A SPEED DETECTOR

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19314, 15 October 1932, Page 12

A SPEED DETECTOR

AMERICAN DEVICE. To determine what is the average prevailing speed of motor vehicles on Connecticut highways and in the various cities of the State, the Department of Motor Vehicles is making use of a new device, known as the speed detector, a development ox the Eno Foundation for Highway Traffic Regulation, Inc.(states the New York Times). The instruments in use were made by the traffic section of the department on specifications supplied by C. J. Tilden. professor of engineering mechanics, at Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, representing the foundation. The detector is a simple device consisting of a right-angle box in which a mirror is set across the angle at 45 degrees. This enables an operator to see around a corner, in effect. In actual use this L-shaped box permits one man accurately to measure the speed of a vehicle over a given distance when he is equipped with a stop watch. The vehicle, passing the box set up at a specified distance from the operator, is seen in an instantaneous reflected flash. The operator then opens the stop watch, and closes it when the vehicle passes before him. Knowing the distance and the time in which it was traversed, he can quickly compute the speed of the vehicle. This method of measuring speed does not arouse the suspicion of motor vehicle operators that their pace is being checked. The box may be screened from the view of the drivers by a pole, tree, or other object. The fast driver, who would moderate his pace under old conditions, is clocked before he is aware of it by this plan. At present the check is merely for ascertaining by observation existing speeds on particular types of high-

ways. No record of individual vehicles or their operators is kept. Sample observations checked in a test of the device in Southern Connecticut showed that, for a New Haven city street, the average of 100 vehicles was twenty-six miles per hour, for a Fairfield County post road location the average speed of ninety-two vehicles w ? as 36.5 miles per hour. Department inspectors are engaged in making a wide study of speeds in all parts of the State. “Science and scientific application has always been a part of the machinery by which practical problems are solved, and put into effect,” Commisioner Stoekel said in commenting upon the Eno speed detector. “When scientific attainment interprets reasonable rules the hight of perfection is reached. The work done by cooperating scientists has many times aided the State in connection with traffic.” He added that a study of results obtained by use of the detector will reveal the average reasonable rate of speed at which people travel. “Such evidence may eventually be used to determine what constitutes reasonable speed.” he continued, “but far more important and more in accordance with the practice of education and discipline is the fact that there will be a positive guide which will allow traffic authorities to determine with certainty what constitutes reasonable speed within the limits of their jurisdiction.”

More than £1,027,000 has been awarded since the inaugaration of the Nobel Prizes, which are given to leading men and women for services to literature, science and international peace,