Ebiz247.com Guide To Traffic Cams and Road Cams

If you travel by vehicle, either commuting to work, family vacations or over the road trucker, one of the most useful features of the internet is your ability to look at traffic and road conditions in real-time by Web cams. Most of these traffic cameras are installed and maintained by Department of Transportation agencies and are operational 24/7. Of course daylight hours are the best for viewing road and traffic conditions. For states without webcams check the road reports site for conditions.

Invention: Wing-mirror cameras

12:55 04 December 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Wing-mirror cameras

Car giant Honda is patenting a scheme that would let drivers see traffic conditions on the road ahead with their own eyes. It could even let them see how full a car park is, before leaving their house in the morning.

The idea is to build tiny cameras into its cars� wing mirrors. These "car cams" would look at the road both ahead and behind and use cellphone connections to send real time video back to a central server. Each car would also transmit its GPS location and speed, allowing the central server to build a collection of road views and traffic information, integrated into a digital map of the area.

Honda envisages a free access scheme, allowing any participating driver to use a home computer or an in-car navigation device to click on a map and view real-time road conditions and details of car speeds. Fixed cameras by the roadside could supplement the data.

For privacy, Honda suggests that all video footage would be supplied anonymously, and that all cameras would automatically switch off whenever the GPS device detects that it is close to the driver�s home or office.

Read the full car cam patent application.