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Re: Video speed traps a hoax



konradv@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu wrote on 02.08.95 in <Pine.SOL.3.91.950802103959.19710F-100000@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu>:

> 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.
>
> Konrad "but Belgium's small, you can get anywhere in 15 min." Vandegaer

Well, lots of different systems are used in Europe. In fact, I fail to  
understand what's so exciting about that story.

Anyway, as to using such a system for red light crossing delicts, for some  
time I spent one evening a week in a pub at a crossing where such an  
instrument was installed. At times, you could have believed there was a  
thunderstorm outside, only no rain and no thunder but lots of blue  
flashes.

Installations with cameras are also, I believe, used for speeding control  
- I seem to remember that another instrument detects the speeding, and the  
camera is for proof (and identity).

The things are commonly called "Starenkästen" (starling boxes?, a device  
commonly used to feed and/or house birds in winter, which looks similar).

In fact, there are lots of stories (and no doubt some ULs) in Germany  
about interesting pictures taken that way, and what the authorities did  
about it. The last I heard was about someone speeding to get to his  
daughter's(?) marriage. He had the picture framed and mounted on the wall.

Ah yes, and there have even been "fake" boxes hung to stop people from  
speeding.

Kai
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