You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Not sure how this is supposed to work. Tinpot local radio reckoned they could tell if your phone was being used for SatNav , or using bluetooth and able to tell if you were texting
Think its wishfull thinking and a total waste of time and money. If it was 'real' then why are they not making £200 for the 1 in 20 cars that appear to have a mobile phone in use to pay for the hardware.
Otherwise its like 'Ok , so we know you are breaking the law, but its a silly little law that doesn't really matter , so we will flash a flashy sign at you '. pointless
Not sure how this is supposed to work.
Same was as the TV detector vans, make you think they might be able to tell
yeah, ^ that - I mean, it's not like Hampshire police are especially tough on motoring offences in the general run of things, so why should this be true ?
Assuming it does work, there’s no way it would be able to tell if it was the driver or a passenger using a phone, so couldn’t be used for fines etc.
But your not going to notice a sign if you're looking if your looking at your phone?
What if you are driving a LH drive car and passenger is using a phone?
What if you are driving a LH drive car and passenger is using a phone?
Collateral damage when the mini guns go off, anyway that would probably make you foreign so fair game
Huh. Just a 'dumb' detector.
Did I read somewhere that they are £6k a piece, and they bought 2?
[strong]bruneep[/strong] wrote:
What if you are driving a LH drive car and passenger is using a phone?
Haha, happened to me in Spain last year. Got pulled by the Guardia Civil for using a mobile at the wheel......, except it was my passenger as they quickly realised. 🙂
Two detectors, £6k each, "planning to install roadside equipment" at another £?k
How will the site be determined? The detector as shown isn't specific in identifying the vehicle reg, or the user
Seems to me that running a simple plan using PCs or PCSOs on foot to gather evidence of drivers using hand-held phones at random junctions (slow traffic, easier to spot) would be more effective, cheaper and as visible. Radio contact with a police motorcyclist(s) ahead will enforce the law as well. Change the location daily
My car has a SIM card built in to the car, it updates loads of stuff automatically all the time.
Seems to me that running a simple plan using PCs or PCSOs on foot to gather evidence of drivers using hand-held phones at random junctions (slow traffic, easier to spot) would be more effective, cheaper and as visible. Radio contact with a police motorcyclist(s) ahead will enforce the law as well. Change the location daily
^^^^^ This ^^^^^^^^, but with plain clothes officers. Why the high profile, this is for prosecuting obvious offenders, not an exercise in raising the profile of the police. Not ,"we are out and about watching you", because we all know your not .
Get a small HD cam zip tied to a Pelican crossing central reservation, then loiter about in the middle with a motorbike crew 1/2 mile up the road. Radio it through, acccept points and fine , or deny , go to court , be shown HD vid of you with phone at your ear and pay bigger fine and costs.
The amount of people who are so addicted that they pull up to a junction, if there is trafic coming then they suddenly become transfixed with their groin area for 10 secs.
How does the special "hands free" detector work then?
Tin pot local radio 'Wave105' reckoned that the detector could 'see' if the phone was usung bluetooth to link to a microphone.
Its gotta be smoke and mirrors. I am sure the technology exists to do this , but would
a.- cost millions , not £6k as that wouldn't even cover the due dilligence costs
b.- would take more than a few seconds to attempt to interrogate any data packets/voip etc
c.- be flawed on so many levels, passengers , kids in car , active sat nav's etc
d- never be admissable in court as very difficult to prove.
The costs would have been better spent elsewhere and Hampshire Police should be ashamed of themselves
At £6k is it not just a dot matrix sign and a "car" detector? Flashing for random cars will be correct a depressing number of times.
Drove into Peebles last week you'd think all the drivers were asleep given the number that were heads down while driving.
I mean, it’s not like Hampshire police are especially tough on motoring offences in the general run of things, so why should this be true.
Agree, Hampshire Police effectively encourage motorbike speeding and dangerous driving on the A32 by simply doing **** all about patrolling it.
🤷♂️
A £6k smoke and mirrors box of a PCB and a bit of glow stick is a waste of public money, and I for one will be writing to my local Brexit supporting MP to see if she gives a shit or is too busy filling in expense claim forms to reply.
Tinpot local radio reckoned they could tell if your phone was being used for SatNav , or using bluetooth and able to tell if you were texting
Well satnav will use 4g, and calling or SMS would be using GSM so they might be able to tell.
WhatsApp, iMessage and Messenger all use data and not GSM.
I think it’s smoke and mirrors.
Wondered how long bikebouy would take to whinge bout bikers on the A32 🙄
Around here GMP occasionally hire a tractor unit & pull in lots of drivers for illegal phone use.
They use the tractor unit on the motorways,M6,M62 & M60.
They've even been on the evening news after doing one of these operations.
The police aren't plain clothes,they're uniformed but the tractor units are hired so not in Police livery.
I just wish they'd use the same initiative & do something similar on our non motorway routes.
calling or SMS would be using GSM so they might be able to tell.
Most calls in a 4G area will go through as VoLTE, so potentially not detectable. The limited data transfer associated with SMS happens regularly anyway.
