little_re@lrc.uucp (02/19/91)
>>VASCAR, eh? I haven't heard of this in years. Didn't know it was still being >>used! Wasn't there a problem with having to make a subjective judgement of >>when the target car and the police car passed the same point? > When the specific car passes the first line, a stopwatch is activated. > When the car passes the second line, that stopwatch is stopped. > Since the cop has your distance travelled and the time it took you > to travel that distance - he has your speed. Very accurate, too. > In that particular feature, the actual "detector" was in the > plane and they had a few officers down the road to pull off the > "offending" cars... > P.S. In some states (or even locations) they VASCAR unit is inside > a car, instead of a plane. Some even have sensors in the > road itself and the computer (I presume) alerts the cops that > a car (or group) is going faster than the limit. I definitely know about how VASCAR works. I was the one that was pulled with it. The "detector" if you will, was inside the Ford LTD and the marks on the road were 2/10 of a mile apart. I know because I asked the cop that pulled me. I asked another highway patolman how it works and he told me that the cop either triggers the unit to start or there is some sort of light beam. I think in my case it was the cop that triggered it. Inside the unit, once it is turned off after the distance is recorded, calculates the speed. Neat idea, just too bad it was used on me! Rich Little Lenoir-Rhyne College Hickory, NC
whitten@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (02/21/91)
>>>VASCAR, eh? I haven't heard of this in years. Didn't know it was still being >>>used! Wasn't there a problem with having to make a subjective judgement of >>>when the target car and the police car passed the same point? >> When the specific car passes the first line, a stopwatch is activated. >> When the car passes the second line, that stopwatch is stopped. >> Since the cop has your distance travelled and the time it took you >> to travel that distance - he has your speed. Very accurate, too. The plane version of this setup, as the television version of motorweek pointed out the other day is quite accurate. Using a 1/2 mile stretch of road, a full 1 second error on starting or stopping the clock from the plane results in something like less than 2 mph error. Atleast as accurate as some highway patrol with a miscalibrated radar, and a bad aim. Regards, Chris ============================================================================== WHITTEN@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU Chris Whittenburg, Univ. of Kansas WHITTEN@UKANVAX.bitnet Electrical Engineering ==============================================================================