I don't have a clue what made me think of this but I'm sure the forum members will have an answer.
Back in the mid 60's when I started driving I recall the NC Hwy Patrol would lay cables across the highway to catch speeders. Seems to me the slang for the cables was something like 'wamie's'
or something like that.
Am I remembering this correctly? I do remember running across the cables.

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Patriots Forever!!

Maybe air hoses like the ones that use to ding the bell when you pulled into a gas station?

If I am not mistaken, the same concept is now VASCAR which measures time between two points. Simple calculation produces speed.

As I understand it, the cables you now run over are counters for measuring traffic volume.

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Un-Reconstructed Southerner

No, but I am familiar with those. I worked summers at a 'filling station'.

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Patriots Forever!!

I don't know what they were called, but I remember them. They looked just like the traffic counters. I used to pick up some speeding tickets in those days, but never got caught by one. There were som hard-braking events however.

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Not in jail.

When I first started driving, EVERYONE in high school knew about the cables. They measured the time it took between your front wheels running over it and your rear wheels, and by that they knew how fast you were going.

Made sense.

Until someone pointed out that not all cars had the same wheel base. If you drove over it in a Caddy and I drove over it in a VW, even though we were going the same speed, my rear wheels would go over it faster than yours would.

As Mythbusters say - BUSTED.

Now, white stripes painted across the highway - THAT'S for speeders.

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I always take precautions

I always thought they were "car counters". I suppose they could be made to determine how fast a vehicle gets from one point to another.

I remember at one time in Ohio, the State Patrol used aircraft spotters on some major highways to catch speeders. You could tell those areas by the white stripes painted on the highway. I guess that was before radar use became common. I think the cables or hoses were used for traffic counting. I haven't seen those for many years.

I'm familiar with the car counters. Typically you would see these on either side of the road and the black box over to the side.
The wamies or what ever they may be called were set and you would see the police car just out of sight in your rear view mirror.

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Patriots Forever!!

Not about the counter, but it made me think about traffic enforcement in the 60s in small town Texas USA back then. The local deputies that had a stop sign that was welded to a tire and wheel. They'd roll it out to a place where there was never a stop sign before. Stop everyone who drove by and fill up their ticket books in an hour. They'd just say "take it up with the judge". Everyone knew if you wrote a check to the judge personally for half the amount of the fine...the ticket just went away. I wonder how much money he made - he was the judge for 30+ years. I know he had 5 kids he sent through college...or I guess WE sent through college.

Speed Control:
Two rubber hoses and a timer box
The hoses are stretched across a roadway a prescribed distances apart.
One hose is connected to the timer box.
When a vehicle crosses one of the hoses, the dial in the timer box starts counting from the set mph of the speed limit. When the vehicle crosses the second hose the timer dial stops, thus giving the speed of the vehicle.
If the vehicle driver is alert and slows down before the second hose is crossed, a speeding citation is avoided.

When I began LEO in 1962, the speed control is the device that was used.

Way back when I first started driving RADAR was in its infancy.

I can remember a early radar that was used. It was a can looking device on a tripod put by the side of the road with a long cord that was connected to equipment in the cop car.. Of course that made it necessary to have chase cars farther down the road.

I only remember seeing it used a few times and if you did not see the cop car that thing would get you! Got a few of my buddies!

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

In the 60's...................

"Speed" its self was the danger in the Bay area !!

"Are those tar strips", Clyde ??

jimmyj's explanation makes sense for even numbered axle vehicles; cars and trucks with 2 axels. What happens when a car with a trailer runs over the hoses? Front wheels START, back wheels STOP, trailer wheels START. A pickup pulling a tandem axle trailer, truck has "correct speed with a long wheel base, tandem axle trailer is going 3 - 5 times faster and hooked to truck?

You get the idea I may have been busted for speeding on a motorcycle going 30 MPH, but clocked at 53 MPH in a 30 mph zone but I wasn't passing anybody. I won the discussion with the officer, "OK, that makes sense. You didn't look like you speeding that fast."

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S&WHF 366

When I was stationed in Japan in the mid 1960's they were more concerned with how well you could control your car then with speed,.
If you had good brakes and good reflexes you could drive faster than some one who didn't.
The way they enforced this was to have a traffic cop suddenly flap a long bamboo pole down in front of your car at a predetermined distance. If everything was "up to snuff" you should be able to stop before hitting the pole. If it wasn't, you could be ticketed for "Failure to observe the front of you vehicle". (This also worked well with tailgaters.)

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

Two cables measure speed, one cable counts cars.

