How can you tell a Red Light Camera?

 

Hey! Merry Christmas!
Like a lot of people, I got a new toy! So, I've been doing a lot of research lately and found this site, cool! Of course I had to check out the Red Lights, and found some questionable sites in my town. I've emailed Miss Poi to confirm these locations, but I thought I'd offer some of my wealth of useless knowledge......
Here in North Texas, as I suspect a lot of the country, they are installing new traffic light SENSORS. The old sensors were buried loops in each traffic lane at the light. These loops detected a magnetic field when a vehicle passed over or stopped at the light (motorcycles were iffy). They would cut a big square in the pavement and stuff several loops of wire in there, and then try to waterproof this with a tar sealant. These loops were always failing after time with water getting in. The new SENSORS are cameras, located on the pole with the traffic lights. Using software they can "map" the different traffic lanes, so that one camera can "see" 2, 3 or 4 different traffic lanes. The SENSOR only tells the traffic computer if there is a vehicle waiting for the light. These are not the Red Light cameras that we are interested in.

Red Light cameras are large boxes mounted about 4 to 6 feet high on either side of the intersection with several "windows" in the box. Some windows are flashes, some are cameras, one is for a motion sensor. When the light is red the motion sensor looks for movement in the intersection. In a recent newspaper article the Dallas traffic court can actually play back a movie of the suspect vehicle.
I offer this information so that we all can accurately report these cameras to Miss Poi for our mutual database.

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