PERSONAL SETUP
My DIY radar speed camera: Mullet Edition—Business in the front, party in the back.
I've found a nice way to hide my radar speed camera on the street so I can start testing it. From the front, it just looks like every other slow down sign. In the back, is where the party is at.
I cut a small hole in the sign for the camera and attached it all (radar, camera, wifi, and solar panel) to the back. Of course the solar panel looks way out of place. Without it no one would ever see the radar unit, so I think I will power it with a long cable instead. Right now I'm using a second sign to hide it from the rear.
Performance wise, it's working far better than I expected. The radar has a range of about 130ft-180ft (about 40-55 meters).
Attached are 2 photos it took automatically. One is of a white SUV driving from left to right which is about 180ft away.
The second is a white sedan driving towards the camera, this car registered 14 MPH when the photo was taken.
I still need to figure out the best speed and timing for the photos to get the car much closer to the camera. A video would be nice but I think images will be easier to manage.
Of course this thing is nowhere near ready and still needs quite a bit more work. I'll open source everything in a few weeks once I fix some glaring problems. I'm also combining all the dev boards into one board, so it'll be about 3 times smaller than what you see in the photos.
People in our neighborhood thought cars were speeding so they complained, the city spent thousands a radar speed sign. The city analyzed the data and the sign was having the reverse effect. Most people realized they had been used to going 20 when the speed limit was 25 so they sped up or tried to set a daily record. The dipshits that complained realized they had zero skill in speed estimation. The court stopped maintaining the sign. Net effect: thousands wasted and traffic is going faster.
Until you can directly tie the data to speed related accidents in the view of the camera, all you have is data and a creepy way to record the neighbor kids.
That sounds about right. I've had neighbors yell at me while I'm driving, telling me to slow down as it's only 25 in a neighborhood. I was never driving over 20.
People are generally far less competent than they think.
The town I grew up in had a city councilor who constantly moaned about how much people sped down his street. But just like your case here, they weren’t speeding - they were doing the speed limit - or even slightly less than the speed limit.
He tried getting the city to reduce the speed limit on his street to 15mph, but they wouldn’t pass it, so he had two speed bumps installed as you approached his house from either way. Lots of people made it their mission to not slow down on those speed bumps lol
Sounds about right.... A lot of those signs just blank out now if you go really fast, specifically because people were trying to see how high they could make it register.
One of the cities near me had one that just did a happy or sad face if you were under or over the limit. Apparently that worked better lmao, people felt bad getting a sad face!
Reminds me of how "honor boxes" for coffee saw basically nobody paying when it was a sign with words on it asking people to pay their share, but a picture of a pair of eyes got like five or six times the baseline in contributions.
We are social monkeys that don't like misbehaving when we feel like someone can judge us for it
The best one I’ve seen just had a static sign under the speed sign saying “only you can prevent speed bumps”. There’s one near me that throws up a “thank you” when you’re under the limit which is pretty good, but I do worry about this all becoming too gamified
Same thing happened in my neighborhood. They installed speed camera near the school that now run during school hours and not just pickup and drop off times. Had cops patrolling giving out tickets and warning people about the new cameras.
The news came out interviewed some people where the student’s parents were driving through their yards. The whole thing was a mess and had been for years. At least two kids were none fatally struck by cars within the last 5 years. More cross guards and stop signs did nothing the prior years.
That was the end of last year. This year there are a lot less dipshits speeding down the road and lots of parents complaining on Facebook of getting tickets.
IMO the issue is really the long wait lines for drop off pickup. The speeding is just the symptom. The speeding parents may come back, but for now the cameras have helped.
We have a "cut through" street in our neighborhood that allows traffic to get between two main roads. There a few people on the street that were super vocal about, at one point, a woman hid in the bushes and video recorded people speeding at rolling stop signs to take to city council.
The city agreed to increase police presence. Turns out, a majority of the tickets that were given out were to people who lived in the neighborhood, including many who lived in the street.
The women did the video recording continued to bitch to the city and demanded a speed camera/sign. So the city installed one....in her front yard...she then bitched to the city to remove it because she didn't like the way it looked.
