Do Speed cameras monitor vehicles from opposite side?

Speed cameras are basically radar units with a camera attached. Radar picks up on objects approaching the radar unit. That’s why on police vehicles you may see a radar unit facing forward and one facing backwards. Years ago, the radar unit had to be stationary but now they have moving radar which compensates for the patrol vehicle speed, makes computations, and gives you the speed of the vehicle coming towards you.

anybody tried what Dave Letterman did, that time he and Paul went on a road trip in an 80's Caddy Eldorado...he put a giant barcode on the pass door so when the cop hit him with radar, it came back, "Lettuce, $1.39?"

What is interesting is say cars are bumper to bumper as is typical in DC and 3 lanes across. They say the cams get the correct vehicle...

In my county the speed cameras faced in the direction of traffic, and monitored the speed of cars driving away from the camera. They recorded video of the rear of the car.

Some camera locations had cameras on opposite sides of the street, and these were independent.

All speed cameras in my county were removed several years ago.

dobs108

They have been around for many years in Europe but I don’t know about the states.

https://www.itsinternational.com/its2/feature/looking-both-w...

Here in PA currently only the state police are allowed to use RADAR and they are required to be visible and stationary.

Our legislative sessions run two years and the current one just started January 2021. There have been, for as long as I can remember (maybe 20 years), bills introduced to allow local police to use RADAR and none made it through the entire process yet, normally passes the Senate but not the House.

This might be the year it finally gets through though, a bill in the House has passed two (of the three needed to pass and move to the Senate for the same, 3 votes) votes so far, and in the past it was only the Senate that passed it, so it seems they are in favor of it. We shall see. For anyone interested the bill is House Bill 606.

I read in a recent article that the PA state police would go along with allowing locals to use RADAR if the state police could finally be allowed to use moving RADAR. So far it's seems to be moving in that direction.

As for the speed cameras, in Pennsylvania, as mentioned RADAR gets you as you approach, then the camera takes the photo of the rear of your vehicle. In PA we only have a license plate on the rear and PA law states they are not allowed to photograph the the front.

The speed cameras I posted above used RADAR to detect the speed.

While the speed cameras have been removed, every existing red light camera in the county uses RADAR to detect speed. This is one factor considered to mark a time stamp for a human to review the video. The reason is, if the speed is high, it is more likely to lead to a red light violation. However, the speed itself does not result in a violation of the speed limit.

This is for Nassau County, New York.

dobs108

Thank you for that information, I didn't know the Red Light camera's used radar in their cameras.
Just wondering if that is the case with ALL Nassau County Red Light cameras or specific locations prone to high accident rates.

All Nassau county red light cameras use radar. They are from ATS.

Thank you for your prompt reply and answering my question.

I could not understand why a Google search today failed to provide any hits for ATS, American Traffic Solutions. In 2018, they changed their name due to a merger or acquisition, to Verra Mobility:

https://www.verramobility.com/enforcement/

@dobs108
After reading your first post regarding Radar Red Light cameras I did a search on ATS.
I found an article that mentioned them with a date of 2021.
They need to fact check their sources since ATF merged with Verra in 2018. The site mostly concentrates on Radar detectors, I have never used one or plan to do so.

https://radartest.com/red-light-camera-tech.asp

I don't think a radar detector would work reliably with the camera arrangement in my area which is used by ATS and Verra. Like I posted above, the camera and the radar both look in the direction of traffic, which is the opposite of what police do with a portable radar gun. This means when you are approaching the monitored area, the radar signal is weak. After you pass the camera, the radar is strong.

rookie 8155, to answer your question, the directional nature of radar makes it unlikely that a single camera on one side of the road could monitor both directions of travel.

Thanks for the explanation. Thanks all.