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/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.