Speed monitored by aircraft was done in Wyoming forty years ago, I don't know where or when it was first done with any consistency.

You bet, in 1982. Back then, when you were driving down the roads in Kansas you could see nice little airplane insignias in the middle of the road and I never really gave much thought to them. Of course they were a mile apart and if you did that under 55 seconds and were observed in the air, you my friend were in trouble.

Cruise control is the only thing protecting me from my foot.

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TIME Man of the Year

I did, once, sort of. Many years ago, we were going through the Mojave desert in a van with the air conditioner going full blast, making the interior temperature barely tolerable. There were "Speed limit enforced by radar" signs and at the time the speed limit was 55 mph. We wanted to get home where it was much cooler, the straight freeway and flat desert was absolutely empty but for us, and we were going over 90. We had kept an eye out for police cars . . . only to have a shadow coming over us, soon followed by a CHP helicopter.

No ticket, but we did slow down.

In fairness, it would have been a horrible place to have an accident or a problem with overheating.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Hmm -- only 4% error at 60 mph. Is radar any better?

I have heard and read (local paper had a story about this once), that radar are guns are typically no better than +/- 5 mph (or at least the cops don't trust them to be any more accurate). I don't know the details (is this a fixed error or linear with value), but at 60 mph, that works out to 8%.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

Eh, that's about right. A lot more has to do with operator error than the radar itself. Lasers much more accurate, but less versitile; atmospheric conditions can become more of a problem. also laser can't be used while moving whereas radar can.

Air enforcement is fairly accurate, as long as the lines or whatever landmarks are being used are properly spaced. usually if ur air enforcing, you're going for the speeders that are well over the limit anyway. doesn't matter if you were going 85 or only 78, if the speed limits only 65 or 55 :-P

edit: ha! i can't believe i actually used the "word" 'ur' . Too many online games for me i guess.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

"A long time ago, yet somehow in the future"

Radar guns use Doppler effect, don't they? Doesn't the radar gun being in motion affect that?

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Yes but they are built to correct for it.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

"A long time ago, yet somehow in the future"

Appropriate article in the Washington Post today (registration required but free):

That Eye in the Sky? It Sees You Speeding

As Congestion Worsens, Virginia Police Are Expanding Aerial Enforcement to Help Curb Aggressive Drivers

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Why would you say (or type) "ur" during an online game?

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

My turn off-topic, just because the experience was so memorable. There was a grass fire about a mile from our house, and this bright yellow C-130 firefighting aircraft made several very low, full throttle, very steep (wings perpendicular to ground) passes right over our farm. It was so large, and so low, and so loud, and with it standing on one wing - it just gave us all goosebumps watching it. And I mean close; close enough that your instinct was to get out of the way.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

coz if ur typing teh hole wurd u get tr34t3d like the n00bxors

I would like to apologize for that.

Seriously though, Multiplayer online games have chat windows filled with that junk. The Supergroup I'm in on City of Heroes actually has a group policy against doing it in the SG chat channels.

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A Nerd can figure out how long it will take the original Enterprise traveling at warp 6.5 to travel from Regulus to Antares.
A Geek with think he can use that to pick up a girl in a bar.
A Dork knows he can't pick up the girl with it, but will hang around for hours anyway, just in case she asks.
She might. You never know.

My dad was working in Missouri on a freeway a few years back. One night they set up the concretre batch plant which stood about 90 feet high. The next afternoon two B-1s took evasive action because of it. After that they moved a bit further east.

We've had a few C-130s flying around the house here (AF base next door) and they are wicked loud. They also seem to always look closer than they really are. I'm getting to where I can tell an A-10 by the sound though. There is this high pitched whistle that comes off of them.

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A Nerd can figure out how long it will take the original Enterprise traveling at warp 6.5 to travel from Regulus to Antares.
A Geek with think he can use that to pick up a girl in a bar.
A Dork knows he can't pick up the girl with it, but will hang around for hours anyway, just in case she asks.
She might. You never know.

Because you have to use words like that to let "n00bs" know that you will "p0wn" them with your "l33t 5k1lls". hehe, sorry. Like Tog_, i too could not resist. And no I don't talk like *that* even in online gaming.

But I do tend to use substitutions such as "ur" whenever possible simply because in order to type you tend to have to stop moving. And in most of the games I play online, the more time you're sitting still typing, the higher the chance you will get, a-hem, "p0wned". So by shortening words you save precious seconds of typing time. And to avoid further conversation on this off-topic topic, I type 70-80 words per minute. But when you are gaming, you're hands are not on "home row" so that adds to the delay.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

"A long time ago, yet somehow in the future"

I was driving somewhere in the desert in California many years ago, along a very straight stretch of road, when an F-14 came by from behind us, over flew us by maybe 150 feet, and continued on down the road. He was definitely sub-sonic, but it also did a good job of rattling the windows.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

Did you try to keep up with him?

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I'm just saying, it seems like an awfully expensive way to catch speeders...especially the F-14s.

Of course, they're using our money

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PW -- Plant Whisperer

That depends on perspective I suppose. Take the cost of hiring enough patrolmen to enforce traffic in the same effective area to the same efficiancy and you'll see it start to even out.

With one air unit, they can flag as many speeders as needed with just two ground units. One to flag over offenders the other to issue the citations. Similar to a DUI checkpoint or Vehicle Inspection checkpoint.

With conventional tactics, you can only pull over one offender per unit at a time. For example, if there's 5 speeders you'd need 5(give or take) units to do the same job. at about $17/hr per patrolman, plus a ~$150000 (educated guesstimate) per cruiser (obviously aside from gas and maitnence a one time expense). Not to mention you still have to have all the other officers to respond to calls/emergencies/etc. That's very costly.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

"A long time ago, yet somehow in the future"

They'd only need four if they would just leave me alone. I'm a good driver.

__________________

New! It combines the power of science with the gentleness of your mother's best intentions!
A new miracle technique, we apply homeopathic methods to achieve scientific efficaciousness
for dilutions WAY beyond Avogadro's Limit. It's New! It's Fresh!
It's Placebo^[tm] Brand Power Drink! *[Use as directed. May increase kidney function.]<