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Nowadays thinking about all this modern high-tech technology and electronic devices we have at home or at work, we can't even imagine how it used to be earlier, how lived our grand parents and great grand parents. Recently I read an article about policework at earlier times. It was very fascinating.
All of you know that nowadays police officers drive patrol cars, use radar guns, speed trailers and hand-held police radar guns in order to catch speeders. But do you know how it used to be at those times? Well, at those times, police officers didn't have cars on the first place; they didn't have all this fancy technology as they do now. So, when the first cars started appearing in towns and cities in early 1900s, police officers were still patrolling on foot. In stead of so called radar guns, police officers relied on watches and some creative thinking. By stationing officers on the corner of several city blocks, they timed how long it took a vehicle to travel around Old Town. Then, if a car or motorcycle went too fast - traveling two blocks in less than 25 seconds - they would know it. When the speeder was stopped, in most cases he was asked to drive to the nearest police station to be issued a ticket.

It's hard to imagine it now, isn't it?

"Slow down Bountiful" is a traffic program that was introduced a year ago by the Bountiful city leaders. This campaign was started with the purpose to educate drivers, and make streets safer for residents, especially children. People who participated in this project found it effective, but said that this program needs to be improved a little to keep drivers on their toes.
Last year people stood on the sidewalks outside their homes with radar guns raised at the cars speeding by. There were many speeding drivers stopped last year, all of them were mailed reminders, rather than citations asking them to slow down. So, this coming May drivers can expect to see more police radar guns, more speed trailers, more signs, and of course more officers on the roads. The slow down week will run May 1st through May 7th.

I've always thought why people still use AM FM radio, it is 21st century now, and we need to move on. I think that AM FM radio is outdated, so being so stubborn, I decided to do a research about the advantages of AM FM radio over other types of music system. So, here is what I got:
Nowadays AM FM radios are mostly used in cars for several reasons:
- As intertainment, because when people are driving for a short period of time, they don't really want to go through this process of choosing songs or inserting CDs.
- Some people like to listen to radio while driving in the car. Most of the people are hurrying to get work early in th morning, so they don't have time to read newspaper or watch TV.
These are two main cases when people listen to radio in their cars. Sometimes it happens that the reception is very bad, there are alo several factors that can influence it. The most interesting fact that I learned is that some car structures can block radio signals. This is because of the fact that radio signals can bounce off the metal of the car. This is the same principle that helps radar guns to detect the speed of a moving vehicle.
Good luck to you, drive safely, and don't speed because driving this morning I've noticed many police officers with hand-held police radar guns out on the streets. Be careful!

News from Danville, VA. The Danville Village Council took steps to obtaining a new radar equipment for the village police. This discussion about new radar gun began when the councilman reported about the new bus routes around the Danville School buildings. He told the council that he would like to have a speed check in that area and to act as an incentive for drivers to slow down around the school. Police sergeant said the department's hand-held police radar guns are outdated and they need an updated radar system to better monitor and catch speeders. Council authorized one of the Police Chiefs to spend up to $3,500 to purchase new radar equipment. Council also discussed a possibility of borrowing portable speed detection equipment, such as speed trailer, from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. Supposedly this equipment will be placed on the main routes in the village to help slow vehicles down.

Several months ago Tucson police got a new law-enforcement tool - a car-mounted license-plate scanner. It's very similar to a radar gun, or better to say to a police radar gun, it reads the license plates of moving or parked cars, and then links with remote police databases, immediately providing information about the car and owner.

But to be honest, this is nothing new. Police have always been able to run a license plate. But the biggest difference is that they would do it manually, and that limited its use. It wasn't possible for police to run the plates of every car passing through intersection or in a parking garage.

Technology changes the nature of surveillance tremendously. Many years ago, surveillance meant private investigators or detectives following people down the streets. It was extremely expensive and was used only when there was a real suspicion of a crime. Modern surveillance features the policeman with a license-plate scanner mounted on a traffic light and a policeman sitting at a computer in the station.

Be careful and drive safely!

Nowadays radar guns are so popular, and they became so useful and convenient for police officers, that the use of radar detector is also increasing.
But at the same time everyone forgets that only a few years ago there were only speed bumps at almost all intersections and some stop signs, mostly in residential areas.
After that people started noticing that speed bumps indeed help to slow down the speeding drivers, but most of drivers don't come to a full stop at speeding bumps. So, at that point, trying to avoid the expenses of installing speeding bumps everywhere, speed trailers are coming to rescue. Speed trailers show drivers how fast they are going. But unfortunately, speed trailers didn't help an internal anti-speeding campaign either. So, now police radar guns are used in the attempt to try fixing the problem of speeding. We'll se how it works out.

