Re: CHAT: Speed cameras (was: Word usage in English dialects)

On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 10:12:22AM -0700, Muke Tever wrote:
> Tristan McLeay <conlang@...> wrote:
> >Don't Americans have speed cameras? (Or are they relatively
> >new?) They're everywhere here.
>
> Very rare, IME.  I've seen one or two (usually incorporated with a
> readout on the front telling you how fast you're going, so you know
> it's watching you).
Most American jurisdictions, IME, have rather harsh restrictions around
how exactly speeding can be detected and citations issued, seemingly
designed to prevent the speed laws from ever being enforced.  In
Georgia, for instance, if a patrolman is using a radar gun to measure
the speed of traffic, their car must be clearly marked as a police car, with the
markings reflective or lit up so they're visible at night, and there
must be a clear line of sight to the car from at least 1000 yards away (or
some such number) in the direction from which the measured traffic is flowing.

> More common, at least in this state, are the cameras on most city
> street corners that photograph those who run red lights.
There are fewer legal hoops in the way for red-light-running than for speeding,
but even those cameras have been challenged on legal grounds
(successfully in some cases).

-Marcos