What is a trap car?

Bait car

A bait car, also called a decoy car, hot car, or trap car, is a vehicle used by law enforcement agencies to capture car thieves or thieves who steal items from cars. [1] The vehicles are modified with audio/video surveillance technology, and can be remotely monitored and controlled. Those set up to catch car thieves may include GPS tracking. A «kill switch» may be installed in the vehicle allowing police to remotely disable the engine and lock all doors, preventing escape. A car set up to catch thieves who steal items from cars may be disabled so that it cannot be started and have specially prepared «bait property».

Overview [ edit ]

The bait car, often filled with valuable items to draw attention to it, is typically parked in a high-auto-theft area. In usual cases, the vehicle is simply left unlocked with the keys in the ignition. [2] If the car is set up to catch car thieves, when the car is stolen officers are immediately alerted, and can monitor the vehicle and send commands to control it such as disabling the engine, locking the doors or honking the horn. Live audio or video streaming devices may be installed allowing law enforcement personnel to determine how many suspects are in the car, what they are planning and if they are armed. [3] If the bait car is set up to catch thieves who steal items from cars, it may be monitored by video from a central location. The bait property, such as a tool kit or gym bag, will also be set up so it can be tracked and monitored. Bait cars can be used as part of a honey trap, a form of sting operation, in which criminals not known to the police are lured into exposing themselves. Unlike a sting operation that targets a known or suspected criminal, a honey trap establishes a general lure to attract unknown criminals. Bait cars are not considered entrapment because they merely afford criminals the opportunity to steal the car; entrapment constitutes law enforcement persuading or encouraging a person to commit a crime that they would not have committed otherwise.

By location [ edit ]

British Columbia [ edit ]

The largest bait car fleet in North America, which employs the Minneapolis model, is operated by the Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team (IMPACT), based in Surrey, British Columbia. Surrey was designated the «car theft capital of North America» by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 2002. [4] Their bait car program was launched by the Vancouver Police in 2002 and has contributed to a 55% drop in auto theft since then. [5] [6] [7]

Minnesota [ edit ]

In 2010, the Anti-Vehicle Crime Association of Minnesota presented an award to the Minneapolis Police for its Bait Vehicle Program, which had been running for twelve years at the time. [8] In 2002, the Minneapolis program inspired a similar project in Essex in the United Kingdom. [9]

In mass media [ edit ]

Bait cars (and the stings they are used in) have been featured in numerous documentary and reality television programs, including COPS, World’s Wildest Police Videos, and Jacked: Auto Theft Task Force. They were also the exclusive focus of the TruTV television series Bait Car. [10]

References [ edit ]

^«Bait Car Program Now Includes Theft From Vehicles». Archived from the original on February 19, 2015.
^
«Police department using bait to catch car thieves in the act». December 12, 2008. Archived from the original on January 21, 2016.
^
«Car thieves beware: You might find yourself on candid camera». Archived from the original on May 17, 2009.
^
«Surrey named car theft capital of North America». October 16, 2003. Archived from the original on 2003-10-16.
^
«Auto Crime Statistics & Prevention». Archived from the original on April 7, 2009.
^
«Vancouver police mark bait-car success — CBC News». CBC. 2009-09-30 . Retrieved 2021-12-23 .
^
«VPD’s Bait Car program celebrates seventh anniversary». www.newswire.ca.
^
«Minneapolis Police’s Bait Vehicle Program Recognized». Archived from the original on July 8, 2011 . Retrieved December 31, 2010 .
^
«Decoy car to trap thieves». BBC News. May 16, 2002.
^
«truTV — Reality TV — Comedy». Archived from the original on August 31, 2009 . Retrieved May 2, 2009 .

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preview

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Mousetrap car

A mousetrap car is a small vehicle whose only source of motive power is a mousetrap. Variations include the use of multiple traps, or very big rat traps, for added power.

Mousetrap cars are often used in physics or other physical science classes to help students build problem-solving skills, develop spatial awareness, learn to budget time, and practice cooperative behavior.

