Spain turns to helicopters to crack down on speeding

We've already seen speed cameras pop up in a few unusual places, but Spain now looks to be trying to extend their reach even further, with the country set to launch a fleet of helicopters aimed at cracking down on speeding in its major cities. According to theNewspaper.com, the helicopters will be equipped with Wescam MX15 forward-looking infrared cameras that'll take pictures of the target vehicle's license plate, while a separate radar system calculates the speed of the vehicle. Officials say that makes the system accurate from an altitude of 1,000 feet and distance of one kilometer (or 0.6 miles). While there doesn't appear to be a fixed timeline for getting things off the ground, Spain's Direccion General de Trafico hopes to eventually have helicopters deployed in seven cities, including Madrid, Valencia, and Seville, where we're guessing conventional speed camera detectors will soon be of little use.

[Thanks, Richard]

[JasonV @ Aug 17th 2007 12:29PM]

Sounds like a reasonable expenditure to garner a few more dollars from traffic violations.

Oh wait... no it doesn't.

[TK @ Aug 17th 2007 12:30PM]

Well, technically, that helicopter *did* stop John McClane from speeding....

[ph @ Aug 17th 2007 12:30PM]

Thats funny...I live in Spain,and drive well over the speed limit very consistently (175 kph in 120 zone...or 104 mph in a 80 zone) and never had a problem....

[The General @ Aug 17th 2007 1:25PM]

You have 80mph zones? Wow, the US sucks. The fastest speed limit I've ever seen is 70.

I still drive 85mph, but thats because that's the fastest I feel safe driving on such cracked, horrible, bumpy freeways.

[Thomas @ Aug 17th 2007 1:37PM]

Nice. There is no road here in the U.S. with a speed limit over 70mph but I drive about as fast as you.

[Richard @ Aug 17th 2007 1:42PM]

The maximum speed limit in Texas is 80 MPH. Mostly on I-10 in the middle of nowhere.

[Thomas @ Aug 17th 2007 1:45PM]

Where do you live General? Our roads are smooth as silk in Tennessee. Outside of construction zones of course, which seem like they are everywhere. Maybe that's why the roads stay so nice...

Worst highways I've ever been on are in Alabama. As soon as you cross the state line from Georgia the road goes to hell.

[Zach @ Aug 17th 2007 1:48PM]

The United States is one of the few countries with the highest speed limits at 130km/h.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits

[Thomas @ Aug 17th 2007 1:49PM]

@ Richard - I thought congress passed a bill in the 1990s that withheld federal road money from every state that didn't reduce all highways to 70mph or below. I remember Montana had a road in the middle of nowhere that had no speed limit until that bill was passed.

Anybody know more about this than I do?

[Thomas @ Aug 17th 2007 1:57PM]

There is a picture of that 80mph Texas road in that wikipedia article with this caption:

Speed Limit 80 MPH sign on a rural stretch of Interstate highway in western Texas. It is the highest posted speed limit in the U.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Texas_80_mph_speed_limit_unveiling.JPG

It's so weird seeing that that 80 on there.

[bondsbw @ Aug 17th 2007 2:16PM]

@Thomas:

Funny, I've said the same thing, how bad the roads are, but when entering Georgia from Alabama.

Have you ever been to Mississippi, or Texas? Don't get me started on Louisiana... a couple of years ago I was driving on a section of I-10, and the striper must have been drunk... the dashed lines were all over the road, and none of them lined up with each other.

And Tennessee is far from the best.

[Curt Chambers @ Aug 17th 2007 12:34PM]

Those are going to have to be some REALLY big fines to ever have that program pay for itself. I am not sure you could dream up a more expensive way to do speed enforcement.

[Chris Kovach @ Aug 17th 2007 12:40PM]

Why an IR camera for capturing shots of the plates? I don't see there being any temp variance between the bg and the text, soo....huh?

[TK @ Aug 17th 2007 12:46PM]

Maybe text on Spanish license plates are exothermic when you speed? :P

[crapface @ Aug 17th 2007 12:52PM]

Why helicopters?? Wouldn't the fuel, maintenance, and pilot costs (not to mention the costs of the helicopters) be exponentially more than the costs of those remote cameras? What about the over time for monitoring at night and during holidays??

Not that I'm in favor of automatic speed monitoring, or even enforcement of speed limits. If they really wanted people to drive the speed limit, they would use those remote monitoring systems to send people money (tax refunds, etc...) for actually driving the speed limit, as opposed to making people occasionally (or, rarely) pay a fine for speeding. You could make driving the speed limit analogous to playing the lottery. Once a week or something, someone would win some money. I bet it would cost less than enforcement and damages/injuries as a result of speeding accidents.

Alternatively, they could design speed bumps to make it difficult/uncomfortable to drive over 80mph or something.

[Zach @ Aug 17th 2007 1:50PM]

Woah! You're actually on to an idea I love! This could definitely work, and I would personally suggest preparing a one page letter to your senators or state DOT.

Though the speed bumps over 80mph is just a little ridiculous, because there just are times where going over 80mph when no one (north east extension, PA) is around is hardly dangerous.

[Reid Conti @ Aug 17th 2007 2:26PM]

How do you plan to pay for repairs to my car from your craptacular 80mph speed bump idea? If it's not the wheels or the suspension, it'll be every interior bit that rattles itself loose after hitting enough of those bumps.

