Darn thieves!

[Cory]

My problem, trying to save taxpayers $ by discouraging thieves.

I know what I would do, but working for a State, I have to work with what they give me.

Our guardrails have reflectors. The State is implementing new reflectors going up on their routes. The workers are putting up reflectors mounted on the blocks or posts for the guardrail. Problem is, the reflectors are mounted on aluminum! Ok, someone at the top should've seen this one coming, especially with the economy being the way it is.

The reflectors are installed using 2, 3/8" x 2" lags with a 7/16" head. The thieves will not bother the reflectors on narrow shoulders, or on dangerous curves. But, where a full width shoulder exists, the reflectors disappear. Besides being pretty, the aluminum is probably what is making them disappear.

Changing material from aluminum is out of the question. Remember, this is a State Agency, and come hell or high water, some nitwit at the top wants this to work.

My initial thought is to have the workers dab PL on the heads of the lags after installing. But, a set of vice grips would still back out the lags.

Aside from having the State Troopers sit and wait, any ideas? Besides, they have better things to do, like responding to accidents from people hitting unmarked guardrails!

Thanks

[jamesgangnc]

Anti tamper fasteners maybe

[aemeijers]

Does your state have a scrap dealer law, where they have to check ID and keep a record, like pawnshops do? I'd suggest a press release about the problem, and a flyer mailed to all the scrap dealers in the area. 'Big Brother Is Watching', etc. If you can get a local TV station to do a piece about it, that would be great, too. Most stations are always looking for filler pieces for slow news days.

A coat of pink paint on the bases could help. It did wonders when I ran the tool crib on an apartment construction site. Will they spring for a big die saying 'property of State of XXX- anyone buying this item is subject to arrest for receiving stolen property' ? Whack that into each reflector as it is installed. (or if you have a hydraulic press back at the shop, have the new guy do it assembly-line fashion- it makes a much cleaner image.)

Basically what you need to do is go after where they are disposing of them, since there are only a few of those, and they aren't mobile. If the harvesters can't sell them, they won't steal them, once they catch on.

[krw]

That's an excellent idea. They did exactly this, here, regarding compressors last spring. Evidently there was a rash of compressor thefts, particularly from new builds. The state went around to all the scrap dealers and collected the names they could, then publicized the hell out of the operation.

Yep. Make sure the scrap yards all know what the consequences are for accepting stolen property.

[Oren]

Have your state use reflective tape. Skip the reflectors. Tape rails and be done with it for a few years.

Reflective tape can be bought inter agency in the state, maybe. Made by prisoners?

[Evan]

LOL... Its called Mig-Welding... Make sure the fasteners are of the same material -- in this case aluminum -- and then when the assembly is put together tack everything into place with beads of mig-welding on all the fasteners to prevent them from being removed...

Those guard rail things are meant to stay assembled when they get put together, so if little aluminum add-on posts are being unbolted weld the damn bolts in place after you put them on so no one with a pair of pliers can unbolt them...

Someone who is stealing these sort of things will need a vehicle with a lot of cargo capacity -- so you should suggest that the state troopers review traffic camera footage looking at pick up trucks that enter the highway empty but leave with a lot of stuff in the back...

~~ Evan

[Evan]

That will only work in that one state... A determined and organized thief will continue to steal and simply take them to a less strict scrap yard or will shred the metal first and sell it bulk in containers where it is unrecognizable as something which is stolen and should not be recycled...

Taking the time to weld the fasteners in place to retain the reflectors to the guard rail will require the thieves to carry additional equipment which will demonstrate a clear intent to steal as they would need a grinder or a torch to remove the welded fasteners... This will make finding the thieves easier in the long run as it isn't something which can be done out of a little Honda hatchback...

~~ Evan

[Cory]

Retro reflective tape is what is used on the 4"x8" aluminum. Just putting the tape on the guardrail will not do it. On the end of the guardrail, there is retro reflective tape. Back side of reflector has red, front side either has white or yellow, depending which side of the road they are to be placed. They must be facing traffic for the tape to be effective. These are made in house. The prisoners put the bodies on the new dump trucks, and set up the plow units.

