Laptops to assist bike cops

[Bob]

The Utah Highway Patrol's 22-strong bike fleet has been outfitted with wireless laptop computers designed to save troopers the trouble of handwriting accident reports and citations.

"This has been a long time coming," UHP Capt. Robert Anderson said of the patrol's technology and training sector “The computers, with on-board printers and which are stowed in a metal case on the bike's rear, have a global positioning device, which will enable other troopers to immediately locate any motorcycle. If an officer gets in trouble on the roads and is not able to get on the radio, we'll know exactly where they are," he added.

Troopers will now be able to check motorists' driver licenses and insurance instantly, rather than having to call dispatchers and they will be able to send citations directly to court. By logging traffic information, the laptops can also build up a real-time traffic map to help navigate traffic around accident scenes and so forth.

[scumdog]

Imagine! Your ticket could be downloaded, printed and posted to your address before you get home! Such convenience!!

[Bob]

Imagine! Your ticket could be downloaded, printed and posted to your address before you get home! Such convenience!!

You wouldn't like the Limehouse Link tunnel in London then.

It has three sets of digital camera - one at each end and one in the middle. For sure all three can do speed "at that moment", possibly it can do "average speed between two points" and there is a vague chance it can do "average speed across all three cameras".

Being digital, it means no film is needed.

It gets worse (depending on your point of view). As the cameras are digital, the images taken are automatically relayed to a control centre's computer, which can tap into the database, extract your details from the licence plate and send out your penalty notice - without any interference required from a human being (possibly they have to put them in envelopes).

I don't think this is 'government spin' either. Everyone goes to the tunnel at 30mph - and holds speed all the way through. Pre-camera, most people used to take that tunnel at 50.