TwinTurboTerror

to this, other than a police radio scanner, perhaps?<ul><li><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010301725.html">Article</a></li></ul>

Wind-n-Water

Try to blend in like a lamb (but fast lamb), not stick out like a wolf.

From the article, sounds like they are targeting people who are driving like 'a-holes' anyway. I try to mimic European hwy driving style (from the few 1st hand experiences I got)... fast but safe and considerate to others. And I always use my signals, with plenty of lead time for other drivers. Gotta love those who turns on their signal at the same instant as (or even AFTER) they started changing lane.

Besides, the # of flights per year is very low. If police airborne surveillance is stepped up to similar levels as troopers running speed traps, it would impact the low altitude airspace usage, and I suspect the general aviation community would be the 1st to know. Also, the endurance limits of these small Cessnas are governed by their fuel tank AND occupants' bladder capacity. :-) IIRC, LAPD tried recently to get unmanned RC (toy) planes for surveillance and the FAA shut them down in a big hurry. Special rules/procedures/technologies are required to operate unmanned in the national airspace system.

happy motoring

TwinTurboTerror

How do they see turn signal usage up in the air?

Wind-n-Water

my follow on rambling on non-ahole driving. :-)

Tho in the article, a trooper was quoted saying they look for non-turn signal usage. I never tried looking for signals when I was flying in the past. I'll try looking next time to see if it's even visible during the day, at that altitude.

achilleas101

the distance it uses to measure has to be long enough to cancel out any human reaction delays (as in, how long it takes for the cop to flip the switch on and off to time you). But that's why they have the preset white lines painted on the asphalt.

Durrrrty Dufour

it is so open to human error with the "clicking on a timer" done by an officer. I mean come on, how can we be sure the officer clicked the timer on immediately when the vehicle crossed the line and then off immediately when it crossed the other. way too much margin of error in there. Just seems like such BS to me.

AvantQuattro

years back around 2000-2001 in OR when I had my 16v Jetta and would go down to the monthly import drags at the strip 30 mins south of Portland, we had to be careful because the police also were aware of these dates and knew of the serious aggressive driving potential of boy racers. They always had plenty of cruisers, a couple bikes, the 5.0 Mustang, and usually the airplane, all out in force on those days.

Some of my dumbass friends once decided to do a 100+ MPH run on the way there while I smartly hung back at 80 or under. The police made a lot of money that day...

Well, at least most of us around here seem to have silver or black cars so maybe we'll blend in better. =)

AvantQuattro

anything involving human operation always has a margin of error. The court systems trust that the police are adequately trained and are proficient in operating the equipment, both on ground and in the air. The cop's word is usually always going to be taken over yours by the judge.
There is always the possibility of the waiting cruiser to look out for the vehicle to approach and use radar or laser as a backup measure to get their speed before pulling them over. I'm not sure if they do that, but they certainly could to ensure a flawless case against the driver.

Jimax

Counter Measure: slow down between the white lines to **** the cops off

Jim Clark

They are issuing 14 tickets per mission which seems pretty high but only flew 31 total missions through October, 2006. Your chances of being caight by them is pretty low but I'm sure there's certain areas where they concentrate the flights so the chances would be higher in those areas. But, they're only flying 1 mission per week.

Aircraft like the 182's mentioned in the article are very expensive to operate, they won't be flying many missions unless they get much less expensive aircraft. The new light sport airplanes would fit the bill but they cannot be operated commercially and, I believe under current FAA rules, police flights are considered commercial flights.