screen!


Yes, Ings village on the A591 has a 40 mph limit, as does the road which passes through the village itself, where 14 mph is dangerously fast! Then, leading off the road, is a tiny lane, with a Narrow road warning lollipop, and the limit is NSL - 60 mph!!!!!!!
So YES, I have asked the question "Why do we have speed limits, and why are they different on different roads?" - usually followed by "Which cretin ever thought that "X" was an appropriate or safe speed along here?". Now I realise it was somebody just like you!

Let's say you (mosis) were the first or third car in this picture.

and as you progressed into the two lane section, you encountered this scene...

with the trailer combination travelling at around 45 mph - and embarking on the start of a hill. NSL applies, so would you:
a: wait behind the boat/trailer combo. and slow down as you go up the hill, or,
b: make use of your momentum gained down the dip, to accellerate up to 50-55 mph and launch yourself past the trailer/4x4 before you lose momentum yourself?
Safe speed, or speed limit?
Remember the tailgater might make a decision before you, so I am assuming you would be watchful, and use your indicators if appropriate, and if he dared to tailgate you, you would have filmed the evidence, and so would have no worries about pulling out first.

Now your point about judging speed by use of detail at the side of the frame. Now you are showing your ingnorance! You CAN measure the time for your vehicle to pass two points, measure that distance, and work out your speed - it's how the speeds are shown on F1, as cars trigger a signal as they pass over a device buried in the track surface.
However in order to measure the speed of a following vehicle, or one in front, you would have to maintain the same angle of view of the roadside items for it to work.
Imagine sitting on a playground roundabout, at the edge of it's circumference, and looking towards the centre. Your view of the centre point is blocked by another "passenger", so throughout each revolution, you do not see the centre ever.
Which of you is travelling faster, or are you travelling at the same speed?
Remember the view of the centre never varies, no matter how many revolutions you make!

Oh, and when Paul said the REAL criminals would ensure they were not detected?
SEE the number plate of the second vehicle? Notice the difference between it and the one in front?

Makes it harder to read when the image is not spot on. When they get pulled up by the police, this type of motorist invariably says "Why are you making a fuss over my numberplate - it's only SLIGHTLY smaller than the regs allow - it shouldn't really matter...." but here we can see his driving behaviour leaves a little to be desired! At least he has his LIGHTS on in poor conditions! But when it gets to court - how do you prove he was not just accelerating forwards to pass the car in front, and then aborted the manouver on seeing a hazard in front?

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Err the sort of people who would fly to Bulgaria in order to set up an elaborate deception, and prove that a foreigner was driving thier car when it was seen speeding!
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/177/177871_the_speeding_lie_that_cost_11000.html
Read and enjoy, then come back and ask your question again!!
http://www.iam.org.uk/Pressroom/News_Releases/2003/nr0304.pdf
The last link is to the Institute of Advanced Motorists - I presume you hold them in some esteem?
You REALLY SHOULD research more before you start spouting complete and utter drivel!!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Und what if you cause accident below this magic number on the lolly?


It happens. Und what if you are copped by someone else. You may think you are perfect.. but how does someone else perceive your driving?


Handy users - ja I detest with vengeance und the article by Mr Townsend - editorial letter in the Express made me laugh...

It was so apt The conversations .. he compare it to... :augh: und I do recall doing this when aged about 12 myself.....


we would all crowd into the public phone booth to have conversation und all listen und chat It was a bit like going into the mug shot booth as well und all pulling funnny faces at the camera too ....

Ist like the bloke said on the radio the other night ... history person und he predict whims und frills und falllals of futrure trend.. und he see it all repeated .. internet open chat with strangers on sites like this. Victorians met und established friendships with strangers on a train. Und sometimes friendshiops get forged und we arrange to meet in pub for pie und pint. Ist fascinating how human think they reinvent the wheel when ist really a new way of doing the same thing we did before.

I think this ist really a "Chat" forum debate .. sorry Paul ... You may snip und move if you think appropriate.

Ach .. I go off on tangent because I truly loathe handy use und this bizarre pre-occupation with them.

But would I snitch to police? Unless they place me in serious danger. If not I just do the "glare". Ted knows my "glare" ...it usually goes with "you worm!" Ist very effective .. he has photo of my "glare" Now he has found out how to post photos ... he threaten me with this Ist his latest toy..... we now say it in photos und not

But IG once post he does not need photos to work out forensics leading to crash.. the point of impact, damage, tyre marks und apparently they can tell from in-car computer und engine management systems very much as to what happen in car prior to an incident. IG say forensics even say when brakes applied und this was reported in the sad case where the cop ran the red light on a shout und a woman died.

As for doctoring.. images can be edited .. und it does not take much to alter image. I know this from playing around with family photos und videos of kittens at play. Within the editing - you can cast whole different slant .. und this ist why I view Traffic Cops with a little scepticism at times. I suspect something missing from picture in some of it - und you have to take into account that this ist condensed into half hour which has to be watchable to its audience too.

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Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

Continuing from Mr Marsh...

The AA Motoring Trust reporting of number plate cloning/theft: http://www.aamotoringtrust.com/index.asp?PageID=31&Year=2005&NewsID=64

The Government: http://www.direct.gov.uk/Motoring/VehicleCrime/VehicleCrimeArticles/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=10020050&chk=McZdfV and questions in the House: http://194.128.65.4/pa/cm200405/cmhansrd/cm050131/text/50131w08.htm

The BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/extra/series2/car_cloning.shtml

There are many reasons for copying the registration and most are covered in the above articles, but simply put, it means that detection of the driver of an illegal vehicle is impossible. Until the true owner of the plate realises that they have been cloned and notified the DVLA and Police the cloned driver can do anything - speed at will, go through the congestion charge zone, drive off without paying for petrol... Even ANPR is useless as a means of detection if the driver of the clone has behaved legally, but it allows them to drive an untaxed and uninsured vehicle with almost zero chance of detection.

And the funny thing is, that until speed camera enforcement was brought in it almost never happened - why do think that would be?

I also live for short while as student in Moscow und later on in Leipzig. This was in days of Communist rule.

I can tell you that surveillance - continual surveillance - was a most unpleasant feeling und you never got used to it.

Because of this - you found you were never relaxed und thus it disturb concentration. I think you may find it lead to more problems.

_________________
Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

Ernest, I must say this,

* The first photo certainly isn’t 3.2MP (it’s actually 0.11MP), it's quite small.
* It’s compressed (11 to 1) and had likely been compressed again prior to cropping
* It’s clearly not RGB per pixel (compare it against the detail of this photo – also compressed, by 7 to 1)
* It’s only 1 frame. The subsequent dithering effect as the subject moves across the video screen over many frames will increase the viewable detail.

A proper video camera at 640 pixels wide will result with far superior images (even with some compression).