The California Highway Patrol used the "pacing" method for years, because the state legislature refused to authorize expenditures for radar. Nevertheless, pacing was both devious and effective. The officer would trail a suspected speeder by a quarter mile or more, often tucking in behind other traffic, matching the suspect's speed. When the officer had enough speed data to make the stop, he'd turn on his red lights, accelerate, and pull over the speeder. Unless you watched your rearview mirror like a hawk, you never knew when you were being paced. This was especially true for out-of-staters, who were looking for radar traps ahead of them. And if a speeder was coming up from behind, the officer would pull off at the next off-ramp, let the speeder pass, then pull back on, and begin the pacing.

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What, me worry?

My home town in the late 1950s used the two cable speed trap on a street that funneled traffic off a four lane highway....lots of speeders. Yes brakes applied heavily could foil the cable readings....and anger the cops. Some people tried to slam their brakes on to ruin/roll up the cable. That really made the cops mad. Problem was in a small town they knew everyone by sight.

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Bob.
SWCA 1821

Pacing is the first and still used method of catching speeders. It's simple and cheap. (what does a certified speedometer cost)

Us hot rod kids learned to watch our 6 when on the road at a early age

It used to and still might be part of the police package, I do not know. My one BIL worked on NYSP cars from the 50s till the late 80s.

Of course radar is far easier to use and cheap enough at least in my area just about every none detective type cop car has radar or laser on it. FWIW starting to see more of those plate readers on the cars also. As the price goes down more are bought. We even have a couple of two cop car towns and I car has a reader device on it.

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

In Europe, especially Germany, if you see a van parked on an overpass, back it down. They are measuring distance between cars, and will nail you for following too closely.

Yes, the tubes were used. In Arkansas they painted airplane outlines on the interstate instead of lines. I remember the tripod radar very well.

And during the gas shortages around Nashville they would leave unoccupied police vehicles on the right of ways with radar fired up to slow people down.

I do remember the rubber "hoses" across some speed trap areas - they operated much like the old "ding" hoses that service stations used to alert their attendants that a car had arrived (back when everything was not self-serve). Measuring the time interval between "dings" or signals gave the MPH. These went out of favor when Doppler radar guns came into use.

I also remember when I was in college at Arizona State in the late 50s that most of the guys who had cars went racing back to their off-campus dorms to grab lunch and then race back to the campus for classes. Often their paths took them through residential areas. In one of these areas, one of the residents had painted two white stripes in the street a measured distance apart, and then stood outside his home with a stop watch, figuring MPH and taking license numbers.

A group of us in that area decided that was chicken-uno-what, so one dark night we went out and painted at least a dozen white stripes in the street near the original ones, making that street look like a picket fence laying on its side. That pretty well stopped the citizen-vigilante. Never underestimate the ingenuity of the oppressed.

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

Palandin85020 your story reminds me of a fellow out in the country. There was a hopped up (1966) Cheval SS with loud mufflers that liked to roar down the road, stop peel rubber and grab rubber in all the gears. The fellow that got tired of all the noise strung a wire across the road that were anchored on each end with paint cans full of rocks. I understand it made quite the racket.

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Patriots Forever!!

The device you describe was called Truvello for "True Velocity". The department I started my career with had the only one in New Zealand in 1983.

Now to correct some misconceptions from above. The first cable "started" the stop watch when the front wheels ran over it, the second cable "stopped" the clock, again when the front wheels crossed it. This way the "speed" was checked accurately over a set distance. Rear/trailer or "second front axle" wheels had no effect, nor did different wheel bases.

Our device was calibrated for the cables to be set 1 meter (39") apart. In practice we set it a 1.025 meters (1 meter and 2.5 cm or 40") apart. This gave a margin of error in favour of the driver.

As for the "rolling out the Texas Stop sign" comments, I have a couple of Stop signs I like to watch, and at least half of the drivers I stop for running it swear it is a "Give Way sign. 25% swear that they did stop cause they felt the seat belt tighten. They don't realise that there needs to still be forward movement for this to occur and they only come to a complete stop when it releases again. and as for the rest??????

Made you slow down completely!

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Still Running Against the Wind

More and more vechicles come with runflat tires. Tires on my Vette are said to go 50 miles with no air in them. I will let someone else prove that out!

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

The CHP used to pride themselves on not needing radar, back when the state didn't want to be seen as oppressing the masses. (HA! Kinda funny now...) An officer's stalking/pacing skills were a big source of peer group status.

The radar got it's foot in the door by being at first limited to big rigs, with the old "It's for the children" routine, big rigs being capable of more carnage. Then it got okay'd for all vehicles on certain dangerous roads, then eventually they got around to authorizing it for everybody.

I think during our commutes and such we've all seen certain hot spots. I remember one in particular where I thought the CHP could have 5 motors out there and they would all be constantly writing tickets.

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TEAM DNF

Wow - I'm thinking standing on the brakes and possibly causing a serious collision to avoid running over a bamboo pole is totally crazy. I'm all for different license statuses based on skill level, maybe a lil' road course test and a big window sticker, but causing collisions just to say "gotcha" is strange.

