dammit, a fun plot point RUINED by doing some research and discovering that red light cameras work by detecting the vehicle with induction loops in the pavement, not by a distance sensor on the camera or anything
@monorail I think some of them work via image processing.
@monorail It's cheaper to install, since you only need one camera mounted in a convenient location instead of a loop of wire embedded under the road, but it requires more computing power than was readily available until recently.
@Rosemary hmm. if it's looking for the image of a car that still doesn't work for me, unfortunately
@monorail I imagine they're probably a bit less smart than that, and probably just look for anything different than normal in the relevant lane. You want it to work for motorcyclists too, after all.
@monorail I'm glad my initial thought of how to do it aligns with how professionals thought to do it, then!
@Rosemary i'm reading a research paper from 2007 and that seems to be the method that was proposed, yeah
okay i'm convinced i'm using the plot point :P