Design [ edit ]

The general style for a mousetrap car varies. [1] [2] A number of commercial vendors offer plans, kits and complete cars for sale. [3] [4] [5] [6] In addition to mousetrap cars, contests have been created for mousetrap boats. [7] and mousetrap airplanes. [8]

Spring power [ edit ]

A mousetrap is powered by a helical torsion spring. Torsion springs obey an angular form of Hooke’s law:

where τ is the torque exerted by the spring in newton-meters, and θ is the angle of twist from its equilibrium position in radians. κ is a constant with units of newton-meters / radian, variously called the spring’s torsion coefficient, torsion elastic modulus, or just spring constant, equal to the torque required to twist the spring through an angle of 1 radian. It is analogous to the spring constant of a linear spring.

The energy of U, in joules, stored in a torsion spring is:

When a mousetrap is assembled, the spring is initially twisted beyond its equilibrium position so that it applies significant torque to the bar when the trap is closed.

Power transmission to axle [ edit ]

This motion must be used to turn the car’s axle or wheels. The most common solution is to attach a string to the mouse trap’s arm and then wrap it around an axle. As the bar is released, it pulls on the string, causing the axle (and wheels) to turn.

Tying the string directly to the mousetrap’s bar, however, will not make good use of the energy stored in the spring. The distance between the opened and closed positions of the bar of a mousetrap is typically 10 cm, so this is how much string would be pulled. Wrapped around even a small diameter axle, this amount of string will not create enough revolutions to move the car as far as it might go.

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To get around this problem, most mousetrap cars add a lever to the bar so that the lever will pull a much greater length of string and cause the axle to turn many more revolutions.

Friction of wheels [ edit ]

Another reason to add a lever to the mousetrap bar is to reduce the amount of torque applied to the wheels. If too much torque is applied to the wheels, the force between the wheels and the ground will exceed the maximum frictional force due to the coefficient of friction between the wheel and ground surfaces. When this happens, the wheels slip and energy stored in the spring is wasted. Using a long lever on the mousetrap bar reduces the tension in the string due to the spring’s torque, and thus reduces the torque applied to the car’s wheels.

In addition to reducing the torque applied to the wheels, the coefficient of friction may be improved by using higher friction materials.

Distance car [ edit ]

Making this type of car revolves around having the most force from the spring transferred to the lever arm and making the drive axle rotate. In order to get the most distance out of your car, you must make the lever arm long. This allows the car to get more rotation out of the wheels because of the longer string that will come along with a longer lever arm. Then make the drive wheels larger because the higher the diameter of the wheel the more ground it covers. Along with this make sure to have the axles smaller than the wheel so there can be more pulling distance. Reduce the most friction you can because the more friction the more energy is lost in propelling the car. Mass should also be taken into account, the more the car weighs the more energy from the mousetrap spring will be used so it’ll be best to make the car light weight.

Speed car [ edit ]

Making a speed mouse trap car involves extracting the most energy you can from the mousetrap spring in a short distance. The lever arm needs to be shorter than the distance car’s because the shorter the arm is, the quicker the spring will snap, and thus more torque gets extracted from the spring. Most of the car’s weight is distributed to the back, where the drive axle is located. Built this way, the car will not have much drag in the front, slowing it down. The wheels don’t need to be too large but the axle should be larger in relation to the wheel. The wheels need good traction because without the right amount of friction the wheels attached to the drive axle will slip and not push the car forwards because of all the added torque.

References [ edit ]

^Wired.com Sunday Afternoon Project: Building a Mouse Trap Car By Dave Banks
^Instructables.com, Mouse Trap car
^Docfizzix.com, Mouse Powered Vehicles
^Escience.ca, Efson Science Mousetrap Car Kit
^Kelvin.comArchived 2007-11-16 at the Wayback Machine, Kelvin company Mousetrap Car Kit
^Kidder.ca [permanent dead link] , Kidder company catalog page
^Lakeviewjhs.netArchived 2008-07-20 at the Wayback Machine, Mousetrap Boat Contest
^AB.ca, 2001–2002 Parkland Science Olympics Archived January 22, 2008, at the Wayback Machine

External links [ edit ]

Mousetrap Car Demonstration of a mousetrap powered car