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TEAM DNF

Ah, the 60s. Never got a single speeding ticket on the highway. Montana didn't have one. On the edge of towns there were signs that simply said "End of Speed Zone"

Then came the dreaded 55MPH speed limit. $5 ticket, pay on the spot and didn't go on your driving record. I got a lot of those. Many times they would tell you were the next guy was working. A case of a state being forced by the Feds to do something they didn't agree with.

Now its 80 on the interstate and 70 on 2 lane roads and if your only going 5-10mph over the HPs won't even flash you. I did get a warning for 85 in a 70 though. But, you will probably average about 200 miles per HP sighting in much of rural Montana if your not on the interstate. Getting passed while going 75 mph is a common occurrence.

But some perspective. More highway per person than any other state. I often go miles without meeting anyone. I drive all over taking my wife to her various hearings. If you slow down for the towns and villages and keep it around 75 your fine here. You can add 10 mph when passing and still be legal too. I often wonder when I pass out of state cars poking along what they must think of it.

In PA only the State Police could use radar, I think they are trying to change this of late. Some PD's would cheat a bit while pacing by using the speed needed to catch up to the vehicle being paced. We called that, "dive bombing".

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Stay safe people!

Heck your Vette is so low to the ground they may rip you frame off.!!

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Still Running Against the Wind

You just may be right! Doubt I will be proving or disproving that soon!

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

The South Dakota Highway Patrol started using aircraft in the early 1960s, and then revived the program in 1973 with a Supercub and then switched to a fixed gear Cessna 182 until they bought a 182 RG in 1981. In the mid 1990s they got a surplus OH-58C from the government (and then added a nose section from a Bell 206 and gave it a civilian paint job, which made it a very nice looking bird).

The 182s would more than earn their keep working marked sections of I-90 with a few patrol cars spaced over a few miles. And of course the marked sections in interstate were effective at slowing people down even when no one was in the air.

----

You can also pace cars based on passing mile markers on the interstate at night when traffic is light. You just wait until a speeding car in front of you passes a mile marker (i.e. he stops illuminating it), and time him until he passes the next one. 60 miles per hour equals 60 seconds per mile. 60mph/75mph = .8, .8 x 60 seconds = 48 seconds 75 mph = 48 seconds per mile. Similarly 44 seconds = 81 mph and a ticket.

Math and a stop watch comes in handy.

It's still the law in Pa. The PSP is the only PD that can use radar. I think Pa is the only state that has that restriction. We had two radar guns many years ago and would use them to back up our "estimated speed" because we used the Too Fast For Conditions section for most of our tickets. Finally somebody took our Department to court and the President Judge ruled that we were in violation. The PD was ordered to get rid of the radar and never use them again. Every year or so the Chiefs of Police Association tries to get the legislature to change the law to allow
all PD's to use radar. It rarely even gets to a vote. I doubt it will ever change.

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Dennis
He's got a gun!

I thought it was front tire to front tire car length had nothing to do with it. A very accurate speed detector

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Len

Virginia, while forbidding any citizen's use of radar detectors has at one time or another used all the methods mentioned here; and perhaps the real lulu of,.. "saving the chiddrens";.. aircraft speed detection.

I'm not sure how often the use, but at every state line coming into the state you see signage to that effect.

In a rough estimate of 300 hours flying time costs on a Cessna 182, the plane alone; the cost is better than 32 thousand. Gonna have to catch a lot of speeders to have any justification for such.

If for once an enforcement entity would just say outright, "we are using speed traps for an enhanced revenue stream first; and secondly, maybe the lesson learned will slow you down in the future", I would be pleased.

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wanna do right-- not right now

The Iowa Highway Patrol was using aircraft to catch speeders on the Interstates in the early 1990s. They would set up on Sunday mornings on the bypass around Des Moines. Traffic was moderate so the victims didn't cause traffic disruption. Got me one morning on my way to a shooting match. The whole setup was such good fun the Staties would also bring in the local cops to join in the fun and revenue.

They stopped doing it long ago. Don't know why but a good guess is they wrecked the plane.

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Bob.
SWCA 1821

We too had them, I think they were used by the State depts to count road useage.

It fall under traffic studies, a term used by States, railroad and the phone companies to get accurate totals.

My best guess is it falls under great rumors that you could get ticketed.

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A Country Boy Can Survive

Not all the time, when a business is audited for impact fees there usually will be two cables. The first counts all traffic, the second only the traffic that did not continue past the business. They just did this with the new Lidl that opened, and it will used to access their share of highway maintenance.

Ha! Little Wussy!

The mantle was passed to south, to Waldo and Lawtey, Florida...Waldo PD was disbanded in past few years, from citation abuses...

