Mooning the traffic cam

A front seat car passenger was photographed baring his backside at a speed camera in Northumberland.

BBC Story
I came across this news story and found it quite funny, but it raised a serious question to me. Who is looking at these pictures? The story says

Officers have the registration of the car, which was not breaking the speed limit, and intend to contact its owner.

So why did anybody see this picture? The camera takes pictures of speeders. He wasn't speeding. It tells me that a facial recognition program didn't recognize the butt.

Cameras scare me!!!

So once the technology is in place, I would think that they could apply as many programs like link analysis tools. This is proof that we are investigated further than we know.

Originally posted by smarteye

So why did anybody see this picture? The camera takes pictures of speeders. He wasn't speeding. It tells me that a facial recognition program didn't recognize the butt.

Cameras scare me!!!

Hmmm, well for starters, it might be a little bit dangerous for a person to manage a moon while driving a car. Do you think he might have been a danger to other people on the road while doing this? Managing to pull your pants down while driving sounds pretty tricky to me. I mean it's not like he was just flipping the bird!

Also, could there be a law against that sort of public nudity?

Originally posted by Enthralled Fan
Hmmm, well for starters, it might be a little bit dangerous for a person to manage a moon while driving a car.

It was a passenger in the car, not the driver. Obviously not just snapping speeders. Bet the guy was surprised.

reply to post by roadgravel


Still, even if it was the passenger in the front seat, that is pretty distracting for the driver.

I do understand what you mean though, about why this turned up if the camera is there to catch speeders.

It makes me wonder if they catch a picture of everyone going by that way.

I bet they have countless pictures of people picking their noses and other odd things.

Yhea I saw this one and laughed as well.

Back when I was 18 - 19 me and my buddy would sent off a particular speed camera quite regularly! - I know naughty naughty, we'd jump on my motorcycle (350cc so it had a bit of poke) and blast up the hill so the picture would of been the front with both of use giving it the middle finger! - of course there is no number plate on the front.. To make it worse a couple of times we had to use the bus lane cos the traffic was too heavy.

Needless to say I don't recommend this sort of thing - I'm 10 years wiser now... But half of me wishes I had those pics to show people, of course that would of ment they had caught up with me! - Oh the Irony

They are also cctv that are controlled 24/7, they can take manual pictures if they see something that they would deem dangerous.
Going off topic a little.

A little story that happened in Australia with a mobile speed camera a guy driving a car at 60km per hour was flash by a speed camera as he went pass it. He looked at his speedo and the speed limit which he wasn't going over and proceeded to go around the block at a slower speed. Same thing happened again at 50km flashed again so again he went around again at 40km and again he was flashed so he pulled got out of his car and spoke to the police officer sitting in the van about why he was flashed 3 times by the camera.

Response from the officer on a screen in front of him he saw that the driver was driving without his seatbelt so he manually took a picture each time he went around.

Driver lost his license in a matter of 10 mins of driving.

That's amazing too, how clear and crisp the photo is...I was expecting the usual grainy surveillance footage...I think that's very telling indeed, I never gave those cameras a thought, we are just now getting a few here in Cincinnati...

They say they are to catch people going through "red lights" but I think it's obviously some other reason...if as the OP points out, how would they have even noticed this guy mooning? Ack, now I am creeped out

He should have been wearing his seatbelt at the time of the photo. This would have made for a better photo and could have saved the driver from a ticket.

Originally posted by cnm1976
Driver lost his license in a matter of 10 mins of driving.

You can lose you license for driving without a seatbelt? Even if it was 3 violations, that seems kind of harsh to me.

Originally posted by Enthralled Fan
reply to post by roadgravel

 

I bet they have countless pictures of people picking their noses and other odd things.

The pictures are digital. There must be millions taken daily on all the cameras. there aren't people looking at every picture. Now if they wanted to, they could apply a filter that looked for nose pickers. Then plug in the number of times they catch you picking your nose into an algorithm, information seemingly worthless until the algorithm predicts your likely a danger to society.

It's clear that a computer said "who is this guy?", who isn't breaking the law which the camera is there to enforce.

[edit on

reply to post by Enthralled Fan


I think what was being implied was that; this is a photo of a mans butt and not his face. But (pun intended) it was facial recognition software. This implies a manual review of the footage i.e an actual person reviewing the cameras picture capture. Thus, the concern that was being voiced imho was that this is infringing on our privacy.

reply to post by nyarlathotep


Yeah we only get 12 points on our license. 4 points everytime he went past the camera and the fine is around $400 - $700 depending on what state you are driving in at the time.

Originally posted by cnm1976
reply to post by nyarlathotep

 

Yeah we only get 12 points on our license. 4 points everytime he went past the camera and the fine is around $400 - $700 depending on what state you are driving in at the time.

Actually, in America he could have only received 1 ticket. There is a legal term for it, which escapes my mind at the moment, but he never stopped the first infraction, the other two were just continuations of the same infraction. Restated, it wasn't 3 "crimes", it was one long "crime".