What a Flock Camera Looks Like
Most people walk past these every day without noticing them. The photographs below were taken by volunteers on public streets across the country, so you can learn to recognize the hardware before you go looking.
How to recognize one
- A small dark rectangular box, usually about the size of a shoebox, mounted high on a slim pole.
- A solar panel on top in most installations, which is the giveaway. Ordinary traffic cameras rarely carry their own power.
- Pointed at the roadway, not the intersection. These read plates on passing vehicles rather than watching for red light violations.
- Often a slim dedicated pole set just off the shoulder, though they are also strapped to existing utility poles and signal masts.
- No flash and no signage. Unlike most speed and red light cameras, there is usually nothing telling you it is there.
Other vendors make similar hardware. If you are not sure what you are seeing, photograph it from a public sidewalk and send it over, or report it directly on DeFlock.
Every photograph on this page is freely licensed and was contributed to Wikimedia Commons by the volunteer credited beneath it. They may be reused under the terms of their individual licences, with credit to the photographer. No vendor marketing images are used here.
Spotted one that is not on the map yet? Check the map and add it. A camera nobody has documented is a camera nobody can ask a city council about.