"Waldo's seven police officers wrote nearly 12,000 speeding tickets last year, collecting more than $400,000 in fines - a third of the town's revenue."

Florida town infamous for speed traps disbanding police force - CBS News

I was the first "bear in the air" in Wyoming.. Spent weeks painting stripes across the road in various areas.. We timed cars through the measured distances between stripes and called down speeds and descriptions of cars to waiting Ptlmn down the road.

Oft times followed the car and said, OK, that next one!"

Our pilot had been with the Game and Fish counting elk before joining the Patrol.. One crazy booger.. If he was flying to somewhere to work with a ground crew and saw a speeder with no one around, he'd fly down at car top level right over the car.. IF flying in the same direction as the car didn't convince them, he'd come at them face to face..

Our bear in the air program didn't last too long.

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Eccentric old coot

I remember back in the 60's when we would travel from Houston to New Orleans to visit my grandparents that we would travel on Highway 190 for a good bit of the trip and on that highway they had prominent signs stating that they used the VASCAR system to check speeds along it. I'm not sure what the VASCAR system is, but my Mom would be driving 80-90 mph and never got pulled over.

EDIT: The LSP also use aircraft to patrol I-10 on the bridge crossing the Atchafalaya Basin between Lafayette and Baton Rouge. They enforce that section of I-10 heavily as there have been some pretty nasty wrecks across that section with fatalities.

...if you don't want to get caught in the speed trap...just cut through the filling station...

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A Country Boy Can Survive

...that ol' speed cop ain't gonna catch us now!...

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A Country Boy Can Survive

The two hoses across the road to detect speed in Pennsylvania were called ESP or excessive speed prevention. Local police in Pa are not permitted to use radar and this device was a way around that. It was used in the 1970's. The strips were placed in the roadway, at a preremeasured distance. Their was a read out in the police car, of the speed that the vehicles passing over the strips were going. The officer monitoring the speed, would call ahead with the make, model, color and tag of the speeding car. The officer down the road would stop the speeding vehicle and write a citation. I can't remember why they stopped using this device.

...of course some people could talk their way out of a ticket...

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A Country Boy Can Survive

Stopped a gal in a convertible for speeding. When I got to her car, she was buck naked.. I said, "Lady, you were speeding, don't do that!!"
Got back in my car, crossed median and went the other way. This time it was me that was speeding..

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Eccentric old coot

They used the pace method in Utah when I was a kid, they would sit by the roadway and if they thought you were going too fast might pull out and actually ask you how fast you were going and you better know how fast you were going or they would right you up for negligent driving, of course a much stiffer ticket with alot more points against your record. I remember I had so many points that I had to go to "bad driver's class" on a Saturday morning. When I got there and went inside who do you think was there "Nearly everybody I knew..."
They used the pace method in Washington State for years and you had to "watch your six", especially if you were cutting in and out of slower moving traffic...thats how most guys got caught...make as few lane changes as possible was the trick. I got caught while thinking was I smarter than the WSP, you gotta watch your six all the time, I was running my mouth to my young wife, to her credit she did not say "I told you so."
Radar was used extensively I used to cruise along 5 miles above the posted speed limit and wait for a fast mover to come along with a fuzz buster on his dash and then move in behind him a couple hundred yards and watch his brakelights I used to call it "follow the fool", you also had to watch all of the freeway entrances after you went under an overpass, the WSP used to sit on the entrance way back on the hill and shoot you with radar after you went blasting by. The instant on stuff made fuzzbusters obsolete except you can tell if its working around you and that does give you some warning.
They also used aircraft, it was challenged in state supreme court on the grounds of entrapment so for a while if you pleaded not guilty you got a bye. I usually got caught by radar, plain and simple, now that I'm an old guy I haven't had a ticket for decades, some warnings but no tickets.

Officer~"I clocked you doing 105"

Speeder~"I was only doing 65"

Officer~"Here's your ticket, sign here"

Early 1970s, brother and I in an old Pontiac Chief going about 105 on a empty 2 lane road. HP pulls up alongside in his Dodge with a 440 and points us over. Tells us we should probably slow down in that old car with the poor tires and drives away. Montana. We kept it under 100 for a while.

Once years ago I averaged over 120mph on a 500 mile trip. Miles City, Montana to Missoula Montana in a little under 4 hours on the interstate. 1975 Trans AM, build 455, 2.73 rear gear and a set up turbo 400 transmission. It would chirp a set of 60 series radials when you went from 2nd to 3rd at around 100 mph. At 150 mph it takes 24 seconds from mile marker to mile marker. I have done it in under 23. 156+mph 22 seconds is 163+mph put I was out of power and never quite made that. Sold it after I lost my both my drivers licenses and never owned another sports car. I think about building one every now and then, Know where there is a Maverick Grabber and it would be sweet with a small block Ford 408, like I have in my jet boat, but best if I don't.