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Speed Decoy

 
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Park a very conspicuous unmanned police cruiser (high profile roof lights, white paint job, etc) near dangerous intersections or curves with an automated radar detector. Whenever a vehicle drives by going above a preset speed, the roof lights automatically flash to scare the piss out of the driver and slow them down before they enter the dangerous section of road. Occasionally, a live policeman can sit in the vehicle and actually pull someone over to throw off the folks who might otherwise get wise to the ruse.
21 Quest, Jul 24 2013

baked https://www.google....79&bih=537#imgdii=_
[Klaatu, Jul 25 2013]

Accidentally Deleted http://www.timeslea...nr=306209735&Ref=AR
sorry [21 Quest, Jul 27 2013]

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       I like the idea but you'd end up causing accidents.
Custardguts, Jul 24 2013
  

       How so?
21 Quest, Jul 25 2013
  

       Either drivers brake hard on seeing the car and lights, causing them to lose control or have someone run into them; or rubberneckers slow right down in the hope of seeing something interesting and similarly get run in to.
8th of 7, Jul 25 2013
  

       Yes to the links. We had a local town that parked a cop car with a cardboard cop in it. Everyone called him (it) Captain Cardboard. It worked for strangers, but not townies.
xandram, Jul 25 2013
  

       [-] flashing lights = distraction to everybody on the road, not only the speeder. Occasionally I see portable radar detectors on a trailer with a billboard that shows the speed of whatever the radar's target is. Effective.
FlyingToaster, Jul 25 2013
  

       Those billboards are often effective only if their target viewers have some reason to believe they are backed up by some means of enforcement. We have one on the road leading into the Spokane International Airport, and I see people blowing by it in excess of 15 mph above the speed limit every day. When there's an unmanned police cruiser parked behind it, it is much more effective. Every so often, I see someone getting pulled over by a manned police cruiser.
21 Quest, Jul 25 2013
  

       // portable radar detectors on a trailer //
  

       Those things are invaluable for calibrating radar detectors. Also, they have some really nice parts in them; and they leave them by the side of the road, where anyone with an angle grinder can help themselves. What generosity …
8th of 7, Jul 25 2013
  

       How about a powerful radar tuned to just below the resonant frequency of water? Then doppler shift ought to take out speeders.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 25 2013
  

       Inverse-square law; and the fact that drivers are at least partially screened by the metal shell of the vehicle.
  

       Ironically, since the speeders approach and pass the source faster, their time of exposure- and therefore dose- is less.
  

       To raise the temperature of an 80kg human by 1 degree requires roughly 300kJ. To deliver that amount of energy at anything more than a very short distance from the waveguide requires megawatts of continuous-wave power from the magnetron(s).
8th of 7, Jul 26 2013
  

       How about arrays of retractable stinger spikes mounted in the road surface? As each car approaches, a strip of spikes emerges about one cars length ahead of the vehicle and (through adjacent strips emerging and retracting) the row of spikes proceeds forward at the speed limit. To assist the driver, a roadside flag or arrow could indicate the location of the currently active set of spikes.
pocmloc, Jul 27 2013
  

       The lawyers will be right behind this one ... first time one malfunctions or jams, and shreds the tyres of an innocent non-speeding driver, they'll sue your sorry ass to Hell ...
8th of 7, Jul 29 2013
  
      
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