Yeah I was going to say something similar. Also this sign would last all of about 30 seconds under a 1984 Toyota Carolla traveling at about 15 MPH aiming directly at the sign. When I was a kid, those "SLOW Children" neon silhouettes would get run over regularly by me for shits and giggles. Usually happened at night, and at slow speed. I didn't want to wake everyone up, I just wanted them to be horrified when they did.
No. They need to get out of their feelings and look at the data. There were no accidents, incidents, injuries, or even close calls. There is no reason to slow anyone down below the posted 25 there except so you can better see the whiners shaking their fists at you because of their feeling while the data on the sign shows you’re doing 22.
If people were scared for their and their kid's lives, then it makes sense that they didn't hang out in their front yards which gives little chance for accidents etc.
Going as fast as you can with no accidents is not a great way of setting speed limits (or installing traffic calming measures)
Lol I immediately wanted to ask to see where this was for that very reason. Now I want a high score on this straight, very-open street.
The red light cameras around here have video with light status and got a really great shot of getting sideways around the acute right hander off the highway to my house
This is exactly what I do when I see a sign that tells me my speed. If I'm going 34 and the speed limit is 35, I immediately try to go 40 and have the sign flash. These fuckin Karen's cause damage.
This feels like a DIWHY more than anything else, what is the end goal here exactly? Seems like bored boomer behavior. Why go through all this effort to take grainy pictures of speeders? You gonna email them to the courthouse? 2025 version of an old man shaking his fist on his porch because some kids walked on his grass or something.
Literally yesterday a speeding car hit 2 of my neighbors cars, pushed one in to the front yard of another house almost crashing in. It only could stop after flipping over to another car.
Local government refuses to add speed bumps and everyone who lives here are annoyed by those speeding people who drive more than 3 times the speed limit.
Funny to get down voted for explaining what I experienced without agreeing or disagreeing with their necessity. must be people who cant/wont have kids..
think of one of you 23 cats getting hit by a speed car if it helps.
Lawyer here... You are correct. There is zero chance that would be admisible. In my state... And most... The police need to have the device itself certified as reliable by the state Supreme Court. The court would appoint a special master (think retired judge on recall) to take testimony of experts and of effected parties and amicus curiae. Once certified then it's admissible only under the conditions that that court approved. New model? Nope. New firmware? Nope. So this DIY radar would die on the vine. Cool project though.
The video footage would be admiasinel wouldn't it? There are ways to determine speed using visual cues alone. Not saying anyone is getting a traffic citation form this contraption, but in the event of an injury crash etc, any video evidence would be used to determine rate of speed, including doorbell and security cameras. No reason footage from a fake speed camera wouldn't also be used.
Btw why hide it? Op doesn’t have a display. Makes no sense. Maybe I’m missing something but couldn’t they just put it in their yard without obfuscating it?
How do you equate neighborhood safety with "get off my lawn"? At least the OP did something and was proud to show it off. I mean, it's not like the OP is 44, scrawny, and trying to figure out how to start getting in shape.
We had a little girl on a bike get killed because of a careless driver in a neighborhood. I bet this would have been very welcome in that neighborhood, or even mine, for that matter. In a world of constant surveillance, you want to complain about one more camera that might actually do some good. Maybe you should look at your accomplishments and think to yourself, "What if some a-hole on Reddit tore you down for something that you had every right to be proud of?" Then go touch some grass and re-center.
🙄 fine. Maybe I was too harsh. But seriously what’s the end goal here? Just tinkering, or is there a practical next step on what the photos will be used for?
I don’t know what OP’s ultimate goal is but I appreciate the civic engagement. There are lots of ways technology can be used by individuals to make a difference on a local level. Whatever data this project produces wouldn’t be admissible, but it could be used to draw attention to a problem that can be fixed (be it with better enforcement, road design, signage, or something else)
Maybe the OP is testing the next evolution in neighborhood security. Maybe the OP challenged themselves to see if they could even do it. What difference does it make to you? What made you stop and have come here to tear the OP down? Why couldn't you just scroll on and not be hateful to someone who never crossed your path before now?
u/nutstobutts , nice job. I like what you have done. BTW, how do you plan to use your new system? Do you plan to link up to a security system or maybe a website that the whole neighborhood can look at? I think it's a great idea and I would like you to keep us updated on your progress ...
