LAPD to Test Gun That Immobilizes Cars via Radio Waves

Aren't the cars already stationary in LA? How can you have a high speed chase in heavy traffic? :roll:

 

A high-speed chase in heavy traffic is also known as a Demolition Derby... :wink:

 

I don't imagine they need to worry about accidentally hitting an airplane at 55' If it ONLY stops fuel injection, Prius owner's can still sneak away on electric. I'm more worried that the criminal types will be immobilizing the police cruisers. Imagine what would happen in Iraq if someone could force the Hummers and other military vehicles to a stop without even having to plant a roadside bomb. Sitting ducks all.

 

Heh, the joy of being the leading weapons developer Whatever you invent can be being used against you in a few decades. Can't wait until Bush's mini-nukes start proliferating. :roll:

At least this one is relatively harmless.

 

I'm skeptical of this whole thing. Sounds like someone's playing a joke on somebody.

 

Well, okay... if you read it on the internet, that's different...

 

I'm not so much interested in a gun that stops the car, as blowing out the overloud, over-amped stereo system at 2 AM in the morning.

Old Mr. Grumpus

 

anti-subwoofer zapper

 

The basic idea for an electronic car killer seems to trace back to the movie 2fast2furious. They had some hollywood special effects device that could stop a car electronically, probably with lots of sparks. All special effects go better with lots of sparks.

One avenue you could pursue would be contact devices - a little missle that dumps a big electric pulse into the frame of a car upon contact. There is a slight problem that you would have to steer and aim at the same time. The US air force spends roughly one million dollars (us) per person to train people how to do this properly. Don't know how much your local PD is planing to spend on training. If you miss you have now unleashed a nasty little missle on the public. You would also have the problem of trying not to run over your own spent missle at high speeds after it did its job.

Non contact devices would send a radio frequency/magnetic/electrical pulse at the target vehicle. Any wire or circuit trace can act as an antenna. If you can induce enough current in them you will eventually overload and destroy things.

With a car like the Pri where a computer controls everything but the fuzzy dice, *Pauses* OK, including the fuzzy dice, it would likely destroy a critical funtion. Some problems with this:

Right now we don't have anything that works. The metal body of a car will tend to shield its innards from passing RF energy. This is why you can drive past airport radars, high tension lines, 10,000 watt radio stations, etc, and not care.

Electromagnetic energy tends to spread out sideways as it travels. That Cadillac dealership that you didn't really notice in back of your target could take as much damage as the intended target, maybe more.

If you do kill a car in mid run you might well kill the driver and passerbyes too, say when their steer-by-wire failed catastrophically.

Also, a large flat metal surface (billboard, passing semi) could bounce it back at you, leaving you feeling really stupid if you killed your own car by mistake

 

I see a new episode of the Keystone Cops coming!