D.C. Commuters to be Scanned With Infrared Cameras

owlgorithm writes "Washington, D.C. area commuters are going to be "scanned like groceries at the supermarket" in order to catch single-occupant vehicles who are illegally using carpool lanes. The article, from the Washington Post, says that infrared cameras capable of detecting human skin will be installed, rather than the visible-spectrum cameras in use today. So much for using dummies in the front seat."

Wait...

[daveschroeder]

A local municipal government agency, using technology to solve a problem, as part of its charge to the public?

O, the humanity!

Solution to Privacy Concerns

[p0tat03]

1 - Have a machine vision backend analyze images coming back from cameras, picking out "guilty" cars along with their plates. Discard other data.
2 - Ensure that the code used for this vision system is open to public scrutiny.
3 - Catch the crooks, and the regular folk don't even get recorded to a hard drive at any point.
4 - ???
5 - You know the rest...

Re:I'd almost bet some money...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

1. Burqa-wearing folk will have a field day.

They might. I don't think fabric blocks that much IR. A person wearing full-body clothing would still be warmer than a mannequin.

Re:Big Brother

[MikeJ9919]

Oh please...this has nothing to do with government's desire for power...this is about the government's desire for money. It's just like red light cameras, parking meters that reset when you drive away (instead of mechanical meters that continue to run and let someone else piggyback), etc. Yes, the desire for money is intimately related to the desire for power, but it is not the same. Yes, all the technologies I've mentioned have desirable secondary effects (reducing commuter congestion, injuries at intersections, and clearing parking spaces), but mostly it's about governments getting more money to spread around (sometimes into their own pockets in the form of better salary and benefits, and frequently to their constituents in the form of pork barrel spending so they'll be happier and re-elect them.)

is it worth the trouble?

[plastic_grass]

I'm not in an area that has carpool lanes but:
a.) Is it worth the trouble for so much money to be spent enforcing the carpool lane rules.
b.) Is it worth the effort for drivers to spend the resources on a warm dummy to beat the system?

More seriously, what about children?

[Albanach]

I've used the HOV lane into DC with a child in an infant seat behind me. The camera isn't going to spot that.

Am I going to have to get sworn affidavits stating the child was with me? Should I take photos on my journey? Are HOV lanes 18+ now?

Why is the US culture so into punishing people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the US culture so into punishing people? If you ride a train without a ticket: in the UK they will ask you to buy a ticket, in Canada they will fine you, in the USA they will arrest you. WTF USA? Aren't there better things to do than punish carlane cheaters?

Re:Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, what a lovely idea. So now I can use those HOV lanes by myself, when I get the ticket bring a "witness" to court who will claim they were in the back seat, and get off free and generate bad publicity for "automated enforcement". Sounds like a win-win.

Actually, confusing the camera is a good plan.

[CFD339]

Think about how you'd write the code for the machine. Your job is to count -- you have to find at least two distinct signatures. If you find more than one that is distinct, you ignore that car. If you find less than one, what do you do? Probably you consider this a detection error. A thermally reflective glass coating would work. I'd bet a heat pack hand warmer on the dashboard would do it too.

If it were me, I'd try a thermal hand warmer pack on the dashboard by the passenger seat; and maybe one each on a string in the back seat about where heads would be for back seat passengers.

Remember, glass is transparent in the visual spectrum, but can be opaque in the infrared. I know this from using Thermal Imaging Cameras in houses that are on fire. A big living room window can look just like a wall -- or even a mirror -- through the screen of a TIC depending on what outside temperature. You can see the shape of a person on the TIC when what you're looking at is a porcelain shower stall. Your own heat is being reflected back at you.
 

Re:More seriously, that's not what HOV lanes are f

[techno-vampire]

That's not how the law is written, it just says that you must have two or more people in the car. Now, if you want to change it to "two or more licensed drivers," that's another issue, and opens up a nasty can of worms about enforcement.

i'd really like to know how they got ir to work...

[blackcoot]

... through glass (which is almost totally reflective for the long wave ir cameras that i've used). i wonder if there's something special about the glass they use in vehicles...

