Motoring Discussion > Pairs of rubber hoses across the road Miscellaneous
Thread Author: L'escargot Replies: 15
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 Sat 10 Aug 13 07:33 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - L'escargot
Do they measure speed or number of vehicles?
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 Sat 10 Aug 13 07:49 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - jc2
Number,usually.
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 Sat 10 Aug 13 08:51 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - Fursty Ferret
Both.
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 Sat 10 Aug 13 09:48 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - jc2
Speed ones have to be very,very carefully set up and maintained as ANY horizontal move ment of the tube will affect the readings-normally used to get a feeling for the speed of the traffic-not normally accurate enough for prosecutions.Commonest use is as a counter-a recording device is usually chained to a piece of roadside furniture.Remote reading electronic devices are now much more common.
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 Sat 10 Aug 13 21:12 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - BobbyG
Usually for speed and will be followed up shortly by speed humps being put in, justified by the readings from the rubber hoses!
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 Sat 10 Aug 13 21:33 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - Robin O'Reliant
I can't see how they'd measure speed as the wheelbase varies on all cars.
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 Sat 10 Aug 13 21:51 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - BobbyG
Surely the time taken for a single object ie one axle to cross one line and then the other - doesn't matter about wheelbase?
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 Sat 10 Aug 13 22:07 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - Focusless
.
Last edited by: Focusless on Sat 10 Aug 13 at 22:07
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 Sat 10 Aug 13 23:10 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - Focusless
>> .

Before realising my mistake and subsequent edit, I wrote that speed is distance (= wheelbase) divided by time. But that was because I was thinking of just a single hose rather than a pair; perhaps you were thinking of the same thing RR?
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 Sun 11 Aug 13 16:02 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - Old Navy
I remembered from my dim distant lorry driving days the police would get extremely peed off if you braked across the triple hose speed detection system of the day, ripping the hoses off the road. :-)

A google came up with the DS2 speed detection system.

www.ukspeedtraps.co.uk/speed02.htm
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sun 11 Aug 13 at 16:03
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 Sun 11 Aug 13 18:20 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - MD
What about the distance between axles?
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 Sun 11 Aug 13 18:51 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - Armel Coussine
Oh do stop it... axles schmaxles...
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 Sun 11 Aug 13 19:21 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - Zero
>> What about the distance between axles?

Makes no odds, pneumatic hoses used as a speed trap is technology that went out with the ark.
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 Mon 12 Aug 13 08:15 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - Cliff Pope
If you are ever at a loose end you can go and walk on them and push the count up a bit.
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 Mon 12 Aug 13 08:23 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - -
>> If you are ever at a loose end you can go and walk on them
>> and push the count up a bit.
>>

Hmm some mischief potential there Cliff, do some fast step skipping like the Double Dutch'ers and the recorder would have a fit.

I expect the machines are calibrated to accept figures within reasonable tolerances and ignore extremes, vehicles passing in opposite directions (or the heinous criminal that overtakes, should get life) at the same moment would throw up all sorts of odd readings.
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 Mon 12 Aug 13 09:16 
 Pairs of rubber hoses across the road - L'escargot
>> If you are ever at a loose end you can go and walk on them
>> and push the count up a bit.
>>

In the days when there were rubber strips across the road just before traffic lights we used to jump up and down on them to change the lights from red to green.

www.igg.org.uk/gansg/00-app1/st-furn.htm

"Another problem was in towns where a minor and little used road joined a busy main road, often the lights would stop traffic on the main road when no traffic was waiting on the minor road.

The solution was to add a sensor to detect approaching traffic and change the lights accordingly. The first vehicle-activated traffic signals were introduced in the UK 1932 (oddly enough the first set also exploded). These had rubber strips set into the road about thirty feet (9m) before the lights which operated an electrical switch. If there was no traffic on the main route a vehicle crossing the strips on the minor route would set the lights in its favour. The rubber strips were about three inches wide and can be represented by thin black line extending half way across the road (they did not monitor traffic leaving the lights). The automatic traffic light became the most common type and the rubber strips were only phased out in the later 1980's, replaced by thin wire sensors set into the road surface. "
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