I'm with the others: this is the phone equivalent of the bomb detectors sold to the ignorant.
[If (and it's a big "if") you could detect a call in progress, then you could by a process of elimination determine if it's over a Bluetooth connection. But you couldn't be certain, and you definitely couldn't do it from a box at the side of the road that cars pass at 30+mph.
I think you'd have better success with a high resolution infrared camera and a neural network that's been taught to recognise what someone holding a phone in their lap or to their ear looks like.
Or, you know, pay someone to ride a bike with a camera...]
Agree, Hampshire Police effectively encourage motorbike speeding and dangerous driving on the A32 by simply doing **** all about patrolling it.
Agreed. I've reported a large mid-week ride-out who were basically terrorising car drivers and intent on causing accidents. The intellectually challenged shouldn't be permitted to ride such powerful machines. Made sure I got a crime number.
Wondered how long bikebouy would take to whinge bout bikers on the A32 🙄
Simple way to stop me, stop them from using it as a race track 🤷♂️
The article I read (probably BBC?) said they wouldn't be able to distinguish between driver and passenger and were just there as a deterrent like the "slow down" signs. They won't be used to prosecute and I can't think what mechanism they'd use to ever be accurate enough for that.
Bluetooth is low power and limited range, also your in a reasonable faraday cage car body, ok the windscreen will leak RF but not sure how penetrating BT is. As for telling if you have a phone on, possibly if you've got a call in progress or watching/listening to something and hence occupying a timeslot for a lot of cycles but SMS will only be a brief data burst and probably indistinguishable from data exchange/performance tweaking between the cell and the phone.
I doubt very much a 6K box will be able to analyse the transmitted data and tell what type it is. Our 30K JDSU analysers couldn't when looking at GSM 2.5G RF.
Assuming it does work, there’s no way it would be able to tell if it was the driver or a passenger using a phone, so couldn’t be used for fines etc.
I see very few cars with more than one occupant
Seems to me that running a simple plan using PCs or PCSOs on foot to gather evidence of drivers using hand-held phones at random junctions (slow traffic, easier to spot) would be more effective, cheaper and as visible. Radio contact with a police motorcyclist(s) ahead will enforce the law as well. Change the location daily
Can I see your workings please 😉 So far you have 2-4 people, couple of vehicles and time for processing them all, that is going to get up to the fixed cost very quickly!!
We do need more police patrolling and doing this sort of stuff, Victoria police did it with some long lenses and showed the pics to people down the road. But having a "OI STOP IT" sign will have an impact and be running more often than police can be. At no point did they say this was in place of any other policing. For a proportion of the population it will work.
they are using the mobile detectors just to markup hotspots
Bluetooth is low power and limited range, also your in a reasonable faraday cage car body, ok the windscreen will leak RF but not sure how penetrating BT is
Bluetooth is easily recognised outside of the vehicle. That's what they use to work out journey durations on those matrix signs alongside major roads.
Makes sense to me and £6k is a bit of a bargain for hardware, you certainly couldn't buy a camera and recorder for that!
Even if it's just a proof of concept for a phone detector, hook up a future version to a camera and get someone in an office to confirm the phone by eye.
And even if it's inaccurate, if it makes just a handfull of people thing 'shit they're watching me, I wonder if it's logged my phone number and reg' and they spend the next two weeks crapping themselves waiting for the NIP and not in their phone then that's a great result.
Simple way to stop me, stop them from using it as a race track
+1
Can I see your workings please 😉 So far you have 2-4 people, couple of vehicles and time for processing them all, that is going to get up to the fixed cost very quickly!!
No workings, but you knew that 🙂
The staff are already employed, the motorcycles and other kit paid for. Tickets already get issued for offences and are processed; it's only a matter of targeting one of the "Fatal Four" offences using existing resources
The staff are already employed, the motorcycles and other kit paid for.
Ah classic public service project management and accounting principles... If you have people sat doing nothing and vehicles doing nothing then you have a problem with resources and budgeting, if you are taking them off other duties then you are removing resource from other areas. So realistically you are going for overtime which is already stretched.
If I asked you to spend one day a week working for another department would your normal job suffer? If somebody borrowed your desk and computer for 1 day how would that impact productivity?
So a small single investment in fixed technology will probably be much better value and deliver something over a longer period of time. This is about expanding capacity, if it flashes and reminds thousands of drivers which then impacts and changes the behaviour of hundreds then it's done more for less.
...impacts and changes the behaviour of hundreds then it’s done more for less
Will it impact and change? Your workings please 🙂
The apprehension of a prosecution will impact and change far more than an empty reminder, which is why drivers using hand-held mobile phones are such an issue despite increasing penalties from a roadside non-endorsable ticket (£20 originally and nil point) to six points and £200 now; phones are socially acceptable and their use is rarely challenged.
(BTW a Court appearance has a max £1k cars (£2.5k for large vehicles) and disqualification)
EDIT: that £20 fixed penalty would relate to offences used pre-2003 before specific mobile phone laws came in. Specific mobile phone roadside penalty was £30 and nil points in 2003, apologies for misleading, my dodgy memory, etc