Wednesday 15 July 2009

The polis on fishponds road

Police van up on the zig-zags on Fishponds Road by Alcove Road

Could be a speed camera, van, perhaps?

On the lampost to the right of the picture is the forlorn looking incident-witnesses-wanted sign from May's Mercedes hit-and-run collision with a bike heading in the same direction as the police van is pointing. The authorities are apparently still looking for the blue Mercedes.

15 comments:

Alex said...

I have a pic of a polis car parked simultaneously on, now wait for it,
1. The pavement
2. Double yellow lines
3. A "cycle lane"
4. An area designated as a busstop.

Surely this would beat your pic?

Anonymous said...

I have a pic of someone washing their car parked on a zig-zag and claim third prize.

SteveL said...

Will take both of these, send them to bristol.traffic at gmail.com. Remember, police can park where they want on call, but its still worth collecting.

sxoidmal said...

Sorry, I'm from the States and don't understand what the "zig-zag" lines indicate. Could you point me to a reference site? Is it some kind of emergency route/no parking designation?

SteveL said...

It means that there is a zebra-crossing or other pedestrian crossing where cars aren't meant to park

matt said...

is this an ANPR camera or just a speed camera?

SteveL said...

@matt: no idea. The only ANPR cameras we know of (apart from some apparently on the motorway system) are the DVLA vans -and some police cars -look for the ones with cameras inside the cabin but poking out from each rear window sideways -presumably there are similar ones in the front. And an unmarked van was spotted driving around king square last month with a camera on each corner. Probably this was the DVLA.

matt said...

Oh right i have seen that van parked at bath police station there are like 3 of those type of vans with the yellow and blue squares. Also there is on the same type of van but yellow with "cought on camera" writen on it also mobile camera. But the yellow one has a camera on top the roof like the types of cameras you see in the shops that can see all around or could just be dummys fakes to fool people.is there anyway to find out dp you think?

SteveL said...

The DVLA van looks like this.

You know it's not fake when you see what happens when it visits clifton or Montpelier.

It may seem thoughtless persecution, but cars without tax disks may also be without MOTs and insurance, so are a threat to everyone else out there.

One thing that's been discussed in the press is hooking up petrol station CCTVs with ANPR too, which would need better cameras, police-side storage, and network link ups to push out the data. That would be quite a major roll out of ANPR -and it will help them see who is driving.

In the US they are rolling out unique identifiers in car tyres (as a result of the ford explorer tyre recall). A side effect means that you could embed tyre readers in roads, track movements very subtly. They won't know the car reg, but if you pay by credit card they'll get that data. And if they instrument the petrol stations the same way, well, there goes your privacy.

-Not head of any plans for these in the UK, but with global tyre manufacturers, it may happen anyway.

matt said...

Man the police suck ass. Next the will be putting in plants under your skin watching your every move .

http://www.google.co.uk/m/search?site=images&gl=uk&client=safari&source=mog&hl=en&q=bath+caught+on+camera+van&spell=1&ei=abQgTvjMA5L3jAeXurDhAg&ved=0CBUQBSgA#i=1.

ths is a picture Of the van i was wondering about oet me no if it comes up on this link. That van that you showed me iv never across that.

SteveL said...

@Matt: the good news is that the police/govt don't normally have the money for this, unless it can come out the anti-terrrorism budget.

The bad news: google does. That search you made, they store who looked for what, when, and what the network address was forever. if you were logged in to google, they put it next to your name. So do facebook. If you have a phone with web browsing online satnav, they track where you are when you read your mail, and so can work out how fast you are travelling.


And their business models are making money from all that information.

matt said...

The money for what, the anpr cameras? And what do you mean google cheak whats that got to do with my qustion about anpr cameras or do you mean they cheak this comment and answer thing we are writing on im confused :S

matt said...

Im really confused buget money for what, Anpr cameras? What has google got to do with my qustion? Did you mean they see all of these comments being made? Most of the there shit ya lost me pal :S

SteveL said...

1. The local police don't have money for speed or ANPR cameras; anything that gets rolled out comes out of central govt cash -like some anti-terrorism budget (and so goes on motorways and not the A38).

2. Google track everything you do on any of their sites and keep that data for years, if you do it from a mobile phone they remember where you are too.

You have to decide: who is more dangerous.

matt said...

Thig is tho why does thebath police station have like fife vans that have cameras on them that i allways see parked up on the side of the road?

Out of all the people in the world that google would have to track would be very unlikcly there gunna be following one person out of the millions and millions of people.