This product would be handy on toll roads that use cameras to bill you. Like the 407 in Ontario.
My somewhat educated guess is that the product would very likely be illegal because the flashes intentionally obscure the license plate from being recorded and that is the part of the laws in most states, provinces and countries this falls foul of. Most of the laws are written in such a way to say that any attempt to obscure the license plate is illegal. That is usually meant to suggest mud, various coverings and so on, but can depending on the specific law, mean any attempt by you the owner or driver of the vehicle to obscure in anyway, the recording of the license plate by authorized agencies or companies.
A friend of mine and I planned to do something similar. The city put a camera in near my house that was rather annoying. Our plan was to rig up a laser, photo receptor in a tube, and a battery, and bury them in a planter near the light. Aim the tube at the flash, aim the laser at the lens, and over expose every picture. I figured that it would be next to impossible to find and the battery would last for months, but we couldn't get around the fact the city did a great job maintaining those planters.
When I lived there, I often fantasized about getting one of those super-sticky stickers (apparently the Post Office gives them out for free) and sticking it on the camera lens. If only I had a ladder.
"Forever" is hyperbole. I don't know about the US but digital cameras with no flash (or infrared illumination, specifically to avoid visual light overexposure problems) are becoming common here in the UK.
Also if the camera taking the picture has a shutter speed faster than the time it takes this system to respond, it'll get a picture before the defensive flash occurs. They do claim the noPhoto is fast enough but it would take testing against actual, regulation speed cameras to come close to guaranteeing that.
The system could take a series of pictures sans flash leading up to an infraction and then if there was an infraction store the lead up pictures as well as the infraction. Unless there is some esoteric law on the books about needing to catch the speeder/redlight evader on camera as it happens this would basically defeat the "evasion"
Some of these systems use a Tivo-like system where they're constantly recording, then when triggered they section off a few seconds. This allows the person reviewing it to find the best view of the plate.
The studies I've read from the Motor Accident Commission and the Victorian police here in Australia show a clear correlation between speed cameras and reduced incidences of accidents and fatalities, so yes, I support speed cameras.
Having said that, there are some pretty suspicious placements that seem like clear revenue raising. For example, a new underpass was built here in Adelaide on a road leading into the city. It has a relatively steep incline and the road curves as you enter and exit the underpass. There's a speed camera placed in precisely the best place to catch people who happen to stray a few kph over the speed limit as they descend into the underpass, and it makes that underpass difficult to go through - you're aware of the camera so you're constantly watching your speedometer as you enter and exit, and as I mentioned before, the road curves and so you find yourself drifting over the line because you can't focus entirely on the road for fear you'll creep over the speed limit and get a $600 fine and a bunch of demerit points.
There have been a few crashes on the underpass already, although thankfully no fatalities as far as I know.
In many Australian states (including South Australia) the payments from fines goes to a Community Road Safety Fund which is then given mostly (except for funding for holiday double demerit campaigns) to community and motorist groups to run their road safety activities, not the road authorities or police who would advise on where to put the cameras. So hopefully there is no incentive for "revenue raising" cameras - wouldn't the potential and actual crashes in the underpass have caused the camera to be installed?
"The studies I've read from the Motor Accident Commission and the Victorian police here in Australia show a clear correlation between speed cameras and reduced incidences of accidents and fatalities"
You also have to be careful with some of these statistics. Speed cameras often get put up in reaction to a series of accidents. But statistically you would expect the amount of crashes to go up and down, and if you have just had an unusually high level of accidents on a stretch of road, then you would expect the average measured afterwards to be lower in the majority of cases, irrespective of whether a speed camera was installed.
I do support red light cameras. Mostly because I'm a pedestrian that listens to music when walking around town. I have nearly been hit by careless drivers on more than one occasion.
However, I think they should be more lenient on drivers that just barely infringe on a red light by a few milliseconds. And I think they should never be used to ticket speeders. Obviously, I also don't support shortening yellow lights to rake in more ticket dollars.
