Speed Camera Detectors
In the country over the past few years, the government and police bodies have increasingly relied on automated units to do the bulk of the police speed and traffic violation detection. These units amount to camera systems mounted in prominent areas that record drivers that, for whatever reasons, have broken the law within the range of offences that the units cover. This, frees officers from mundane duties to those more worthy and necessary in the public eye, like going after hard core offenders and those most likely to inflict bodily harm on the general public. Even knowing this, a majority of the public still sees the use of speed cameras and the like as something that’s invasive on how we live our lives, and not as a safety measure used to protect us all. This is where speed camera detectors come in.
In a nutshell, these commercially available units allow the user to detect from in front or in back (some both, some not) the placement of a camera unit that uses either radar or laser to guide it in its deployment of the photographic abilities the unit has. This enables the driver to then tailor his driving to be excluded from the range that would trigger use of the camera unit in its crime fighting configuration.
So, are speed camera detectors legal? As of right now, yes, they are fully legal, however, like any company the government is not standing still on this, and is in the process of developing new capabilities that will both circumvent the speed camera detectors themselves (in some cases the government is asking for the removal of the detection capabilities from the speed camera detectors) and in some areas make them completely redundant as new technology and new ways of using older tech comes into place.
From the governments stand point, all the energy and time spent looking for cameras and camera ‘traps’ is only to the good, as it continues to make people aware of the pitfalls and areas to be wary of when driving which, when all is said and done, is exactly the reason that these units have been installed in the first place. The primary reason behind all of the technology being employed is simply to save lives, not to make anyone’s life more difficult on purpose.
Will speed camera detectors remain with us? There is no doubt that as soon as the government employs some new tech to work in these areas that someone, somewhere, will bring together a counter technology to detect or deter anything brought in by the government, and that these new technologies will fall within, just barely, staying legal. So look to the future, and frankly, if you’re not breaking the law then you should have no problem.