These cameras don't do any good. Do you think someone who will mow down a kid would slow down because of this sign? All that is going to come of this is OP is going to be the annoying guy at city hall sending in pictures that can't be enforced, or posting pictures of people on Facebook to "shame" them even though this thing is not calibrated
The answer is proper enforcement of the law, by police officers, not by a surveillance state that is hardly accountable and more often setup for revenue generation rather than safety
Sadly they will be too busy texting to notice the sign. But yeah, bringing shame to people who endanger the lives of others would probably be taking it too far
yeah, it's great that in our system we let random strangers with no training or sense of any rules or fairness be judge, jury, and executioner. probably the best way to do things
Would you mind showing a single state law that prohibits filming of a public roadway?
Public streets are almost universally the least likely places to have camera restrictions, as they're usually mentioned specifically as a place you should not ever have any expectation of privacy.
What a hero! I can see it now. OP patrolling the neighborhood with his bright yellow sash displaying with an authoritative font “HOA ENFORCER”. As he patrols the streets residents quake in fear of any potential violations they might possibly be committing. They begin closing garage doors, moving trash bins behind the house, pulling weeds, shutting off water, etc. The children run inside of their homes for they know the consequences of playing outside. Uh oh! What’s this? A vehicle parked in the driveway but the front right wheel partially in the grass!! Not on OPs watch! He whips out his ink stick from his pocket protector vest and promptly begins issuing an HOA citation. He thinks to himself “a caterpillar can only move forward when all the legs move as one”. But just as he slides the intimidating citation under the windshield wiper blades…a car goes zooming by! Going so fast the hair on his receding hairline dances as if in the wind. His phone begins buzzing, critical alerts frantically trying to alert him to a vehicle traveling at a neck breaking 26 MPH in 25 MPH zone! He will pay this road rule breaking Fonzie a visit tomorrow. And thank god for his automation system because these alerts were also sent to the city council members to prove how dangerous this road is. He thinks to himself “what if kids had been in the street? And what if the HOA didn’t have rules banning child play outside? I don’t even want to know the outcome. They better thank me for my service!”
Here in Scotland, I have people doing 50 on my 30 mph urban road . Nearby Wales has a portal for citizen uploading of speeding (and dangerous driving) footage - https://gosafesnap.wales/. Apparently, Scotland gets an equivalent portal soon. Citizens just need dashcam footage, not radar coupled devices, so it will be quite accessible
There are cameras all over your neighborhood already. The speed camera uses is dumb, but we live in a time of mass surveillance. If you are outside your home you should assume you are being recorded by someone or something.
Your initial post said your neighbor does Airbnb and guests were speeding down a shared driveway, but this photo pretty clearly shows a public roadway….
Hell yeah, I love this please let me know when you open source! I was looking to do something very similar!!!
Personally I want this information to rile up my neighbors because people legitimately drive 60 on my street (from the cities official analysis they did) and the limit is 15 yet, nothing has been done to make people go slower, despite the fact that we already have speed bumps.
So if I can message my neighbors saying, looks like we had 10 people going 60 again! I think that would convince enough of them to go to city council to try and get some movement on making the street narrower or something.
Can't think of any reason why it would be illegal. Dumb, but not illegal. Unless you mean legal in the "can he do anything to the people he catches speeding with this" sense, then no. I don't think this has any legal use.
Ignore all the other lame dorks in this thread; this is a great idea!
This isn't about policing your neighbors, this is about putting guardrails on contractors and delivery drivers. Those are the guys speeding, and those are the guys that need policing.
Bide your time, get it calibrated and figure out who are the biggest offenders, and then just name and shame.
Once the system is reliable, calibrated and regularly catching speeders, add another sign that says that Speeders will be posted to a specific Twitter account, or reported to Amazon, Uber, UPS etc.
Honestly, the DIY element of this is pretty off putting, but I bet you'll get some awesome data. Have fun! See you in a few months in r/dataisbeautiful
I don’t know what Menards is.. I don’t think I have one in my area… yea I like root beer… better than hiding a speed radar just to bitch about a few people going just a little fast..
You're wildly missing the point, you actively take time out to post pictures of root beer and talk about it, and you have the nerve to judge other people's hobbies?
