Normally, a photo speed trap is pointed at the front of your vehicle. As you drive towards the photo trap, your speed is detected, and if above a pre-set speed, the photo camera will flash and take a picture of your license plate. If you have a radar detector, you can detect this photo trap about about 200-300 feet from the speed trap. The Photo Trap that is really hard on drivers, is the photo trap designed to let you pass the camera, then it takes a picture of the rear license plate of your vehicle as you drive past the camera. If you have a radar detector, it is hard to detect this photo trap until you are about 50-100 feet from the speed trap. Gatso Photo Speed Trap installed on the open highway or in the suberbs of a city. If you are driving without a radar detector, you can come up on these traps and not realize your license plate photo has been taken until iot is too late. Truvelo Photo Speed Trap. Redflex has 300 traffic camera systems installed in the US. As of March 2006, Redflex is installed in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Phoenix and Tuscon, Arizona. That is your money that is being paid for photo speed traps. I have seen these photo cameras in Fremont, CA also. Australia, Canada and Europe also use these products.

Photo Speed Traps such as Gatso, MultaNova, Truvelo and Redflex photo speed traps, are designed as an automated speed enforcement system. In short, if you are driving above a certain trip point (your speed), the photo speed trap detects the speed infringement, and triggers a high speed photo camera to take a picture of your license plate. The GPSMirror is a new product which alerts you to these photo radar speed traps and red light cameras

That digital picture image can be stored on hard drive on remote, unmanned speed traps, and picked up weekly by a technician. It can be sent immediately to a laptop, operated by an officer in the vehicle. It can be instantly emailed from a remote speed trap to a local computer processing center. In either case, once a computer operator has the electronic image, they can process it using a variety of computer programs.

Visual observation may be used, or computer character recognition may be used. 99.97% of all photo speed traps today are digital speed traps. In other words, it is an electronic, digital camera, and not a traditional film camera. There are several types of countermeasures that can be used by drivers to protect themselves. Passive protection is in the form of photo sprays and photo plates. Active photo countermeasures is in the form of flash down and flash back photo jammers. This discussion is in another technology article. OK, how does a Photo Speed Trap work?

Photo traps can be designed with a radar gun or a laser gun. It may also incorporate pneumatic trip lines or light sensors across the highway. If radar or laser is incorporated into the Photo Speed Trap, the radar gun or laser gun is pointed across the highway, typically at a shallow angle of 23 - 30 degrees. If the speed detected is above a pre-set speed, the radar or laser gun triggers the photo camera to flash. Depending on the speed of the vehicle, the camera is commanded to flash at a specific point in time to ensure the vehicle license plate is in the center frame.

Radar and laser photo speed traps are the most common used, therefore we will spend the most time on this subject. These traps can be designed one of two ways permitting a vehicle to drive towards a speed trap (see image #1), or to enter the trap and drive away from the speed camera (see image #2). The Photo speed trap shown in image 1 to the right is easiest to detect with a radar detector. As you drive towards the forward operating photo trap, if it uses a radar gun, a good radar detector can detect it from a typical 200-300 feet. An average radar detector will detect this type of trap at 50-100 feet or so. Why radar detectors are different in response is discussed in another radar detector article.

The key here is that a good radar detector can detect this type of forward operating photo speed trap, and it may give you enough time to slow down. In a typical highway encounter, one may be driving 75MPH (110 feet per second), thus one may have 1-2 seconds to slow down, after you recognize the trap, if you recognize the speed trap. If you do not react fast enough, the camera is triggered and your license plate, and possibly your physical image is taken, stored sand sent for processing.

When the image is cross referenced to registration records, a ticket can be mailed to the registration address. Pay the fine! The Photo speed trap shown in image 2 to the right is most difficult to detect with a radar detector. The radar gun is pointed away from your car, and you physically drive past the camera, before you actually enter the trap. Even the best radar detector can only detect this type of photo speed trap a typical 50-100 feet. An average radar detector will not even detect this speed trap.

OK, we have discussed radar photo speed traps. Now let's discuss a laser based, photo speed trap. Radar detectors with laser detection can only detect these types of photo speed traps at perhaps 10 feet, if you detect it at all. There are a number of photo radar manufactures. Gatso, MultaNova, Truvelo are the most well known. A new photo trap manufacturer is Redflex, which has over 300 traffic camera systems installed in the US and reported that recent revenue growths were predicted at 40 per cent.