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/latihoa]

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!

[u/sryan2k1 → u/latihoa]

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.

[u/nutstobutts → u/sryan2k1]

Or it could have the effect of getting the speed changed to a safer speed.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-08-19/states-rethink-a-long-held-practice-of-setting-speed-limits-based-on-how-fast-drivers-travel

[u/parkertyler → u/nutstobutts]

Or not:

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.