Skip to main content

ATS aids US police to investigate crashes, crimes and more

Red light, speed and school bus safety cameras are typically used to catch dangerous drivers, but US law enforcement agencies also use the video and still images to investigate an average of 300 criminal and crash incidents a month. American Traffic Solutions (ATS) has responded to more than 20,000 requests for video from 1 January 2011 to 31 May 2016 from police forces in the US, which, when permitted by law, utilised the video and still images to analyse crashes, catch criminals and identify drivers in
September 22, 2016 Read time: 1 min
Red light, speed and school bus safety cameras are typically used to catch dangerous drivers, but US law enforcement agencies also use the video and still images to investigate an average of 300 criminal and crash incidents a month.

17 American Traffic Solutions (ATS) has responded to more than 20,000 requests for video from 1 January 2011 to 31 May 2016 from police forces in the US, which, when permitted by law, utilised the video and still images to analyse crashes, catch criminals and identify drivers in hit-and-run collisions.

Among the requests for videos, ATS found 44 per cent of the requests aided the investigation of a crash; 32 per cent assisted with a police investigation; nine per cent were used in a robbery investigation; seven per cent assisted with a hit-and-run investigation; another six per cent were used to investigate a homicide, and two per cent were used to investigate shootings.

Related Content

  • January 23, 2012
    Speed reduction measures - carrot or stick?
    In Sweden, marketing company DDB Stockholm employed a mock speed camera as part of a promotional campaign for automotive manufacturer Volkswagen. The result was worldwide online interest and promotion of the debate over excessive speed to the national level. A developing trend in traffic management policy is to look at how to induce road users to modify their behaviour by incentivising change rather than forcing it through the application of penalties. There have been several studies conducted into this; an
  • September 2, 2015
    Speed cameras yield long-term safety benefits, IIHS study shows
    A speed-camera program in a large community near Washington, DC, has led to long-term changes in driver behaviour and substantial reductions in deaths and injuries, a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) shows. Automated speed enforcement is gradually becoming more common around the country but remains relatively rare, with only 138 jurisdictions operating such programs as of last month. According to IIHS, if all US communities had speed-camera programs like the one IIHS studied in
  • March 28, 2018
    US DOTs introduce measures to stop wrong-way driving
    Wrong-way driving (WWD) is a remarkably innocuous term for incidents that all too often cause some of the worst accidents that emergency services have to deal with. Several US states are now taking steps to minimise the problem, as Alan Dron finds out. You’re driving down a highway at night when you see approaching headlights. You initially assume they are merely those of an oncoming car on the opposite carriageway. It’s only when they are within 200 yards or so that you realise that the other driver is in
  • July 24, 2012
    Driving forward cooperative intersection safety applications
    Gregory Davis, FHWA, John Harding, NHTSA, and Mike Schagrin, ITS Joint Program Office (RITA) chart the course for cooperative intersection safety applications being pursued as part of the IntelliDrive programme. Crashes at intersections accounted for 8,703 highway fatalities in the US in 2008. Research and development is moving forward on IntelliDriveSM safety applications designed to help drivers avoid intersection accidents. These new safety systems could substantially drive down the highway death and inj