Recently I told you about the experiment in the UK cities with the radar gun volunteers. It seems that this kind of therapy aimed to heal speeding drivers is spreading around…
Burlingame police, CA, is considering a plan that would allow residents to catch speeders. Two person volunteer teams will be given hand-held police radar guns, and how quickly jot down license plate numbers. With the same practice as in the UK, the stopped drivers won't be given tickets, but will receive warning letters from the Police Department which will notify them that they were caught speeding.
Police officers say that the goal of this program is to keep the streets safe. And the help of the volunteers will be very noticeable.
At this moment it's unknown when and where this program will take place. The biggest obstacle is hidden in the logistics of giving the ordinary residents traffic radar guns and training them.

In Michigan, the connection between budget shortfalls and speeding tickets is becoming more and more noticeable for citizens.
It's said that more troopers will soon be parked on the sides of roads with radar guns. Michigan State Police Department is asking troopers to cut their mileage by 20 percent, due to the $ 3.1 million budget deficit. More of the troopers will patrol only on the way back from calls. They will run hand-held police radar guns and other activities, rather than driving around the city.

People who live or routinely work around radars have expressed concerns about long term adverse effects of these systems on health, including cancer, reproductive malfunction, cataracts and changes in behavior or development of children. A recent example has been the alleged increase in testicular cancer in police using speed control police hand-held radar guns.
It's important to distinguish between real and not real dangers that radar guns pose.

The power that radar systems emit range from a few milliwatts (traffic radar guns) to many kilowatts (large space tracking radars). So, it means that police radar guns are not considered hazardous to health to the general public because its average output power is very low.

The two men from Little Britain, Ont., decided to find out how fast they could drive a particular snowmobile. One of them was to measure the speed with a hand-held police radar gun, while the other whipped past on his motorized sled. But shortly before 9 pm the snowmobile struck the man with a radar gun, at a speed enough to kill both men at once.
This crash which involves two deaths represents two of seven smowmobile-related deaths in Canada this past weekend. There are no speed limits on the lake, that's why people go there to conduct radar runs and trials, which are very popular in those places. Their idea is to fine-tune your snowmobile and go as fast as you can…

Saturday morning some of the UK residents for the first time went out with their own radar guns to catch speeders. This program, which is called "The speed watch" is the first one that is officially to be launch in Greater Manchester.
Ten volunteers participating in this program were provided with high visibility jackets and handheld police radar guns. They monitored passing cars under the supervision of a police inspector. But after this training is over, they will be able to go out on the streets when they have time.
Any caught speeding driver will be sent a warning letter from police, and if there will be persistent offenders, further actions could also be taken.
Volunteers were very pleased with the results they got, only two speeding drivers were caught. And most of the driving residents seemed encouraged by volunteers, and even gave them little waves.
The team of volunteers is planning on using the traffic radar guns again this Saturday.
For now, it very early to make any comments or talk about any results, this program has just started. But what we can say for sure is that volunteers who participate in this program show that they care about other members of the community. And it should definitely give its seeds.

Waynesville, MO resident asked city leaders to consider more aggressive patrolling on Fleetwood Drive, which according to his words has become a speedway despite the presence of young children and limited visibility. He had several proposals, one of them was to install speed bumps. Though the city administrator said, that most likely it won't work due to complaints from other residents about the car damage.
Another suggestion was to start aggressive police enforcement. Residents even suggested a location where police cars with radar guns could park. So, we'll wait and see the result of this struggle.

The decision to increase the speed limit on dangerous portions of two highways in Monterey County, CA is unfortunate but final, and it won't be changed. Road speed limits are to be updated every seven years to reflect the average speed limit. Under the law, speed limits on the two-lane Highway between Potrero and Jetty roads will rise to 55 mph, and along highway 101 from Espinosa Road and the San Benito County line will rise to 60 mph.
Police officers were using radar guns, and gave out tickets for speeding on this section of the highway. But citations for drivers who have received speeding tickets in those areas have been thrown out of court because of the expired studies.

At any given time in Fayetteville, NC, two-thirds of the drivers on the roads are speeding.
Over a five-day period in January, reporters with The Fayetteville Observer used radar guns to check the speed of more than 3,800 drivers in 40 spots around the city. With the help of police radar guns, the reporters clocked speeding about 2,500 people.
Driving too fast is a huge problem in every state and everywhere. Last year, 10 people died in speeding-related accidents on Fayetteville roads. That compares to 15 murders citywide in the same time span.
It's a well known fact, increasing the number of tickets, which police officers hand out, they slow down speeders. And in this case, traffic radar guns substantially helped police officers with their work.

As you can imagine, a lot of car accidents occur while a driver tries to change lanes. But a driver sometimes forgets about blind spots. So, the dilemma has been solved with the help of radars and cameras. The radar is installed on the sides of the Audi and Volvo 2007 models. So, nowadays radar technologies help preventing car accidents. The same method is used in other vehicles to detect and prepare for an impact with vehicles and pedestrians. The system is called the 'precollision system' and it senses a collision before it actually occurs. It automatically tries to minimize the effect of an accident. These systems use radar to detect vehicles in front.