My DIY radar speed camera: Mullet Edition—Business in the front, party in the back.

[u/nutstobutts]

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.

[u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

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.

[u/timsredditusername → u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

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.

[u/HoustonBOFH → u/timsredditusername]

"People are generally far less competent than they think."

This applies so many places...

[u/AussieFIdoc → u/HoustonBOFH]

Dunning-Kruger in action

[u/miraculum_one → u/HoustonBOFH]

and Reddit is no exception

[u/HoustonBOFH → u/miraculum_one]

True dat!

[u/Tlr321 → u/timsredditusername]

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

[u/duckredbeard → u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

I had an old lady yell at me to slow down at our ball park where the speed limit is 20. I was doing about 15.

Local police use that park for hanging out/breaks so lots of people are aware of their presence and that keeps us slow even when they aren't there.

[u/e28Sean → u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

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.

..... I might have been one of those people....

[u/nionvox → u/e28Sean]

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!

[u/Reworked → u/nionvox]

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

[u/supercargo → u/e28Sean]

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

[u/TeddyTwoShoes → u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

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.

[u/BreakfastBeerz → u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

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.

[u/btgeekboy → u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

Sounds like what they actually needed was speed bumps.

[u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks → u/btgeekboy]

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.

[u/95beer → u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

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)

[u/ninjersteve → u/95beer]

Setting speeds based on peoples feelings and perceptions isn’t the way to do it either.

[u/GarnetandBlack → u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

Is there data for dead pets and animals? Hit mailboxes? Yard destruction? Hell, even accidents in a neighborhood?

You say there were no "close calls" - there is absolutely no "data" on this - so you're full of shit and "in your feelings" on this.

Pull it and show me these data for any given neighborhood.

[u/Metal_Musak → u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

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.

[u/basicKitsch → u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

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 

[u/brandeded → u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks]

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.