The idea is to delineate the travel lanes, in "hopes" of keeping the traveling motorists on the highway. The lane & edge lines are already painted with highly reflective epoxy.

Personally, I think the state is going overboard to help keep people on the road. Some people should not be driving, period.

[Cory]

LOL... Its called Mig-Welding... Make sure the fasteners are of the same material -- in this case aluminum -- and then when the assembly is put together tack everything into place with beads of mig-welding on all the fasteners to prevent them from being removed...

Those guard rail things are meant to stay assembled when they get put together, so if little aluminum add-on posts are being unbolted weld the damn bolts in place after you put them on so no one with a pair of pliers can unbolt them...

Someone who is stealing these sort of things will need a vehicle with a lot of cargo capacity -- so you should suggest that the state troopers review traffic camera footage looking at pick up trucks that enter the highway empty but leave with a lot of stuff in the back...

~~ Evan =====================================================================================

I must not have explained, the posts & blocks on the back of the guardrails are wood. Still, I understand what you say about welding. Guardrails are bolted together on site, and are made to come apart when repairs need to be done.

We have truck mounted welders, but I'm sure they wouldn't tack weld them. Would have to go through and change all the bolts to aluminum, then welding. Probably have 20K or more of these mounted. I sure it would work, but not cost efficient.

Thanks tho.

[Cory]

Thanks, and this is what they are now looking into.

[aemeijers]

Dunno where OP is from, but outside east/west coasts and major urban areas, traffic cams are rare. Around here, they would get stolen, like the security camera on my regular recycle site was. (said site to be closed 31 Dec to to slobs contaminating it...)

[clare]

Or a Harley

[Evan]

LOL... You think they are rare -- the ones that are shown on TV in the more urban areas are only about 5% of them that exist in such areas...

Thank 9/11 and government grants but traffic cameras are out there pretty much everywhere in the US now to be able to keep a lookout for trouble at many levels of the government...

Traffic cameras and interconnected radio communications systems for first responders have gotten hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding in the past 10 years...

~~ Evan

[Evan]

Ummm yeah... So if you welded the fasteners together so that your unknown vandal/thief could not casually remove them with common hand tools -- your highway maintainers could torch off the welded fasteners when they need to disassemble the guard rails for whatever reason...

"Security" fasteners in the sizes you need would cost an arm and a leg each and then every work truck would need a custom driver to use them, and then there is the issue of such security fasteners only being available from one vendor which would not work with government bidding/purchasing laws due to the dollar amounts involved...

Welding the fasteners would only mean that they would have to be replaced when they are removed which often happens anyway because sometimes the fasteners have to be cut anyway in order to remove badly damaged or bent sections of the rail for replacement...

Welding would make it a decent bit more inconvenient for the vandal/ thief to operate with impunity in their "collection" efforts of the shiny objects they are so obsessed with possessing...

~~ Evan

[aemeijers]

You must not live in flyover country. Out here in upper midwest, there are many stretches where there is not even an overpass or elevated structure for 10-15 miles at a time to mount a camera on, interstate or

2-lane state road or city street. I work for the govt, and have been well trained in spotting potential camera locations. For a highway camera, you need height, power or room for a solar grid, and a nearby phone line for the IP connection. The whole country is not like California or the eastern urban centers. Around here, they are pretty much limited to the concrete rivers where the local interstate passes through town, and the major surface street intersections. Local TV stations may have a few 'live cams' as well, mounted on the local high spots, but about all they can resolve is looking to see how fast headlights are moving, or if brakes are being applied. The cameras are not hard to spot- the little half-ball silver or smoke-color enclosures jump right at you, once you have seen a few.

And for OP- now that I understand situation better, my 'pink paint' idea is sounding better and better. Lay them out upside down in parking lot back at the shop, and paint the backs some dayglo color. Maybe put a tamper-proof foil sticker on back. And in the flyer to the scrap yards, and the demo for local TV stations and papers, show exactly what they look like, and give a number to call for anyone that sees one running loose. Stripping sprayed paint off mill-finish aluminum is a labor-intensive and tedious process.

