Speeders controlled by aircraft?

Even though my oldest son is only 14 years old right now, he’s very eager to learn how to drive. He’s already learned the meaning of most road signs and does ask questions quite often about why certain drivers did certain actions. Every now and then I get asked questions from other members of my family regarding driving. To be honest, it does feel good to be able to offer information to licensed drivers that they may not have known previously.

My wife noticed these yellow lines on the side of the freeway and wondered what they were used for. These lines actually help the police determine who is speeding. There is an officer in a small plane or helicopter flying above the traffic that times a driver from the point they cross one yellow line until they cross the next one. If they pass the second one at a certain time, they have a measurement to determine how fast they were driving. This is similar to race car drivers. They can determine their speed based on a distance they travel in a specific time. They don’t have speedometers to judge their speed in race cars.

Once the officer in the sky spots a driver driving faster than other drivers, they time them from one line to another. If they feel they need to be pulled over, the officer doesn’t land the plane of the freeway, they radio to another officer ahead of that driver a description of the vehicle and they pull them over. Could you imagine planes landing on the freeway all the time? Life is not a Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger film!

The difficulty that police officers on the freeways have with speeders is that they have limited places to find them. An officer in the sky has great mobility and can cover a wide range of freeways in a short period of time. They have great access to a multiple amount of drivers and for the most part, those drivers tend to feel they’re getting away with speeding because they don’t see a radar trap. Think again speeders!

Quite often there will be signs stating the roads are monitored by aircraft surveillance. So now you know what the sign and lines mean. All you need to do now is obey the speed limits and pay attention to what’s in front, beside, behind…. and above you.