cables on the road

Seriously, lay it to rest now. They can't and never will be used to measure speed. And, even if they were, how would they know what car had driven over them??

They are purely to count traffic, nothing more, nothing less.
 
MrLOL said:
as above, they are used for measuring congestion

eveytime you drive over them it records a break in the pressure.

Helps to give road planners an idea of traffic flow as it logs the date and time of the car passing as well. you'll usually see the little grey box they're connected to that stores the data.
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this^^
Plus data picked up can be used to measure the decay of the road and plan future repairs and diversions.
 
Lucero said:
Seriously, lay it to rest now. They can't and never will be used to measure speed. And, even if they were, how would they know what car had driven over them??

They are purely to count traffic, nothing more, nothing less.
Click to expand...

in the old days70`s n 80`s they were how the cops court you speeding
but thats not what there used for anymore.
there not for catching you, there for seeing how many cars are speeding on that stretch of road to see if its worth putting a speed cam there, if it is you will end up seeing a cam there
 
Lucero said:
Seriously, lay it to rest now. They can't and never will be used to measure speed. And, even if they were, how would they know what car had driven over them??

They are purely to count traffic, nothing more, nothing less.
Click to expand...

ATC counters can measure classified traffic volume (numbers of vehicles by size) and actual speed (although not 100% accurate).


iaind said:
I still dont believe they have anything to do with speed.

A good friend of mine is a civil engineer for a council and I asked him about this a while ago, he said they were always used for measuring quantity of traffic for planning roadworks etc. The 2 cables are there to measure direction of traffic when they span both sides of the road.

I may be wrong but there's no way these will be anything approaching accurate for measuring speed and I'm 99% sure speed camera locations are chosen based on accident rates. If they wanted to measure speed, why wouldnt they just use a radar device?
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They don’t always use a radar device for speed measurements as they have certain health and safety restrictions, which includes wearing appropriate hi-visibility yellow jackets.

Drivers see this and slow down assuming it is the police which usually results in lower recorded speeds on the day. Depending on the road, you can remain out of site with a radar speed gun but this is not always the case.
 
I think people are getting mixed up

There are speed camera systems based upon wires in the road

However they look like this

http://www.ukspeedcameras.co.uk/guide.htm#DS2

ds2a.gif


the wires are actually built into the tarmac, and look completely different to the traffic counters

tube-atc.gif
 
Building them into the tarmac gets around the fatal flaw of the cables - accuracy :)

I dont think I've ever seen speed traps with inductive loops, although you will often see the loops near junctions and roundabouts as they're also used for the traffic light control systems
 
The main thing I think that people don't seem to be getting the jist of, is that the pnuematic cables layed over the road for traffic counting AND for the measurement of speed, are not and can never be, a legal way of measuring speed for the intention of prosecution.
As has been said many times the accuracy of them is not enough to be legally binding.

So stop getting your knickers (not aimed at anyone in particular just a general observation ;)) in a twist they can, and are very often, used for the measurement of traffic volume and general levels of speed, for traffic counting surveys, but can in no way be used as a speed trap where by you may be caught.


The cables layed into the road (as shown by MrLOL) and the small piezo cables (I was wrong earlier when I said inductive loop, they are not) used by Truvelo forward facing cameras to measure speed, are the only ones regulated by the UK Government for the capture of speed information for the intention of prosecutioon, as they do have the necessary levels of accuracy.
 
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ShakenNstirred said:
in the old days70`s n 80`s they were how the cops court you speeding
but thats not what there used for anymore.
there not for catching you, there for seeing how many cars are speeding on that stretch of road to see if its worth putting a speed cam there, if it is you will end up seeing a cam there
Click to expand...

Was that a story you just made up? Or did you see it on The Professionals? Either way, someone who can't use "their", "they're" or "there" without help doesn't deserve to be believed :P
 
I'm with Entai about this.

My old man spent 40 years in Highway maintenance and put plenty of these down. They can be used to count and get speed ratings (if there are two wires).

Personally, I like to go out in the middle of the night with a hammer and belt the wires as fast as I can :D
 
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