[gfretwell]

The traffic cameras do not usually have the resolution to identify a person, particularly at night. They are just there to verify that traffic is flowing. The stop light cameras are higher resolution since they are used in court. These are usually set up by a private company that gets 35-40% of the revenue. There will be quite a number of cameras per intersection shooting each light from a couple of angles. We are having a big stink here about these cameras in Naples. The state is now saying they won't use them for "failure to fully stop on right turn on red" violations and the vendor wants to pull out because that is where most of his revenue comes from. It turns out people don't really run enough red lights to pay for the cameras.

[Harry K]

I haven't seen it mentioned and may have missed something here but...

Aluminum is good priced scrap metal. Why not replace it with galvanised iron/steel? Not much money in that and cheaper

Harry K

[Evan]

Because traffic signs (and therefore reflectors also) are made out of aluminum sheet goods cut to whatever size and shape needed for the specific application required and then a reflectorized applique sheet which covers the entire surface is applied...

Galvanized steel would not last the years and years required of a traffic sign... The applique graphics will fade from exposure to the sun long before anything happens to the aluminum sheet which would be recycled and made into other things... A sign panel made of sheet steel would begin to rust even with a coating on it...

~~ Evan

[Evan]

Wow, ok, its clear you have no idea how traffic monitoring works...

At all... Whether or not the traffic is flowing is not determined visually via cameras but with inductive detector loops in the pavement which in addition to being able to provide traffic count information can also be used to provide speed information when used in pairs, as the time between passing the first loop and the second loop can be used to indicate speed...

These are the same sort of loops that detect the presence of a car stopped at a traffic signal to prompt the lights to cycle...

You are driving at such speed on the highway so that you will not usually notice such detector loops unless you are specifically looking out for them...

As far as camera resolutions and whatnot, again, clearly you do not have correct information as to what modern cameras are capable of... The public would have no reason to see the secured hi-res feeds from such cameras which are typically used for law enforcement purposes only...

~~ Evan

[Evan]

Apparently you live in way low tech world aem...

You work for the government in spotting camera locations ? LOL... Apparently not so well trained... Yes you do need height for a camera to be useful... However you do not need an overpass or a bridge to install them on... In fact such installations are VERY vulnerable to vandalism and do not provide the best vantage point for being able to use the cameras as more than a stationary feed... If someone can spray paint the side of the bridge they can easily spray paint the camera dome as well...

Modern highway monitoring systems utilize cameras mounted on towers usually off axis from the driver's line of sight if they are using proper care and caution in driving down the road... The cameras are pan/tilt/zoom capable and can when installed at a strategic location sweep the roadway in both directions... Modern cameras can even have a night vision capability if required, although not all do...

These towers will often times contain weather sensors to allow for real time detection of potentially adverse conditions which would effect the safety of the roadway and prompt sanding or salting operations to be initiated...

Often located near such towers are the inductive detector loops which measure both vehicle speeds and provide a count of the traffic passing over them to allow the highway and transportation departments to have data available to them for determining where money should be spent on periodic maintenance tasks...

As far as being located near a phone line for IP connection, what century are you living in -- due to the MILES involved in distances on a highway these installations are usually all installed on a fiber optic backbone which is owned and maintained by the state department of highways or transportation and buried either beside the roadway or in the median where it connects many transportation data communications functions and runs back to some central location where the computer infrastructure is located without using the PSTN... DSL service for miles and miles and miles along highways for such equipment would cost the state DOT megabucks and would not have the reliability and durability of a dedicated buried fiber optic line located in an area where no one will ever be digging anything without the authorities closely supervising...

The power is the big factor... However, buried lines near the highway can feed such equipment without attracting attention to it like wires strung on poles would...

If you have cell phone service along the highway, it would not be a gigantic stretch of the imagination or technology used to install DOT dedicated fiber and power facilities to install a traffic camera system...

So please, let's not base what little is seen of the low-res public feeds from traffic cameras on the news or even on the internet in some areas as factual knowledge of what the monitoring locations are truly capable of...

~~ Evan