Enforcing vehicle laws means opportunities for Lanham company by Kevin J. Shay | Staff Writer Christopher Anderson⁄The Gazette

‘‘Optotraffic was started in response to our looking for spinoffs to the commercial markets,” said J. Marcos Sirota, president and CEO of Sigma Space. Optotraffic’s technology is used to enforce traffic laws.

Some Maryland companies are getting a boost from a growing law enforcement trend: using cameras to catch speeders and red-light runners. Among those is Optotraffic, a subsidiary of aerospace engineering company Sigma Space Corp. of Lanham. Optotraffic is involved in all phases of the process — design, development, installation, monitoring, violation processing and public education support.

The company has conducted numerous traffic studies employing the technology in Maryland, including in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, concluding what may be obvious to many drivers: Very few people drive the speed limit. Optotraffic has a contract for red-light enforcement cameras in Edmonston and is negotiating with two other suburban Maryland cities, said J. Marcos Sirota, president and CEO of Sigma Space.

In addition, the company recently obtained a patent for a compact system that uses laser radiation in the form of optical pulses to determine vehicles’ speeds. The new system, which operates with a sensor, can monitor vehicles in several lanes and record only those that actually travel a fixed speed above the limit, Sirota said. He co-founded Sigma about a decade ago, and has seen it grow from a handful of employees to about 100 now. Revenues grew about 58 percent, to $12.5 million, from 2006 to 2007. The Optotraffic subsidiary formed a few years ago.

‘‘We are using [the new system] already onred-light enforcement and tested it significantly on speed enforcement,” Sirota said. ‘‘Our state-of-the-art detection systems, coupled with high-resolution photo and video systems, ensure the highest exposure and prosecutable rates.”

While the use of enforcement cameras is growing, the increase is not as fast as some would like, said Jonathan Adkins, a spokesman for the Governors Highway Safety Association in Washington, D.C. Many more jurisdictions across the nation use red-light cameras than speed cameras — about 300 to 35, he said.

Red-light cameras have been used in Maryland for years, while Montgomery County became the first jurisdiction in the state to employ speed systems last year. The county recently awarded a contract worth up to $19 million to install and maintain 24 speed-enforcement cameras to Affiliated Computer Services, a Dallas information technology company.

By BILL VLASIC Published: February 12, 2008

DETROIT — Drivers have never had so many distractions tempting them to take their eyes off the road and their hands off the wheel.

Talking on cellphones and typing text messages while driving has already led to bans in many states. But now auto companies, likening their latest models to living rooms on the road, are turning cars into cocoons of communication systems and high-tech entertainment. Some drivers are packing their car interiors with G.P.S. navigation screens, portable DVD players and even computer keyboards and printers.

State Senator Carl L. Marcellino of New York learned this firsthand while riding in a cab in Miami — the driver was watching a boxing match on a television mounted on the dashboard. “I can understand a monitor in the rear, but up front it is a different world,” said Mr. Marcellino, who sponsored a bill last year to ban all “display generating devices” in the driver’s view. New York already has a law against TV sets in the front seat. The driver shouldn’t be doing anything other than driving,” Mr. Marcellino said.

Motorists have always engaged in risky behavior, whether it is eating a sandwich, arguing with a spouse, applying makeup or studying a map while speeding down the interstate. But safety experts say the influx of electronics is turning cars into sometimes chaotic — and distracting — moving family rooms.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 80 percent of vehicle crashes and 65 percent of close calls are caused in part by driver distraction.

And some devastating accidents have drawn further attention to the dangers. Last June, five teenage girls were driving to a vacation home in upstate New York when their sport utility vehicle crashed head-on into a tractor-trailer, killing all of them.

The police later learned from phone records that the driver had been typing text messages on her phone just before she swerved out of her lane. Toxicology tests ruled out alcohol and drugs as possible causes. The rise in distraction-related accidents is chilling to auto-safety advocates who typically study air bags and rollovers.

Nick Bunkley and Mary M. Chapman contributed reporting.

