this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2024
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What is this thing?

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Yeah I know these are used for counting vehicles but can they also be used for detecting vehicle speed?

Description: two pneumatic hoses, affixed to a road. They lead to a box that's locked to a telephone pole. Location is southern California. On a minor artery road.

Doubtful that it's to survey if a new stop sign is needed since the next street is minor, dead ends into this one and already has a stop sign. The next intersection with another minor artery already has a stop sign.

Extremely doubtful that a traffic light is being considered since there isn't anywhere near the amount of traffic to justify one.

This is located on a slope. Many cars speed down here. That's why I'm wondering about speed sensing by this device.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Just wanted to add that California in particular has a law requiring cities to study average speed before they change a speed limit. (And then have to pick a speed that 85% of traffic can follow, unless there are extra safety concerns.)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

You can often get out of a speeding ticket thanks to this, as it's pretty common for the traffic studies to be out of date or to have flaws that you can argue about.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Oh yeah, I've heard of that law. 'Sure hope they don't raise the speed limit on this street!