Patent ID: 7633433

Claim:
A method for detecting and documenting traffic violations at a traffic control light in which passage of vehicles through a predetermined observation area is determined by deriving distances for respective points of impingement of radar signals that are reflected by said vehicles and by determining whether said distances, and thus said points of impingement, are located within a distance range defined by said observation area, the position of which relative to a transmitting and receiving site of said radar beam is known, comprising: directing said radar beam at least at one lane of a roadway, wherein a radar lobe formed by said radar beam forms said observation area, which, in the direction of travel of said vehicles, is located at least partially before a stop line; determining the relative position of said stop line marked on lanes of said roadway relative to said transmitting and receiving site of said radar beam; deriving the relative position of a point of impingement on one of said vehicles located within said observation area relative to said transmitting and receiving site of said radar beam from radar signals reflected from said one of said vehicles; determining the perpendicular distance to a stop line from the known relative position of said stop line and the position of a point of impingement on said one of said vehicles and is linked with said point of impingement; deriving the speed of said one of said vehicles from said radar signals and linked with the points of impingement; and determining the time point at which the vehicle crosses said stop line based on said derived speed and the distance of the point of impingement of said one of said vehicles from said stop line and if said time point is outside the green-light phase of said traffic control light associated with said stop line, initiating the creation of an image of said vehicle.