Noise Cameras

I don’t know why they can’t deal with this at MOT time?

**LINK**

In the case of those motorcyclists/motorists with after-market exhausts, wouldn't they simply temporarily refit the original exhaust for the MOT?

I have two pre WW1 cars that have straight through exhausts and that is how they were originally made?

I'm very wary about anything that the grossly incompetent Grayling touches. His 'projects' are always a disaster and he costs the tax payer ££££millions! HS2 for instance.

An upper limit of noise is quite reasonable, but it's usually a few two wheeler's who are the main culprit (and audio systems on a hot day). I shall still want to hear the rumble of my V8!

Having worked as a police officer in a safety camera partnership I can categorically say without fear of contradiction, this is a Dumb idea!!!

Speed cameras, as they should rightly be called, are installed to collect the maximum revenue not encourage better driving standards. It was always a running joke by members of the public that if a cop was issuing a ticket he was down on his bonus for the month. Complete rubbish but these monstrosities are paid by results, the more they generated the more cameras they got.

Despite some high profile cases where celebrities got off on a technicality, when you're got, you're got. The legislation was geared to cut off defences at the pass, most successes I saw were because motoring was seen as the bottom of the pile for CPS and they frankly couldn't be bothered to press any harder than was minimum.

For noise cameras we will see a whole different ball game; it cannot be simply a photo of a car and an audio clip of it being loud. That's just not evidentialy sound. Questions must be asked around the circumstances, under caution and recorded correctly. How fast was the vehicle travelling, in what gear, at what engine revs, what load was it carrying. Were there any other noise sources in the vicinity, were there any defects on the vehicle which had occurred on that journey.

When Mr. Gatsonides developed his radar speed gun it was for motor racing, not a court of law, which is why many challenges were made in the early days. I cant see how a "simple machine" can be engineered to answer every question around the issue of excessive noise. Even a flesh and blood cop would struggle to accurately recover every bit of evidence at the road side, and I cant see the MoJ pulling in every allegedly loud vehicle for an examination to prove an offence (yes it's their job to prove it, not yours to prove they are wrong).

Just my initial thoughts although I'm sure the ever reliable Mr.Grayling will oversee a fair and just system.....

Flip up number plates, thus obscuring vehicle identity, are only one solenoid away...

According to what I was taught about acoustics, any microphone comparable in size to a speed camera will be omni-directional at all the frequencies emitted by motor vehicles, especially the lower frequencies that convey most of the emitted acoustic energy. So the device could be receiving noise from sources far removed from the angular coverage of the video camera section of the device.

I'm ruling out devices such as 'rifle mikes' as incompatible with the 'box on a pole' on both dimensional and cost & complexity grounds.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

When they say ‘cameras’ do they really mean video cameras with audio recording? Might be OK to trap particular offenders but not a good idea for a ‘blanket’ system.

When they say ‘cameras’ do they really mean video cameras with audio recording? Might be OK to trap particular offenders but not a good idea for a ‘blanket’ system.

Hi, it wouldn't surprise me that with todays technology that the recording of the sound could be annualized to such an extent that that it would prove a particular bike/car ect. made that sound and the camera would be secondary evidence.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 10/06/2019 11:22:54

They are trialing "phone cameras" here in Oz that have two cameras linked. One, overhead on a bridge or gantry etc takes a photo down through the windscreen of a car and detects if a driver is holding a mobile phone. Second camera snaps the front number plate from a roadsides or guardrail mounted unit.

People complain that electric vehicles are dangerous because they are too quiet, so noisy vehicles must be safer

I see more boy racers with a loud big bore exhaust than noisy bikes. Wouldn’t you just roll off the throttle when you see a monitoring station? Just like you check your speed when you see a camera. Getting caught speeding has to be your own fault, the police seem to have their regular spots to site their vans and you should know where the fixed cameras are so speeding on roads you know it would be very unlucky if you get caught. If you don’t know the locality it is safer to keep to the limit. Having surrendered my license twice I finally worked out how to avoid getting caught, my only ticket in the last 35years was driving the Scouts minibus over Tower bridge at an average 31mph, that was the first average speed check I had encountered not on a motorway and set at 20mph, to cap it all the letter explained that due to the environment the cameras were not highly visible, it was also the first time I had come across a 20mph limit but they are everywhere now.

Mike

I can't see it working, either, for the reasons others here have given.

I wonder how the big-bore boy racers would fare if they were involved in an accident, however caused, even if they were the innocent party, because they have "modified" the car. If there is one thing insurers cannot cope with, it is a "modification" even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with safety, vehicle performance or your driving record.

It it's not all-original it doesn't fit the database, and if it doesn't fit the database it can't exist, to the insurance-company filing-clerk. Note I didn't say if the database is on a server or where other humans have a brain...

Nigel,

My local bypass is part of an unofficial road racing circuit, known to the police and left pretty much to it's own devices.

Every weekend teams of cars tear up and down the road, timing their runs between various points.

Every weekend another patch of oil and debris or dent in the Armco indicate where a wannabe Hamilton found his ambition exceeded his ability.

Maybe the police hope they will benefit from natural selection and this breed of mentally challenged human will simply and literally kill itself off. But what if Darwin was right and they instead start to develop a bigger right foot, slightly larger testicles and a tighter sphincter muscle?

So the insurance test must be being put to the test unless they are all driving without insurance.

Seems they spend a lot of time and effort trying to get their engines to pop and backfire as much as possible. When I was young my grandad spent equal amounts of effort trying to stop his old grids from doing so. Strange how times change.

Regards Mick

Before the ignition was part of the steering lock or keyless a decent backfire could be obtained by turning off the ignition and then back on ( of course this is just what I have heard).

Mike

Sounds like another money spinner!

Howard

Accurate to few inches single box camera mike can certainly be made. Probably at reasonable cost too these days. To my certain knowledge several potential technologies were investigated by MoD for other duties during my time at RARDE / DERA / DRA / QinetiQ and potentially practical techniques identified. A couple or three passed more or less my way with enquiries along the lines of "could something like this be built" and go a "yes but it will cost" answer. No doubt that if someone wanted it badly enough it would be made to work. £500 a box at China Inc costs for the innards plus the fleece the taxpayer surcharge.

Far as I'm aware the proposals fell down on tactical doctrine, deployment, and cost benefit issues. Acoustic gunfire location is, of course, an established and readily deployed technology but that is simply bearing and, usually, limited range data.

Whole idea is stupid over-complication anyway. Sound source tracking and analysis along a road is pretty easy.

Clive

When I was a child of about two, my uncle showed me how you turned the ignition off and back on again to create a very satisfying bang. It was perhaps predictable that I thought I would see if I could make it go bang, too. It was perhaps unfortunate that Uncle was doing about 70mph when I tried it. It went bang, all right - blew the bloody exhaust system to bits! And it was his own damned silly fault for teaching me how it was done...

Many super cars produce an acceptable burble at town driving speeds but gun the throttle and the dbs will rocket to an unacceptable level for some. I am sure the Mersey Tunnel has had some exhaust music in the last couple of weeks from those TT bound.

Mike

Edited By Mike Poole on 12/06/2019 12:08:48