$500,000 dollars have been poured into technological gear for a couple of vans over in Houston, Texas. With the backing of government funding and research it’s police forces that are packing the most heat when it comes to in-car tech. The wiki page on the subject gives you an insight into the sheer amount of gear the boys in blue carry with them and as a state best known for it’s gun toting criminal activity you’d be forgiven for assuming the 6 digit figure was something to do with crime-watch. Alas, this is not the case!
Perhaps you’d guess that these vans were being used for taking candid photos of the public like the ever troublesome Google streetview cars – featured here as the villain in a “local-man-turns-hero” scenario. Well with this guess you wouldn’t be far wrong, but there are 2 key differences.
- The general public will be getting behind this project. Choosing to spend their own tax dollars on the project shows just how much they want to see it happen.
- The cameras will be pointing downwards.
Don’t worry if you haven’t managed to figure it out yet. If you have then I’d say you’ve probably seen the story somewhere in the news, otherwise you’d do well to get out and buy yourself a crystal ball and start a new business, because this is a brand new idea featuring equally new technology.
Bruno Rodriguez, and Patrick Johnson spend their days drawing stares and collecting data in the city’s laser-equipped Houston Street Surface Assessment Vehicle.
All this fuss is about potholes. Cracks in the road that appear over time and challenge the suspension of even the most hardy vehicles – but it’s not just springs and pistons that are being tested.
“Obviously, everyone wants to work hard for their district,” he said. “But if there’s hard data, regardless of what district it’s in, I think … it’s important to really start addressing the more dire needs first.”
[Both quotes sourced from chrom.com. You can read more here.]
The technology is giving government funding a shake-up in terms of delegation and priority. The research allows informed decisions to affect the treatments to the local areas; rather than a group of ageing politicians applying volume to emphasise concern. They’ve used vans like these since late 2009, and they’re still going strong. Resources are being sent to locations that most need it and there’s no argument for where those are – in the meantime councils and councillors are being challenged to present data rather than brash opinions backed up by signatures.
Who’d have thought something as simple as a pothole would have the power to shake an infrastructure?
