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Re: Video speed traps a hoax



In <Pine.SOL.3.91.950802103959.19710F-100000@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu> Konrad Vandegaer <konradv@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu> writes:
>On Tue, 1 Aug 1995, snopes wrote:
>>                               THE HARTFORD COURANT                      
>>                               July 28, 1995 Friday 
>> 
>>             VIDEO SPEED TRAPS A HIGH-TECH HOAX, STATE POLICE SAY 
>> 
>>    Video camera speed traps on I-95 Conn. 
>>    The warning flashed across the Internet, angering on-line users
>> convinced that the state police had installed Big Brother-like cameras
>> on the state's highways. 
>>    The computer message is simply an urban myth -- and an old one at
>> that. It's the high-tech successor to a hoax that has been passed around
>> for a decade or more through more conventional means. 

>A number of years ago my cousins living in Belgium told me the system
>was being used there. Does anyone know if this was also a UL or is it
>being used in Europe and serving as the springboard for the US UL?
>They also reported ULish stories of photos being sent home and wives
>questioning husbands about why they were in a certain town at a certain
>time.

Radar-triggered, operator-monitored still-photo speed cameras are all over
the NZ roads, and the mechanisms to install camouflaged unmonitored units
are being worked on as I post. We got the idea from Oz, where it has been so
successful they've been able to re-equip the RAN with new submarines.
Little yellow-and-red signs warn the motorists that they are entering a
"Speed Camera Area" but these have not yet found their way into our little
town because the local constable is notorious for forgetting to remove the
lens cap when he takes photos.
Offence notices are computer-generated, and by paying a fee you can get a
copy of the snap with the offending speed printed in a little window. Young
men about to sell their clapped-out Cortinas deliberately run camera traps
so that they can produce documentary evidence that the dunger in question is
indeed capable of breaking the speed limit.

Neil "Anybody want to buy an '81 Subaru? Best references" Newman

-- 
    ################Neil#Newman##Coromandel##New#Zealand#################
    #         "How can you lie there and think of England               #
    #          When you don't even know who's in the team?"             #
    #                      - Billy Bragg                                # 
    ##########################neiln@pinn.gen.nz##########################


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