Re:Wait...

[arivanov]

Anti-illegal immigrant technology actually. Used mostly to look for stowaways in luggage and cargo.

I like it

[TheSync]

Speaking as a DC area commuter who takes I-95 in Virginia everyday, this is a great idea.

When traffic is heavy, any small distraction can turn into a back-up as the flow phase changes from movement to stoppage.

So on I-95, cops patrol the HOV lanes, and when they find a violator they turn on their lights and pull the miscreant over.

Meanwhile, the very action of turning on their lights and pulling the miscreant over slows down the traffic in the non-HOV lanes, leading to a back-up.

I'd much prefer that HOV violators are detected by camera and mailed tickets than stopped by a police car.

Re:Big Brother

[Markus Landgren]

Remember, the ultimate goal of people riding alone in their cars is to use it as a burka, putting up a wall and shielding themselves from other people. For all I care the authorities can put up powerful CO2 lasers and burn them to a crust.

Re:But....

[Heembo]

Just heat one a bit in the microwave before you go But then you will be chopping up and sewing together bodies all the time, not to mention the inevitable blood. Surely, lets crack this problem. Can't we have some kind of synthetic doll that can be heated by your car lighter socket that would fool this sensor? Certainly we could mod some kind of heated inflatable doll with special synthetic skin to evade the sensors! Maybe we could layer it with real skin, know any good taxidermists? Let the cracking begin!

How about my big dog?

[gelfling]

Dog Body Heat = 1 standard human commuter unit.

Re:Definitely not a new violation of rights

[caluml]

And in any case, infrared is only slightly more penetrating that visible light,

Which is why the stop light is red - red is less attenuated by fog, smoke, etc.

Re:Definitely not a new violation of rights

[adatepej]

They're just automating an inspection that could have been performed by cops on the ground

That's what bothers me more than the privacy aspect of this...

That's totally legitimate. And understandable. However, the problem that you described, saying

A friend of mine got an automated ticket for being 0.1 seconds under the red. And we have some short yellows, that are difficult to stop for in good conditions. If it was raining, you could easily end up fishtailing into an intersection trying to stop for the silly things.

isn't really down on the automated ticketing. The problem sounds to be the shortness of the yellow. If the yellow was long enough to accomodate drivers who are 1) driving near the speed limit and 2) do not have enough room stop before entering the intersection after the yellow light starts -- if it was long enough that any driver at or reasonably below the speed limit could make it through the intersection after seeing the yellow and realizing he hadn't the time to stop (without spilling his half-full coffee), then what's wrong with the law being enforced to the letter, even if we get one of these damn robats to handle it? (Robats, like Baston.)

If the yellow was sufficiently long, being caught under the red for 0.1 seconds would be rightly and reasonably prosecuted then, right?

So, although I can understand automation of law enforcement engendering a sort of unreasoned aversion in those of us who hate to see Big Brother wrap its tentacles any tighter around every inch of an ancient world, I think a lot of the problem people have with automation sounds like the beef is really with law enforcement in general. I.e., the complaint about automation is simply that it increases the total of law being enforced.

If we craft our laws carefully, there is no reason not to want to see those laws enforced perfectly, and there isn't any reason to worry about how breaks in the law are detected. (You get what I'm saying ... there's always "reason to worry" about anything this important, but you know what I mean.)

When you're dealing with automation of law, you need to make sure that:
1) the law has a truly defined hard edge rather than a "spirit" -- this means some laws that are about "spirit" rather than definition are not eligible.
2) that the set of instructions that define how a "break" in the law will be detected are completely defined, i.e., you have to be ready to program them.

So, basically, any crime which was going to be detected automatically using tech would have to be defined rigidly enough to program it into a computer. If the law was a good one in the first place, and doesn't need human interpretation (which I don't think is true of the traffic lights, despite what is partially implied by your post) we should be fine.

And this would have to start with legislators. Maybe somebody should find them a copy of Logo so they can get familiar with the concept of thinking and speaking clearly. ;)