>I do support red light cameras. Mostly because I'm a pedestrian that listens to music when walking around town. I have nearly been hit by careless drivers on more than one occasion.
Then you should not support red light cameras. Instead, you should support longer yellow lights, or accelerating to beat them.
Studies have pretty well nailed down that traffic light cameras do not reduce accidents. Any benefit they have as a deterrent is canceled by drivers slamming on the brakes at yellow lights.
Worse, many local governments have been caught illegally shortening yellow lights to increase ticket revenue from traffic light cameras. That's particularly awful because increasing the duration of the yellow light has been shown to be one of the most reliable ways to reduce traffic light accidents.
Please keep your eyes attentive. Whatever the laws in your country province or state about hitting a pedestrian, you are small and a car is big, and at any reasonable speed, there's a chance it will kill you.
Pedestrians need more respect of the big metal things zooming around and potentially not doing everything right (hey, the brakes could fail)
Certainly it would be safer if pedestrians (like me!) didn't listen to music while walking, but I'm not willing to concede the principle that traffic laws be obeyed.
Just because I didn't do every last proactive thing to avoid an accident doesn't excuse the person who caused it.
It's really sad to see the "automotive road entitlement" effect illustrated so clearly. There was a time when roads were for pedestrians and gatherings of people and, well, culture. Then the auto industry used propaganda to convince everyone that the road is only for cars, and I can't help but think that we might be a little worse off for it.
I, for one, would love to get one of these on my corner. We get a lot of people speeding past the elementary school, blowing through the stop sign, and occasionally plowing into my fence, because they're trying to save twelve seconds by avoiding the traffic light a couple blocks up.
I haven't seen a many drivers running red while trying to cross on a late yellow. Instead the problem is drivers sitting at a red and driving through it because they're frustrated.
Even as someone who wants to see law enforcement crack down harshly on unsafe driving, I highly approve of this. Speed cameras were a great idea that failed because of greedy vendors (and greedy municipalities). The cameras should encourage good behavior, not shake down average drivers. (And, the vendor should get one fee for building the thing, not a percentage of each ticket given.)
My design would have used something like an LCD in front of the license plate. When near a camera, turn dark. Otherwise, stay clear.
My design would have used something like an LCD in front of the license plate. When near a camera, turn dark. Otherwise, stay clear.
This would address my other concern, having my car tracked in parking lots by private businesses.
Being able to detect a camera seems a knotty problem though. Maybe have it use GPS and enter locations where the plate needs to be impossible to scan from a distance.
My city makes millions of dollars in easy revenue from installing red light cameras downtown, and they're installing more of them every time I turn around. If you roll over the line, even if you've previously come to a complete stop at the intersection, you'll get ticketed. They're making money hand over fist, along with the operators. Big government fascists love this stuff.
This might save you a few tickets, but it sets you up for a much more serious charge when you are caught. Ask all the sportbikers who have been caught with flip-up tags.
I wonder how it looks when you're driving behind someone with one of these and it goes off. Would it be powerful or surprising enough to distract a driver or cause a temporary blind spot?
Also, I'm surprised there are no provisions in the legislation to make illegal any system that would render speed cameras ineffective. Why would laws be written without those provisions?
"He's using Indiegogo to try to raise $80,000 in order to get the device certified by Underwriter's Laboratories." First of all, there's absolutely no need for UL certification for a product like this.
Unless what they are talking about is FCC certification which costs a lot less than $80K.
Second of all, this would be made illegal in a New York minute. To a politician, money==power and they get all pissy when you interfere with a revenue stream.
In the New York area, some 'red light cameras' are still cameras, but some actually record video as well. When you get the ticket they give you a URL and you can view the video of your car.
Reminds me of the scramble suits from A Scanner Darkly.
As government surveillance technologies improve, the anonymity (and accompanying privacy) that once accompanied some areas of public life is at risk.
