Yeah I know these are used for counting vehicles but can they also be used for detecting vehicle speed?
Description: two pneumatic hoses, affixed to a road. They lead to a box that's locked to a telephone pole. Location is southern California. On a minor artery road.
Doubtful that it's to survey if a new stop sign is needed since the next street is minor, dead ends into this one and already has a stop sign. The next intersection with another minor artery already has a stop sign.
Extremely doubtful that a traffic light is being considered since there isn't anywhere near the amount of traffic to justify one.
This is located on a slope. Many cars speed down here. That's why I'm wondering about speed sensing by this device.
It's for a traffic study. For traffic volume and speed.
Depends on the state, but it's pretty common to to a speed study to see how traffic is flowing. This can result in adjusting the speed limit to match the majority of traffic. Or implement other traffic calming measures if a lower speed is required for some reason.
It could also lead to more enforcement I guess but where I'm from that's not its intended purpose.
Just wanted to add that California in particular has a law requiring cities to study average speed before they change a speed limit. (And then have to pick a speed that 85% of traffic can follow, unless there are extra safety concerns.)
You can often get out of a speeding ticket thanks to this, as it's pretty common for the traffic studies to be out of date or to have flaws that you can argue about.