February 4, 2008
New research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that speed cameras reduce highway speeds, the Governors Highway Safety Association said Jan. 31. IIHS studied Scottsdale, Ariz., and the Washington, D.C. suburb of Montgomery County, Md., which both have implemented cameras.
About 13,000 U.S. deaths per year result from speeding-related accidents, a total that represents about one-third of all traffic fatalities. “Despite progress in so many other areas of highway safety, as a nation, little success has been shown at addressing the speeding challenge. There is little public recognition of the problem,” GHSA said, “and . . . law enforcement faces numerous obstacles enforcing speed limit laws.” GHSA said its survey found that jurisdictions believe increased enforcement of speeding-related laws has become very difficult because of uncertainty in highway safety funding and a smaller number of officers because of retirements, as well as an increased emphasis on homeland security issues.
>In 2006, Scottsdale became the first U.S. city to demonstrate the effectiveness of fixed speed cameras on a major highway. Before the cameras were installed, 15 percent of drivers were driving faster than 75 mph (the posted speed limit it is 65 mph). The new IIHS study showed that, with the cameras in place, the number of violators plunged to 1 to 2 percent. The Scottsdale 101 Program Evaluation estimated the total number of target crashes in non-peak periods was reduced by about 54 percent.
Montgomery County is using its cameras to enforce limits of 35 mph or less in residential areas and school zones. Since the installation of the cameras, the percentage of vehicles going more than 10 mph faster than the posted limits fell by 70 percent. Only about 35 jurisdictions in the country use speed cameras in their enforcement efforts, said GHSA, which said that the number “must be greatly increased if we are to make any progress at reducing speed-related fatalities. GHSA looks forward to more jurisdictions implementing speed camera programs and hopes to draw further attention to the speeding issue when we hold our 2008 Annual Meeting in Scottsdale this fall.”

January 23, 2008
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Mark V. Rosenker spoke yesterday at the 2008 Washington, D.C. Auto Show in which he said the auto industry has recognized the limitations of improving the crashworthiness of its vehicles and has now shifted its focus to developing innovative technologies to help prevent accidents entirely.
“For several decades, the number of fatalities has been dropping, and more importantly, the fatality rate has also been dropping,” said Rosenker, attributing this to many things such as the use of seatbelts and child restraint systems; the development of airbags, antilock brakes, crash-absorbing vehicle frames; and campaigns to reduce drunk driving. However, as the decreases in fatalities and injury rates have leveled off in recent years, Rosenker said the industry has, “reached some practical limits in combating the physical forces involved in crashes. In recognition, the auto industry is moving beyond crash mitigation and into a new era where technology will help us prevent accidents.”
Recently, the NTSB added the issue of preventing collisions using enhanced vehicle safety technology to its list of Most Wanted Safety Improvements. At the event Rosenker highlighted the following categories of crash avoidance technology:
Vehicle-based Crash Avoidance Systems - Rear-end crash warning systems, adaptive cruise control, and automatic braking systems are designed to prevent or at least mitigate this most common type of crash. Lane departure avoidance systems and curve-speed warning systems are being developed to target the most fatal type of events, run-off-the-road accidents.
Infrastructure Telematics - A DOT initiative that includes road-based systems to provide drivers with a sophisticated means for obtaining information about their vehicles and the road, such as location-specific weather conditions, route-specific road closures, and work zone status. Adverse weather is associated with 800,000 injuries and more than 7,000 fatalities a year.
Additionally, Rosenker noted that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is revising its New Car Assessment Program, which ranks automobiles on their crashworthiness using a 5-star rating system, because 95 percent of 2006 model year vehicles received 4 or 5 stars. The new system will reflect more modern crash avoidance technology.
The complete text of Rosenker’s speech may be obtained at

Customers are frequently asking us for advice on the best mounting location for a radar detector. Unfortunately, there is not an easy answer. Choices usually come down to either mounting the detector high on the windshield or visor or low on the windshield or dashboard, and there are advantages and disadvantages to both.
High Mounting
Positioning a radar detector high on a windshield, such as by the rear-view mirror or clipped to a visor gives you better protection against police radar. A detector that is mounted high will catch some radar signals sooner than with a lower mounting. This is particularly true in more hilly terrain, or when your vehicle is travelling up a hill and a police officer is targeting traffic from the other side. A high mounted detector will encounter the radar signal sooner, providing you with more time to adjust your speed.
With a high mounting, however, you risk missing a laser alert. At 1000 feet, the light from a police laser gun is only around 2 feet wide, and this light has to hit your radar detector before you will get an alert. Since the officer is aiming the laser at a front license plate or a headlight, there is a good chance that a high mounted detector this narrow beam.
Low Mounting
A radar detector mounted low on the windshield or attached directly to the dash (with Velcro or a dash pad) will provide the best all-around solution. You will lose a little in radar range, but will gain a lot in the ability to detect laser. Of course, a radar detector alone is not enough to guarantee protection against police laser, so if laser is used in your area be sure that you have a passive solution like Laser Veil or a laser jammer.
Our Recommendation
We recommend you mount high if laser is not used in your area, or if you have an active laser jammer installed.
We recommend you mount low if laser is used in your area and you are using only a passive laser defense product (or no specific laser defense product).