R
Rich Grise
- Jan 1, 1970
- 0
Is an interesting topic I've never heard of or thought of before.
First, what is an Opticon?
Then, how does a (self-actuated) traffic-light work?
It contains a *camera* of some kind?
(I had imagined that it used some kind of sonar to tell when
a car appeared.)
It "photographs" in red? Or infra-red (heat)? Or what?
Interesting stuff -- please do elaborate a bit.
Well, an "Opticon", in this context, to the best of my knowledge, is a
photocell (electric eye) mounted up on the stoplight bracket, and
ambulances and fire trucks (and, presumably, the cops) have some secret
code that they flash through their windshield with a strobe - the Opticon
picks up that signal, and changes the cross-lights to red, and changes
the light for the emergency vehicle green. Some guy had decoded that code,
and was breezing through town, but presumably got caught because the
red-light cameras were timed to the moment when the light was
_supposed_ to have turned red - there was this car in the intersection,
and the "switch to red" signal had been overridden!
They caught the guy.
Cheers!
Rich