New 3D Speed Cameras Tested in Finland Spell Doom for Speeding Drivers

Although the best way to avoid getting a speed ticket is to actually drive safely, the truth of the matter is that quite a lot of drivers from all over the world tend to forget about this and push the pedal to the metal, quite often with some pretty tragic consequences.

Speed cameras are those surveillance solutions used to keep speedy drivers in check, and while most provide a rather limited set of information (typically, the vehicle's speed and exact hour/minute), that's not really the case with the Asset – Advanced Safety and Driver Support for Essential Road Transport – a very high-end system currently undergoing extensive testing in Finland, at the VTT Technical Research Centre.

As the Daily Mail informs us, the camera system is, without a doubt, the most advanced of its kind ever developed and delivers a lot more functions that simply telling whether the driver's overspeeding (although the double-lens, 3D camera will also do that, from a distance of up to 50 feet away).

For example, the built-in camera is capable of easily reading a car's license-plate and assessing whether the driver has paid his/her insurance (or other fees) or not, and can even determine whether the person behind the wheel is wearing a seat belt or not.

Furthermore, the camera also sports an infrared camera, capable of providing very important information regarding the weather conditions and the state of the road, and whether drivers are correctly adapting their speed to match the environment conditions or not.

Last, but certainly not least, it's important to mention that the camera can easily transmit photos of speeding drivers to a police station via an aerial broadcasting system, while the built-in power generator (for the time being, the camera is trailer-mounted) will provide enough juice for up to 8 hours of non-stop functioning.

The Asset camera was developed using European funding (around 7 million Euro for the R&D phase) and is expected to be deployed across Europe from 2013, with each unit costing roughly 50,000 pounds sterling (81,000 US dollars or 57,750 Euro).