I have always wondered whether speed camaeras would work in the dark but maybe they do. I have just installed a HiLook outdoor camera and in the dark a car's number plate shows up better than any other part of the car.
Speed cameras have lights that flash when they take the photos. The speed detection doesn't rely on how light it is.
The latest infra red cameras that are mounted onpoles in pairs, facing opposute directions dont flash and dont need white marks on the roads. Which is why bikers hate them. One has been chopped down with an angle grinder somewhere down the west country.
They've surely not needed marks on the road for years have they? I've not seen any new marks for speed cameras for a long time and there definitely are more cameras around.
In Cornwall, and more than one. At least three, IIRC.
Dedicated cameras to read number plates use a lens with gold or silver metallic coating so that visible light is blocked (no glare from headlights at night) and have an infrared illuminator.
Some speed cameras still flash but new ones don't. I've seen a couple of flashers, not behind me, this year, the first I've seen for a long time.
Not just bikers, I would imagine.
Around my way there are miles of average speed cameras on one of the main roads
Your smartphone has better spectral response than your eye do.
The smartphone camera can see infrared light, such as an illuminator of IR type.
You would have to sit at a location of such a camera, to see if any illumination is emitted during an infraction or inspection.
Ours here, use a high speed (visible,white) strobe. The camera may use radar for the initial intercept, and the high speed strobe is to capture the vehicle at two points, for speed determination. You would see two strobe flashes, for two pictures.
The collected evidence has to stand up in a court of law, which is why they cannot be lazy about how they determine certain things. The methods used, have to be "obvious to the court", so that cases will not get dismissed and a fine, removed.
the cameras in my city, have earned the city around one hundred million since installation. Around 80,000 tickets issued, at the camera nearest me. It uses a tree for camouflage (the metal pole is behind and to the side of the tree).
Changing the illumination type for the photo, may be an attempt to defeat certain kinds of license plate covers. You can also be ticketed for "obscuring" your plate. One person got done here for that, simply by placing a bicycle rack on the back of the car. And the judge agreed with the officer, that a ticket was justified.
Paul
One argument used by the "authorities" is it isn't about generating revenue but all about road safety and that is why cameras are installed to be easily seen, in the danger spots.
I know where the local mobile speed cameras will be placed in the roads around where I live - on two roads at the bottom of steep hills. :)
I think Ulez camera survival rate is a bit less than 60% at the moment.
There are two places that they place them near here.
The first is at the bottom of a dip, where drivers normally gain speed going down one side and lose it going up the other.
The second is where traffic at a "not-quite roundabout" joins at an angle (almost parallel), into the *right-most* lane of three and must almost immediately get across to the left lane to turn onto the motorway slip-road. Drivers have to wait for a gap in the third-lane traffic, go for it, and then gain enough speed to cross traffic in the other lanes ... which often means exceeding the 30 limit, as you never get a gap in all three lanes at the same time and the short distance means that there is not time to wait.
Surrey CC has taken perfectly good dual carriageways and reduced the speed limit to 50mph. That's where you will find police detector vans. One stretch, which I drove on yesterday has a standard 70mph limit as soon as the road gets into Hampshire. QED
Similar here, you can spend miles on a 60mph single-carriageway behind a slow vehicle, but when you reach a stretch of dual-carriageway they've dropped it from 70mph to 50mph.
That argument has much less credibility in 20 mph zones where some but not all vehicles are denied access, and with signs which (while meeting the statutory minimum requirements) are easily missed. There are now many such with the expansion of LTNs and "bus gates". Some are a nice little earner - e.g.
Standard test for whether a TV remote control is working is to point it at a digital camera (eg in a smartphone). The IR from the LED (IRED?) shows up as pink flashes.
They're often white flashes as the filters in the sensors are typically transparent to near IR.
I believe on Iphones there is a IR blocking filter on the back camera so you cannot see remote control IR LEDs flashing. The selfie camera on the front may not have this filter.
In years gone by it was possible to get a sensor to fit in a hot shoe which responded to a flash going off near by by firing your camera flash. I oftern wondered if this mounted in your car would blind the speed camera
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