Public opposition to that trend has largely come in the form of calls for better legal protections. However, my suspicion is that ultimately it will be the arms race between surveillance technologies and technologies like this product that determine what happens to public anonymity.
Surveillance that is only triggered by a (dangerous) infraction is a far cry from the kind you read about in dystopian novels, or the newspaper for that matter.
All the hate for these cameras is pretty much justified, but all that said, there's still a 100% foolproof way to avoid getting a ticket from a speed camera.
I'm Jon, inventor of the noPhoto. I was a bit shocked to login and find 14,000 views to our website today, and that a lot of them came from here! Thanks to all of you for your support. I figured I'd clear up a couple of points while I'm here.
1. The noPhoto does react more than fast enough. The shutter speed of the red light camera is actually irrelevant when dealing with optical slave triggers, technology which has been used in the photography world for a long time.
2. The noPhoto does defeat multiple pictures at once, and it does work in the daytime. I can't post a link here, but if you go to our youtube channel you can see a video we shot to show it working under a few different conditions.
3. Most studies that are not funded by the red light camera companies show that these cameras actually increase both overall accidents as well as injury-causing accidents.
4. We do not support running red lights intentionally. The noPhoto is not meant to enable irresponsible drivers to blow through intersections with impunity - rather, the hope is that by installing a noPhoto, drivers will drive as they did before the dangerous red light cameras were installed.
If there's any other questions you have, feel free to ask. Thanks!
This is quite neat. First thing I've said "wow" to in a while on HN. How do you think municipalities will react? I imagine they will pass laws against these sorts of devices.
I had this idea quite a while ago after watching a Mythbusters episode during which they attempted to beat a speed camera. The only solution was making a second plate mechanically fall over the real plate. I had planned on using infared LEDs which ran off of the car's battery. Only cameras would pick them up.
It's awesome to see this actually being implemented and sold. Even though I had absolutely nothing to do with this, it's cool to see the product come to life.
Also, one more thing to point out is that the noPhoto never obscures the license plate to the naked eye. You can always see the plate even while it's going off. In fact, the noPhoto doesn't even technically run afoul of municipal traffic codes by obscuring cameras - it specifically only obscures cameras with flashes. That level of specificity is something that our attorneys haven't seen legislated - charges would be thrown out in a heartbeat.
I don't like speed cameras any more than anyone else - but the fact that it's legal to obviously evade laws with technology means that either there's something seriously wrong with the government/laws and that needs to change, or if we all agree that these laws are for the greater good (we don't seem to) then products like this shouldn't be legal.
I always wanted to have a lcd plate cover that would blank out alternate sides at a high enough frame rate that the naked eye would see nothing, but a camera would never catch all of the numbers...
then I realized that it's a lot easier to just put a bike carrier or something on the back of the car.
I thought of this, as well as other similarly goal-ed techniques, many many years ago. But didn't pursue it because wasn't worth the hassle of legal risk. Seemed pretty clear to me that it would be either (a) illegal, or (b) made illegal at some point. Not worth the bother. So many other great ideas out there.
I take it none of the creator's loved ones have been hit by a reckless driver. This device exists solely to let dangerous child-men go on with no accountability for their actions.
In the United Kingdom at least, no, not all do. And infrared is also common, specifically as a mechanism for countering visual light overexposure (as much a problem at night as during the day for a forward facing camera).
Sure, a flash would definitely help with a slow shutter, but I would think it wouldn't be too difficult or expensive to have a camera with a sufficiently fast shutter to capture moving cars in daylight without too much motion blur.
My somewhat educated guess is that the product would very likely be illegal because the flashes intentionally obscure the license plate from being recorded and that is the part of the laws in most states, provinces and countries this falls foul of. Most of the laws are written in such a way to say that any attempt to obscure the license plate is illegal. That is usually meant to suggest mud, various coverings and so on, but can depending on the specific law, mean any attempt by you the owner or driver of the vehicle to obscure in anyway, the recording of the license plate by authorized agencies or companies.