By Martin Regtien
Contributing Writer, RealTechNewsÂ
When I heard — says DigitalReviews‘ Martin Van Zanten — that I had the opportunity to review this small marvel of electronics, I wondered what would be the use to me. I have to go back a long time to explain my feelings to you on the subject of speed limits… and of course keeping within those limits. It’s now some thirty five years ago, that I was trained to become a civil engineer. We had many lectures on road design, and it’s like yesterday to me listening to one of the lecturers admonishing us: “When you drive keep within the speed limits: roads are designed to a specific maximum speed. It’s for your own safety to stay within those limits!”
That stern warning has been in the back of my mind ever since, so I keep to speed limits. So why would I need an instrument that warns me of speed cameras? It’s with a bit of scepticism I plugged it into the cigarette lighter, and took the GlobalTop SC-200 for a road test.
In this review I’ll give you a first hand witness account of how I changed my mind, once I had the experience of going through an hour of heavy rush hour traffic in the city of the Hague, in the western part of the Netherlands.
Read his review here.
Speed camera??? I don’t get it… Maybe it will not work where I live.
I know about radar detectors and traffic light cameras but now they have a camera to catch speeders? How does that work?
It doesn’t actually detect cameras. It is location-based using a GPS receiver and a database of camera coordinates. So if your location is nearing a camera coordinate, it warns you. Therefore, it only works if the camera you are nearing is in the database. I would think it would be a good idea if in an area that has cameras that have been around for awhile. But in an area where new cameras are being installed, you would need regular database updates (assuming the vendor maintains their database in a timely fashion).
Sorry, I should have read your question more carefully. I answered a different question.
Speed cameras work in one of two ways: 1) they can employ a radar component, where the camera component just identifies your car, and 2) two cameras identify your car and calculate your average speed between those cameras based on distance between the cameras and time stamp of the pictures.
I see, it can be “radar gun meets traffic light camera” or be 2 cameras vs stopwatch.
I live in a very small town so I’m certain they aint got those here… When the cops want to catch speeders or drunk drivers here, they just park on the shoulder of the highway and watch drivers. (probably have radar guns in their patrol cars.)
Yet the time it takes between 2 cameras reminds me of something… Ever drive between 2 cities and you’re out on some open freeway in the middle of nowhere but keep seeing signs that say “Speed patroled by aircraft” and they paint big lines on the shoulder of the freeway at a right angle to the lanes… I heard if there was really an airplane up there, the pilot would know who was speeding by how long it took to drive from one line to the next!
I’ve yet to see 1 airplane flying over a freeway or highway where those signs are deployed since I first noticed them as a kid about 25 years ago!
I suppose if you consider the price of an airplane, plus fuel, plus pilot… The average speeding ticking would be $10,000 under that system!
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