The Lowdown on Lidar

Re:The Lowdown on Lidar by legohead on Thursday July 31, 2014 @12:49PM (#8115216)

If you've traveled around the country, you've invariably come across those "speed is monitored by aircraft" signs, and what you described is how they do it (tracking how long it takes cars to go from point A to B)

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Re:The Lowdown on Lidar by cardiffspaceman on Saturday August 02, 2014 @02:08AM (#8124139)

In California the CHP (California Hwy Patrol) plane has to do the same thing the CHP car would have to do: match your speed and then note its own speed. Measuring time between points is forbidden no matter what the observer's vehicle is. Radar is also used from the ground but was not available to CHP when they started using aircraft. The planes are on the inexpensive side so sometimes they have to dive to achieve the speed. Also recently CHP got to use radar statewide so they don't use aircraft so much.

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Re:The Lowdown on Lidar by onan_barbarian on Thursday July 31, 2014 @11:40PM (#8118274)

I've always been a bit nervous about those "speed is enforced by aircraft" signs (as opposed to "monitored"). I always get a mental picture of a aircraft strafing near my car until I slow down...

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Re:The Lowdown on Lidar by dTal on Friday August 01, 2014 @03:29PM (#8122324)

You may enjoy this image from XKCD then:

http://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/87/radar_aircraft.png

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