I have a miata too (well, an MX5 anyway, that's what it's called over here) One of the members of the local club had a folding license plate but was booked for it, I had no plate on the front of the car for well over 1 year until I was 'advised' to put it back on at a random breath test. The penalty for having no front plate is $78, the penalty for hiding or obscuring the front plate is $1200! I haven't been booked for speeding in about 7 years (66km/hr in a 60 zone, 3 AM in one of the other states), but a few friends have. One friend of mine had never had a ticket in 30 years, and then got 3 in 1 month. Most of us prefer to get our speed thrills off the road, mostly here : www.wakefieldpark.com.au -----Original Message----- From: pic microcontroller discussion list [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of Robert Ussery Sent: Tuesday, 15 June 2004 2:44 PM To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Subject: Re: [OT]: detecting emergency vehicles >-----Original Message----- >From: pic microcontroller discussion list >[mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of Liam O'Hagan >Consider yourselves lucky. > >Here we have cameras that take your photo if you speed, run a red >light, drive in a bus lane, or (for heavy vehicles) drive for too long >without a break... > >There's one particular stretch of road, and within 2 km it has 3 fixed >speed cameras. It's a 3 lane each way divided road with a speed limit >of 40km/hr (25mph). Each of the speed cameras is covered by a >surveillance camera in case someone tries to take it out. Some of the >other fixed speed cameras have surveillance cameras covering the >surveillance cameras covering the speed camera! > >We're not the worst affected though, another state here has a 3km/hr >(1.8mph) tolerance in their cameras, we have 10% + 4 km/hr. Travelling >at 110km/hr on the freeway, our cameras kick in at 125km/hr, the ones >in the other state start tagging people doing 113kmhr... Jeez... And I thought we had it bad here in Colorado where the speed cameras are mounted as mobile units. They don't trigger until about 8 MPH over the limit. I've gone past 'em several times pushing 10 MPH over the limit, and have yet to get photographed. Same with the cops here. They don't give a damn as long as you're going less than 10 over the limit (assuming you're driving normally otherwise - very little tolerance for sloppy or discourteous driving). The red light cameras are a different story. There are only a few of them in town, but they have absolutely no mercy. The minute that light turns red, you'd better be stopped short of the pedestrian crossing or well on the other side of the intersection or they'll grab ya. I'm not sure if it's just my imagination or not, but I think they shortened the yellow light period at the intersections with the cameras. Personally, I think these things are a safety hazard. I've seen several near accidents where the guy in front sees the light turn yellow and threshold brakes to stop in time, while the guy in the Suburban behind him realizes he can't stop in time and floors it to get through the light before it changes. Scary stuff. That's why they invented the folding license plate: (http://www.miata.net/garage/swingplate.html) for Miatas at least . Only moderately illegal, and sure saves some money on both tickets and car repairs. TTYL - Robert -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads