THE UNUSUAL “SPEED LIMIT ENFORCED BY AIRCRAFT” SIGN
Remember the times when you had to memorize all the traffic signs in order to successfully pass the written test and finally get your driver’s license? We bet you wondered if you would ever get to see some of those traffic signs on a real road. Nonetheless, we are absolutely certain there is a sign you are quite unlikely to have seen even in the Driver’s Manual, UNLESS you are a Californian.
The “Speed Limit Enforced by Aircraft” traffic sign is generally placed in California’s highways – to be precise, on Highway 17 north of Pasatiempo and on Highway 1 – and it indicates that the section of the highway is supervised by aircraft on a regular basis. It is used for both traffic directions and placed at intervals of 40 km from the beginning till the end of the patrolled section. There are two versions of the “Speed Limit Enforced by Aircraft” sign: the SR14 (CA) one, that was considered obsolete in 2003, along some other, and thus replaced with the newer one – the R48-2 (CA Code) sign. The latter does not depict an airplane.
It is interesting to mention that the sign was introduced in California in 1960, with the first patrolling helicopters in 1962. The aircrafts started cooperating with the ground patrol services only in 1981 with the task of speed enforcing and traffic observation. This mixed patrolling format works like this: if the pilot of the helicopter notices or suspects a speed limit violation or a traffic infringement, he informs the officer on the ground who has the task of verifying it. The procedure can also go the other way round, with the pilot receiving a radio call from the ground officer to check out the situation.
According to the pilots, it is much easier to detect a rule breaker among drivers from above. The speeding cars are usually spotted right away, simply by sight or on high-definition cameras. The white perpendicular lines on the highway help a lot in calculating the speed of the offending car, while the pilot flies over them and above the vehicle at the same speed. The lines are painted with a one-mile interval.
Depending on the outcome, the officer on the road issues the ticket to the infringer, but both officers are obliged to appear in court.
However, the aerial speed enforcement is becoming less active, due to the fact it has never been cost-effective. The speed is monitored during general patrols nowadays, as it is definitely not a priority task. Plus, the Lidar devices (Light Detection and Ranging) are becoming predominant since they allow the ground officers to use lasers for pinpointing the speed of the vehicles.
This is mostly why the number of tickets issued thanks to the aircraft verification is insignificant today. If you wonder what a general aerial patrol means, well, think of such operations done by aviation units as pilot training, surveillance, search and rescue, VIP flights, personnel and prisoner transport, fugitive searches, etc.
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