Me personally, I’m stoked you’re doing this. People need to know 20-30% of crashes involve speeding cars.
That’s crazy when you consider only 20% safe speeding at any given time.
Anywho, I guess if you’re camera is real stealthy and no one notices it’d be a nice way To find out if that 15-20% figure is too low. I’d guess they can tell what it is when walking the dog.
Side note. Biggest actual safety improver is footpath separated from roads which you already have so don’t let the Dystychiphobia take too much of your time.
I’ve been dreaming about this for over 10 years but specifically paired with an object tracking paintball gun for the motorcycles that rip by my house at 4am with some straight pipe bullshit 130 decibel mayhem rattling my windows
I like this idea and want to implement something similar on my street.
For anyone who is going about accuracy, for this purpose I don’t think there’s a need for anything beyond “close enough”. I’d use this to report a log to the city council or local police, “average speed is X, min/max speed of Y and Z, XX% of drivers over the limit. If they want something more accurate, they’ll put their own speed trap on the street that’s calibrated to professional standards.
The trouble with getting local authorities to do anything about traffic enforcement is showing that there’s an issue. Unfortunately in my area it seems the only way to prove a traffic issue is to have several fatal accidents within a certain time frame. I hope something like this would be a viable alternative!
Amusingly enough depending on your local laws this might have the opposite effect. They set the speed limit based on average traffic flow and this might cause them to raise the limit in some Edge cases.
For now, the speed limit will remain as it is. That’s because Ohio law sets maximum speeds for 15 different types of roadways, regardless of what the 85% rule suggests.
Except when you go take your information to the city council/police department. They are going to care how you recorded this data. They are not going to waste their time setting up their own stuff based on the data of a system that has not been calibrated. If it is not calibrated there is no way of knowing if you are even "close enough" to begin with.
Just in case poeple didn't see my post from last week, here's the camera and radar unit. The photo and speed data get uploaded to a database automatically.
I’m doing this because I built a cool radar unit and I’m trying to find things to do with it. Sometimes there are assholes that fly down my road so I’m curious how fast they’re going. I have a hammer and am in search of nails
I think you got the key word. City wouldn't accept this unless unless they're a licensed professional using legally accepted methods of data capture. It could be useful to help trigger an official intervention, but would not be grounds to make change on itself, if that makes sense. If it were ever challenged and made it to court, things like calibration of the device and accuracy would come into question.
Preliminary data is still good data to have though, right? I.e. anyone else would just complain about people speeding, but if you could say "people are doing 15 over with the worst offenders being 3pm to 5pm on weekdays" (as an example) then you know when you are going to get best bang for buck with a follow up official radar trap
Yeah, that's the only thing I can see that makes sense. Essentially developing a presentation for a city council meeting to address whatever speeding concerns they have and ask the city to intervene in some way. Irrelevant in court, but is a better argument than nothing in persuading local officials to look into it.
So... what will you do with the data? Like are you part of an HOA and can issue tickets? Also, double check your local laws, usually okay to point a camera at the street but it is always good to CYA.
It’s short for “See ya” which was a shortening for “See you later”
Use it around hip youths for full-use potential. Even some workplaces have adopted this language as its brevity saves countless hours from meaningless farewells!
I already feel dumb for my previous troll response. It means “Cover Your Ass” referring to making sure you’re not putting yourself in harms way before doing something that could get you in trouble, typically the legal kind. Really is used often in workplaces.
OP, I like what you’re doing. I live on a busy road where cars fly. Thinking about how I can get the county to install speeding cameras. Maybe this is a good first step for the petition. Thanks for your hard work.
One idea to get snapshot of a car later on, when its closer:
Whatever is your trigger to start measuring speed, use it to take the 1st picture so you have definitive “evidence” of speeding car. Now start taking pictures as some interval, lets say each second for 10 or 15 seconds. Since you know speed and distance, calculate when was the car at optimal distance from camera. Take the snap what is closest to the calculated time.
x x D - - - - - - - T - - - C
X = no vehicle and images
D = detected vehicle/initial image
= snapshots at x interval
T = best photo
C = camera
Or hook up another, better camera as “evidence” camera. This can record 24/7, just trigger some kind of event on NVR/CMS so its marked on its UI and during playback. We use this logic with ANPR cameras - evidence camera/system receives trigger from ANPR camera when plate is read or vehicle without plate is detected. Since ANPR camera is set up and directed so it gets best possible plate images, context is missing - you can see front of the vehicle and color during the day but at night, with headlights on, you can barely identify anything - this is when evidence camera (nice one, 5mpx+ with color night mode and additional IR) steps in.