Speed bumps are the worst idea known to man. Why do they insist on putting enormous curb-height speed bumps in 25 mph zones? You have to crawl over the things at 5mph half the time, which means it's bad for everyone. It is unnecessary wear on my suspension AND brakes, and lowers fuel economy every time I have to slow down and speed up. The people who live on the street no doubt hate the ricers with their loud exhausts who have to floor it to get back up to speed. And then there are the idiotic engineers who make those large speed bumps that are just long enough that they're better the *faster* you go. I know a 25mph neighborhood where the huge speed bumps are best taken at 40+.

Speed bumps are a test of how much you care about your car. I crawl over the speed bumps in my apartment complex whether I'm driving my lowered car, or my roommate's lifted Jeep (which might well be stiffer than my car!) I see people fly over them and just feel bad for their cars, you can see the chassis flex as they hit them at a diagonal, wheels shuddering and moving side-to-side, etc.

In any event, there would be no way to design a speed bump that treats all cars equally at all speeds, even if you didn't care about unnecessary wear on a car.

[Patrick Howell @ Aug 17th 2007 12:56PM]

Virginia has been using aircraft to enforce speeding for years.

http://forums.officer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63660

[Cactus @ Aug 17th 2007 2:51PM]

There's a big difference between what Virginia (and other jurisdictions) do, and this particular one: this is *camera* enforcement.

State Police who use aircraft here calculate how fast you're going using markings on the road, and then dispatch someone on the ground to pull you over... that's LOTS of trouble and expense for every vehicle pulled over, yielding maybe one offender every 5 minutes depending on how many patrol cars are on the ground.

This chopper will automatically measure your speed, take your plate's picture, and you get your ticket in the mail - like all other European speed cameras. It can nab 50 speeders in the same time VA State Police gets just one.

[Curt Chambers @ Aug 17th 2007 3:43PM]

....using piston powered fixed wing aircraft. Choppers, especially turbine powered ones (and I would be shocked if they are using anything but) are considerably more expensive to operate that the typical fixed wing Cessna.

As someone else pointed out they are going to be using cameras rather than Vascar so they can write a lot more tickets but I can't imagine them ever being in the black with this program. It will run a few months and then the fuel and maintenace bills will start coming in and that will be the end of it IMOH.

[daedalus @ Aug 17th 2007 1:36PM]

OMG LOOK OUT!!! STEFAN ERIKSSON HAS A NEW CAR!!!

[Matt Noble @ Aug 17th 2007 2:32PM]

hang on, aren't choppers gas guzallers, a) gonna cost them a boom to run, b) yet more CO2

[Fred Thompson @ Aug 17th 2007 2:38PM]

This seems to much like the fake story a few months ago about using helicopters to find people who are grilling meat and fine them for "thermal pollution". I think you got taken for a ride...

[Thomas @ Aug 17th 2007 2:39PM]

I wasn't saying Tennessee roads are the best. I was just trying to say I feel more than comfortable driving well over the 85mph that The General said he won't go over due to poor road conditions.

I usually come into Alabama on I-59 south and there is a very noticeable fall off in the quality of the road as compared to the Tennessee and Georgia stretches before it.

Just the other day I actually saw some awfully crooked lines like you were describing on I-40 between Knoxville and Nashville. It was the solid white stripe on the far left and it was all over the place. I guess when you're doing a boring job like that a little booze helps the time go by.

[Santz24 @ Aug 17th 2007 2:52PM]

I'm spanish and i must admit, its been quite easy in the past speeding on any road in the country and actually getting away with it. Turns out, theyre really cracking on with the punishing for speeders. Serves them right, you shouldnt speed here, the roads suck.

[Mozer @ Aug 17th 2007 3:42PM]

I repeatedly drive over 120 miles an hour in Germany. And it's not a big deal. Good thing is that you don't fall asleep as easily...

[Lt_Ladle @ Aug 17th 2007 4:04PM]

Now this would only be really effective if offenders were then chased down by said helicopters until they pulled over...

[Andir3.0 @ Aug 17th 2007 6:47PM]

So... anyone want to tell me if a VERY bright infrared source with some scattering effect might be feasible?

[Wwhat @ Aug 17th 2007 8:05PM]

If it was you would draw a LOT of attention to yourself and they'd use their radio to have a car pull you over.

[Andir3.0 @ Aug 17th 2007 10:50PM]

I don't think it's illegal to have an infrared light on your car... but I'm sure the lawyers would have a field day with it in court.

[Wwhat @ Aug 17th 2007 8:04PM]

I don't like cops in the air, it's unfair and uncivilized, and obviously those choppers won't be JUST used for speeding.
I just hope the general public eventually finds a way to take those choppers down (not necessarily violent) that the cops everywhere use more and more.

Incidentally, I hear the choppers in LA are shot at a lot just patrolling, but have protection in the bottom against that.

[Joe @ Aug 18th 2007 3:11PM]

Well, if you get "pulled over" by a helicopter for spending I guess you really were driving waaaaayyyyyy too fast.....

[Chris @ Aug 19th 2007 12:41PM]

I guess this is sorta news. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) have been using planes for YEARS on more remote roads. Specifically I-5, I-15, and I-10. What is news is the use of radar from the helicopter. The CHP use a stopwatch. There are lines painted about every 1/10th mile, the time you, they use good 'ol fashioned binoculars to get your plate, you get a ticket in the mail. Ask my buddy who got one for 110mpg going to vegas in his old vette.