A police unit using an assortment of drones, RC helicopters and RC speed cars, would control traffic, and instead of catching momentary offenders of the dry law, would concentrate on the exceptional drivers who jump from lane to lane, and are clearly endangering traffic. Rather than catching a one time offender on a single stretch of road, they could follow this car to its destination, then continue follow the driver's behavior over time, and remove them from the road.
They would quickly be able to reach an area where there are "car races" in the city, and respond to citizens calls. On critical roads, the police could place extra phone "cell" locators - that are not actual phone cells but only receivers to give good proximity, and then respond even more accurately and speedily.
I have a deja vu feeling that I already posted this type of idea. Did I? Am I getting senile, or is there some new name to the effect on people who are on the web too much?-- pashute, May 06 2010 By RC I assume you mean remotely controlled. I am all for getting dangerous drivers off the roads. However, we already have enough police vehicles involved in accidents without taking the driver out of the vehicle and further reducing their risk perception.
The problem is not so much with pursuit as with initial detection of the event. We all see idiots every day and most of them go undetected by the police.
How would this system detect the moron on his phone, drifting aimlessly from lane to lane?-- Twizz, May 06 2010 The drones (or helium kites) are low cost high altitude aircraft with a quality camera. RC is remote control. Running these drones costs a fraction of the fuel cost for manual cars, and one drone can do the work of 3 cars.
The unit consists of: A. people who watch the input from the drone and B. Software that analyzes the images and notifies exceptions in driving patterns. So if everyone is moving 30 km above the speed limit, it is not important (unless there's some danger, in which case it could compute the location at which to begin warning drivers of a temporarily new speed limit which is MANDATORY). C. A team of motorized (motorbike) police-people who can easily reach the location when necessary (which, most of the time, should NOT be).
The system automatically can tell what is unusual behavior but the police unit watching the road could decide manually too.
The unit also has fast lightweight RC aircraft (helicopters, planes) or tractors which can reach any location much faster and safer (including safer to traffic) than the manual police cars. These aircraft can drive low and warn the crazy drivers, quickly reach the location and possibly even set up a makeshift system for directing traffic when needed.
As explained in the idea itself, a tiny low cost plane which uses a fraction of the fuel that a police car uses, and can see for large distances by flying high, could follow and give details of the full travel of this type of car.
The police wouldn't be "handing out" traffic tickets, but rather catching real offenders, and calming the traffic.
If the tickets are an important income for the public, lower the punishment where it is not really important (speed) and elevate them where they ARE (distance during speed, which could easily be calculated). The team would easily pay itself back even after giving out an initial warning. Basically roads would become calmer, and people would try harder to comply.
With this system in position, MINIMUM speed limits could be set to major roads and to lanes, and easily enforced. Also slow trucks could be enforced to stop free traffic every certain distance according to their speed.
Inside cities, the stop at crossing lines for pedestrians could be enforced, as well as catching the young guys racing each other at night inside suburban roads.-- pashute, May 06 2010 I suspect you may be under an idealistic illusion when it comes to the working of police forces.
Police forces in the UK are heavily monitored and asessed on some crude meters which make crime prevention unattarctive (Your area has zero crime, therefore your police need zero funding)
As with many otherwise good ideas, the addition of politics rapidly turns it sour.-- Twizz, May 07 2010 UK and IL are similar in this aspect (we had 20 years of strong influence). Still, I propose leaving a system that will still hassle the public, as it does today, so that you have the bureaucrats satisfied and the system economically running, but at least it will be doing the thing its supposed to do - catching real offenders, calming down traffic, and preventing killing and injuries.-- pashute, May 12 2010 random, halfbakery