It’s been a full year since the traffic camera presentation that had Mayor Lukes all sorts of giddy and not much has been spoken of the citys plans to implement them in that time. However there is no doubt the city is covered with them, it’s just hard to tell if they’re even on. Well that functionality will be a moot point in a few months if Cobra Electronics has anything to say about it. The company just announced a few new members in their radar detector family which will alert drivers to the presence of the revenue generators public safety tools in the sky.
Cobra Electronics has taught its radar detectors a new trick: they also detect red light cameras and speed cameras.
The Chicago company does this by maintaining a database of intersections known to have red-light cameras and stretches of road with speeding cameras. The database currently has more than 5,000 intersections, speed camera locations and popular speed traps. But it’s being updated twice a day by Cobra employees who are tasked with finding and verifying new locations by calling various cities, police departments and local businesses near major intersections. Due out in the spring, the detectors are priced from $389 to $439, depending on the model.
Anyone want to throw out an over/under for the time it will take the state legislature to ban these? For your own good, of course.
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For some time already you have been able to get files on the web(for fee and for free) of red-light and speed cams and load them as “points-of-interest” into your GPS navigation unit. My new TomTom has it, althought I haven’t used the unit much yet so can’t report how it works. I think some units have the option of playing audible warnings as you approach the cam.
I’m not so sure that there are any traffic cams anywhere in the city yet. After I made this post last April, I got an e-mail from someone saying that that particular style of video camera doesn’t have anywhere near the resolution needed to be used as a red light camera. They said that those particular cams were taking the place of the embedded trip switches (wire inductor loops buried in the pavement) and only sense whether a vehicle is waiting at the stop line for the light to change.
Also, isn’t there a state law specifically forbidding the use of red light cameras that first has to be struck down before they can be used here?
I have a few red light cameras in my GPS too. Canton, Ohio has plans to install these to spark the budget. They say it has nothing to do with money, but the presentation by Redflex and the sagging economy say otherwise. I may end up buying one of the Cobra units you wrote about (and avoid the City of Canton altogether).