Whatever happened to the helicopter traffic reporters?
QHere’s a question that’s been bothering me for quite a while. Why did helicopter traffic reporters go away? They disappeared out of the blue a few years ago. Now traffic reporters seem to rely on inadequate cameras and sensors and frequently don’t know what the problem is, only that traffic is slowing or stopped.
There must be a good reason helicopters quit flying. Surely you can ferret it out.
— PAt Pierce, SAntA ClArA
A
Paging Joe-the-Chopper-Traffic-Guy: “The short answer for why there are no helicopters — or planes for that matter — anymore: money and technology.
“It cost a boatload of bucks to fly, especially helicopters. In the old days, pre-internet, radio and TV stations and newspapers were the dominant forms of advertising and made oodles of caboodle. All that cash paid for all those aircraft. That dried up long ago.
“Fortunately, technology has improved quite a bit and, in some ways, has made looking out the window of an aircraft seem ridiculous.
Plus, even when we were flying, we couldn’t see the
big picture. We just saw what we were flying over at that moment. “Helicopters and airplanes only flew a couple
of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon. That was all anyone could afford, even when stations were relatively wealthy. Plus, you could never have enough aircraft in the air to cover everything that was going on in the entire region.
“GPS technology has really changed the equation. In its infancy, it was not very accurate. But it has become very good.
“As to why we don’t always know why something is slowing down, it’s because of the human factor. The sensors will show a slowdown, but it may be that no humans have called in to the CHP to report what the problem is. Or, sometimes they have only reported the problem on their
Waze app without notifying CHP. So we never get details or updates.
“Thank goodness for the sensors. They at least show when a backup dissipates or changes, and we can deduce what’s happening at the scene.” Q I sometimes get a whiff of ammonia when driving on the freeway behind a truck. Why is that? — FrAncis Fletcher
A
Trucking folks say that at times the catalytic action may be slightly “ammoniarich” on older trucks and buses, usually while the engine has not yet warmed. This can result in the release of a bit of ammonia for brief periods.
The amount is very low, but our noses are very sensitive to ammonia, and we can detect levels as low as 10 parts per billion. These are not harmful levels.