Not commenting of legal side of anything related to this since laws and rules are different everywere but this wouldn’t fly in EU without many, many permits…
Looking forward to seeing the write up of your project. I have the parts for the same project, but haven't gotten around to building it up yet. What are you using to actually record the speed? You said: radar, camera, wifi and solar; but did you really get a radar sensor? Or are you using something else? (like this? https://picobricks.com/blogs/robotic-stem-projects/how-to-make-raspberry-pi-radar)
In most states, including my own, it is illegal to setup a private speed camera and even more of an issue having it pointed at a neighbors property (although that is usually OK if it is public domain).
There’s a road in my town where the speed limit is 40mph and some weirdo that lives on that street decided he doesn’t like it so he stapled paper plates with 30mph written on them to the telephone pole in front of his house. Stupid shit like this makes me drive faster 😂
Cool idea, nice execution. Curious about the legality of it, though. I know public spaces generally have no expectation of privacy, but you can’t set up a camera on your property that points exclusively at the road/sidewalk/the park beside your house. Probably different rules per location, but I’m curious.
Edit: love the downvotes for asking a question. I never said it was illegal, I simply asked if it was. I don’t live in the US, the rules are different where I am.
OP is open-sourcing his design and sharing it with the world.
Thus, others might use this in any country of the world.
The discussion is relevant, laws vary, even within the US, and anyone deploying this should carefully consider both the law that applies, and common courtesy and decency.
Get your shit straight. You can film anyone inconspicuously in public.
You're thinking of wiretapping or “two-party consent” laws that make it illegal to secretly record audio without consent, and this is only in certain states. And that only applies in certain situations, not everywhere in public.
A confidential communication is a conversation where any of the participants have an objectively reasonable expectation that no one else is listening or will overhear it.
You're thinking of wiretapping or “two-party consent” laws that make it illegal to secretly record audio without consent, and this is only in certain states. And that only applies in certain situations, not everywhere in public.
A confidential communication is a conversation where any of the participants have an objectively reasonable expectation that no one else is listening or will overhear it.
How you film matters too. You might be standing in a public spot, but if you’re zooming in with a telephoto lens or trying to film through someone’s window from across the street, that crosses a line. The courts have made it clear: the issue isn’t always where you’re standing — it’s also what you’re doing with the camera and whether the person being recorded had a reasonable expectation of not being watched in that moment.
And yes, people have gotten into legal trouble for this exact kind of thing — think of it like this: if someone is sitting quietly in their backyard, behind a fence or some trees, and you’re trying to sneak footage from a nearby sidewalk, that might technically be public ground, but you’re still invading their privacy.
It’s also worth noting that California has taken a strong stance on paparazzi-style intrusions. Laws like Civil Code 1708.8 were created to curb things like using high-powered lenses, drones, or other tech to capture people in their private moments — even if they’re technically in public spaces.
edit: nice ninja edit you did there. That site says nothing about inconspicuous recording.
edit 2: The key concept you're not understanding is "reasonable expectation of privacy", you have none IN PUBLIC. Therefore can be filmed inconspicuously or conspicuously.
edit 3: "if you’re zooming in with a telephoto lens or trying to film through someone’s window from across the street" <- this person in their house is NOT in public, and has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Try again, keep editing your post.
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u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks 1d ago edited 1d ago
People in our neighborhood thought cars were speeding so they complained, the city spent thousands a radar speed sign. The city analyzed the data and the sign was having the reverse effect. Most people realized they had been used to going 20 when the speed limit was 25 so they sped up or tried to set a daily record. The dipshits that complained realized they had zero skill in speed estimation. The court stopped maintaining the sign. Net effect: thousands wasted and traffic is going faster.
Until you can directly tie the data to speed related accidents in the view of the camera, all you have is data and a creepy way to record the neighbor kids.