Ford patents tech where its cars could have in-built speed cameras

Ford has had a patent approved which enables a cop car to use a set of in-built sensors to detect speeding vehicles.

The patent outlines that the system would note the car violating the limit 'by a large margin', then capture images of recognisable identifying features of the speeding vehicle, such as a reg plate, make, model, paint colour, bodywork damage, sticker, aftermarket accessory….you get the picture (pun intended).

The photos would then – in the scenario given in the paperwork – be transmitted to another police car, or a roadside unit to continue tracking the vehicle via the Internet of Things. At that point, the second police car would get instructions on its dash screen or via an audio beep through the car’s sound system (which on any UK motorway at rush hour could be an acoustic nightmare).

Once alerted, the second car could fire up the blues-and-twos by way of a visual warning to the driver to slow down, or take other action with the information recorded (get more images showing that the same car hasn't slowed down).

The application stresses that the examples given are only that, and not meant to limit Ford in how it goes about executing the engineering of this tech suite. So the info could be corroborated between devices such as radar, cameras and lidar – all of which make a record of the violation.

It also says the tech – referred to as the ‘speeding violation responder system’ – could be used beyond speeding violations, and look to other traffic infringements to nab unsuspecting drivers. Hmm, interesting name.

The patent goes on in comprehensive detail about how the tech might be used in both manual and autonomous cars, but there's no signs from Ford about the tech being integrated in any commercial capacity. Of course, here in UK, we have the threats from the EU's mandatory speed limiters which might stop this patent from being useful out of the blocks.

Though as more vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication becomes possible, it doesn't half make you wonder if such messaging could eliminate middle-lane hoggers. What do you think, Internet?