Skip to main content

Butte County gets high tech ''speed trailer''

Inattentive motorists in California’s Butte County will soon be reminded that they are going too fast now that the Sheriff's department has taken delivery of its first self-contained radar speed sign, purchased with a grant from the South Dakota Department of Public Safety. The signs have been proved to be effective in reminding people that they are speeding when they are not paying attention to their rate of travel. Butte County Deputy Brunner explained that the idea of the speed board is to remind drivers
July 2, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
Inattentive motorists in California’s Butte County will soon be reminded that they are going too fast now that the Sheriff's department has taken delivery of its first self-contained radar speed sign, purchased with a grant from the South Dakota Department of Public Safety.

The signs have been proved to be effective in reminding people that they are speeding when they are not paying attention to their rate of travel. Butte County Deputy Brunner explained that the idea of the speed board is to remind drivers of the speed limit. The sign flashes the speed, and if the vehicle is driving too fast, the sign flashes, ‘Slow Down’. He said the sign was attached to a speed trailer that can easily be moved to different locations.

"The trailer will be moved to areas where we have speed issues," Brunner went on, "This is just a friendly reminder and a warning to inattentive motorists, at least at this point. This is not your everyday street sign.”

The innovative speed trailer also comes equipped with an on board computer that keeps track of the average speed of the vehicles and the number of cars it scans. This information gives the officers the information they need to establish traffic patterns, in order to identify the best time of day to be in the vicinity to enforce the speed limit.

Related Content

  • New solutions for catching texting drivers
    October 28, 2016
    Many countries have laws prohibiting texting while driving but enforcement is proving difficult – David Crawford looks at some new approaches being tried by authorities. Finding definitive solutions – technological, regulatory and educational - to the potentially lethal practice of people driving while using mobile phones is proving elusive, while the stakes grow higher.
  • Progress towards a pan-European cooperative infrastructure
    July 17, 2012
    Kallistratos Dionelis, General Secretary of ASECAP, makes the case for a lightly regulated, staged progression towards a pan-European cooperative infrastructure environment, the achievement of which should look to engender cooperation between the public and private sectors. Such an approach, he says, is the only real path to success.
  • ITS & Ethics: yes means yes
    March 4, 2019
    There is an increasing wealth of information available to create personalised transport solutions – and the possibilities are exciting. But, Andrew Bunn warns, ITS companies have a duty to be explicit in explaining what people’s data is going to be used for
  • Self-driving car safety perspectives
    June 2, 2015
    At yesterday’s Opening Plenary, Chris Urmson’s keynote speech dealt with the reality of driverless cars on our roads. By far and away their greatest benefit to mankind will be the potential to achieve an incredible saving of life and injury on the roads, as Urmson, director of the Google Self-Driving Car program, revealed to delegates. In response to an Associated Press article last month disclosing that self-driving cars have been involved in four accidents in the state of California, Urmson revealed th