[sir john]

Here is a bit of news that you will not like.

A professor over here has invented a camera that can tell how many people are in a car/van/wagon. It then reads your number plate and you get issued with a fine if there is only one person in the car. It has been tested with dummies as passengers but it reads only one human in the car.

Each camera has three lens inside it.

The guy says he is hoping to sell a lot in the USA as you have more 2+ lanes there. We are just trialing the lanes and some cities hope to make them permenant.

Here is another bit of good news for those hoping to visit London, soon it will cost you $50 a day just to drive into parts of the city if you are aiming to drive around in SUV's or 4 x 4.

 

[madcapmag]

What if you're trying to avoid an accident by going into the HOV Lane? What if its your car, but your [email protected]$$ friend is driving it? More camera's on the roads surely means better driving. :roll:

 

[sir john]

Then it is up to you to protest about the fine. If you can show a real reason that you are in that lane then in theory you will not have to pay that fine. If it is your buddy - tough luck on you.

 

[madcapmag]

Yeah. We have the speed cameras here in AZ. If someone else is driving my car and i get a ticket, i can go to court and have it thrown out.

 

[sir john]

We do but the burden of proof is upto you to prove that it was not you driving that car. The newer cameras now take a photo from the front of the driver, tax disc and they even know if you are insured or not. If you have an out of date tax disc you get fined, no insurance the same. So say you are driving along and get snapped by a camera you could end up with fines totally over $2000, plus a ban from driving and then have to show you have sorted out the car insurance, tax disc before you are allowed back on the road. Now here is a good one if you get caught by the police with a camera mounted in their car or by the roadside. They have the power to take your car straight away, if you do not sort out the tax or insurance quickly then they have the power to crush the car. Say you are parked up and they drive down the street and the camera beeps they have the power to remove the car to remove it without telling you.

Now councils have the power to remove cars on which the driver has not paid his parking fines. If it is not worth removing they clamp it. If it is a new/Porche/4X4 and worth a bit. They clamp it and then call in the tow away truck. Even if the car is parked on your driveway they have the power to do the same. The same thing happens to your car it gets crushed or sold at auction if worth a bit.

Do you want me to bring a council camera van with me???? :lol:

Got to laugh a TV program hired a car that was not fit to be on the road altho the owner said it was. They took it to independent inspectors who said it was just a write off. So the guys took the car to the crushers, had it crushed and then returned the crushed car and told him what they had done.

Oh by the way if police or council crush your car you are responsible for the bill.

 

[madcapmag]

Thats horrible, Sir John. I'm glad I don't live there. I hate these speed cameras. Yes, I do speed and yes, I do slow down when I see them, but once I'm past, its up to speed again. All it does is create about a 1/4 mile stretch of not-speeding vehicles. I also don't understand how its not going against the "Innocent until proven guilty" part. If a cop pulls you over for driving and gives you a ticket, no matter who's car you are driving, thats fine. But camera's are basically giveing the car a ticket, which gets passed onto the owner, who may or may not have been driving. Sure, if their face gets clicked, fine, give them the ticket. But they are assuming for every one of the cars being driven that the owners are driving the cars. Assumptions have no place in laws, in my opinion.

 

[sir john]

You would love our other new cameras they measure a length of road and if you drive along that stretch too fast then you get a ticket. All cameras are linked so you cannot go fast inbetween them. They reckon they can do a million cars per minute. Mostly they are by roadworks but a lot of local councils are bringing them in to stop the speedsters.

 

[madcapmag]

Wow. That really sucks! I think they were trying to do that at some of the toll roads here. Some states have the toll booths that gives you a card when you enter, then when you exit a toll booth with an operator you hand the card to, they look at where you entered and look at a chart to see how much you owe. They were thinking about using the time stamps on the cards to see if you were speeding or not. But I think that got shot down for some reason or another.