Submitting a review for consideration is easy; please first read Slashdot's book review guidelines. Updated: 2008114 by samzenpus
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.
It's misnamed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's misnamed (Score:5, Interesting)
Fine with me, since I keep insurance and don't want uninsured drivers (who cannot compensate me for any damage they do) on the roads.
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, over in the common sense corner, how many people do you know with enough liquidity to cover more than a minor fender-bender who lack proper insurance (or a bond, as allowed in some states).
I'm guessing the answer is a small-ish number.
Parent
Especially since (Score:5, Insightful)
Insurance brings something else to the table: The experience of dealing with traffic situations. What happens if you cause an accident and someone sues you (as often does happen)? If you don't have insurance, you have to find and retain a lawyer, and you are on the hook for the cost of the lawyer and all settlement fees. So that means you have to maintain a pretty substantial reserve to be able to cover all that.
I mean let's say you live in a bond state and the minimum is $50,000 since that's what the legal minimum coverage is. Ok, great. However you can't just count on that. The amount of a settlement could go way past that (and you are liable for it) and I'd imagine if you pay out of the bond you have to replace it as well. So you end up needing to have a couple hundred grand, including the bond, available for this purpose.
Now also, if you have money like that, it probably is not sitting in a checking account. You probably have it in stocks or property or something. Ok, so what happens if you have an accident sometime like, say, now when the market is down? Now you have to lose money because you need to liquidate your assets at a bad time.
Against that, there is simply maintaining liability insurance. You pay maybe $100/month, probably less, and get a $300,000 policy. Then, if you get in an accident, it's handled. If you get sued, the insurance company hires a lawyer to represent you and them, one who specializes in this (and specializes in settling before it goes to court). You most likely have nothing more to do with it.
Many people find that to be cheap piece of mind. Even though they CAN afford to simply pay things out, it makes more sense in general to have an insurance company there to handle things. Same kind of deal as hiring a gardener or a financial planner. These are things you can do yourself but often those with money would rather have an expert take care of them so they don't have to worry.
Having been in an accident, and been sued, I will always maintain insurance. Even if I have billions, to the point where I've no worries at all about being able to handle any settlement, I'll still maintain auto insurance because they will handle things if something happens. The $30,000-50,000 or so I'd save over my life of driving just isn't worth the hassle.
Parent
Re:Especially since (Score:4, Insightful)
You need to get out more. I'd suggest a car and driving. There are some of us who truly NEED to be able to drive in order to function in today's society.
Parent
Re:Especially since (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not always a matter of public inadequate transportation.
It's often a matter of simple sprawl.
Europe is fucking tiny. Ok? Most of our states are bigger than many countries. That's not being elitist, it's being realistic. Even our modestly sized states are bigger than many countries. And The population density in some areas is so low as to be silly to provide public transportation.
The cities where things are densely populated DO have public transportation. NY, DC and Atlanta to name a few.
But to covering the urban sprawl with the kinda of public transportation you would need for everyone to get around just isn't feasible yet.
Parent
Re:Especially since (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me of a story my mom related to me some time ago. She encountered a couple of German tourists who happened to ask her if she could tell them how long it would likely take them to drive to ... Nebraska? (some midwestern state, anyway) ... from Eastern Washington. She told them it would likely take at least a couple days, and more if they didn't push it. The couple was noticeably shocked at the length of time required. She had to point out to them that the drive would be akin to traveling from Berlin to Moscow.
A lot of the disconnect in comparative discussions between what occurs in Europe vs. what occurs in the US stems from the fact that perspectives are so different between natives of each particular locale. Simple comparisons don't take into account all the complex assumptions and biases that would truly make for an accurate apples-to-apples picture.
Parent
Re:Especially since (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing that baffles me is that Americans think sprawl is a natural phenomenon. It is not. It is the result of bone-headed urban 'planning.' Zoning laws require that you live and work and buy your food in different places. Planning priorities allow highways to break footpaths, take roads across rail lines without building bridges, create entire suburbs with no sidewalks and with fences to prohibit walking other than on the road itself. Not having a car is not an option in the minds of the policymakers.
And as to the scale of things, I believe you are simply mistaken. The USA is a federation of states. The European Union is a federation of states. In both cases, these states contain cities of widely varying sizes. European cities have, by and large, better transit systems than American cities. This is not about scale (what, you think London is small?). European states have, by and large, better transportation systems than American ones. Feel free to compare large, wealthy US states with Germany. Hell, feel free to compare small, wealthy US states with Germany. Europe as a whole has a better ground transportation network than the US, and their sizes are of the same order.
I'm not saying there's no difference; the US has only a quarter of the population density of Europe. The again, the US has twice the per-capita GDP with which to build infrastructure.
No, the real difference is just that America hates infrastructure. And looooooves concrete.
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because they don't have insurance doesn't mean they can't compensate you. How many times a day does correlation v causation have to be covered on slashdot?
You're right - A lack of insurance doesn't imply that they can't compensate you.
But there's a very high degree of correlation between persons who drive without insurance and people who won't compensate you.
Judge the causation/correlation issue however you want. Uninsured drivers tend to fail to take account for at-fault accidents. Whether it's a direct causation effect or not is a moot point - Folks w/o insurance tend to skip out on the bill and I'll happily pony up on gambling odds if you want to volunteer to cover their unpaid damages trying to defend a lack of proof of causation.
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:4, Informative)
Now that I've had a fulltime job for a couple of years, I carry auto insurance, renter's insurance, dental/vision/health, plus I even pay for supplemental AD&D coverage. If an ininsured motorist would hit me, I'd certainly be pissed, but I'd also empathize. Not everyone without insurance is a drunk/crackhead as you imply.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's misnamed (Score:5, Interesting)
It's easier, just put IR LEDs around your plate and blind the camera.
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:4, Informative)
VERY good point. /me scratches head.
Stronger LEDs?
Nope... you can make dielectric thin film filters with some pretty bitchin extinctions...
Can anyone think of a what to (ab)use the interlacing on a CCD? I'm thinking along the lines the way corduroy pants end up looking odd in digital pcs.
Nope... good thought, but there's no way.
Any transparent LCDs out there that could alter the image such as making a '0' into an '8'? Such a system could be disabled from inside the vehicle?
Yes... of course... But nothing that would even be remotely legal... and, if you are going to blatantly ignore the law, then why not just use a marker, or completely attempt to forge/steal your plate?
How about old-school? My jeep is stained w/ mud already, why not add some to the license plate? )Besides the laws prohibiting this naturally.
Yeah... that will obviously work, but AFAIK obscuring your plate is a violation that can get you pulled over.
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:5, Informative)
Well, there are products out there that profess to do that, but, on Mythbusters...they showed that they didn't work...
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:4, Informative)
Cameras see IR, eyes don't.
Cameras also usually have filters over the lens to block out infra-red. IR sources are common enough that unless you _want_ to see it, you almost certainly _want_ to block it.
I skimmed TFA and didn't see any mention, but unless these cameras depend on IR to function, putting IR LEDs around your plate won't do much.
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:5, Insightful)
And what do you do when they pass a law to make obscuring your license plate (even if only for electronic devices) illegal?
Rather than waste energy avoiding the problem of these cameras, I dare say your energy would be better spent fighting their use all together.
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than waste energy avoiding the problem of these cameras, I dare say your energy would be better spent fighting their use all together.
Why? If somebody's driving around in a stolen car, I want them caught and arrested. If somebody has warrants out for their arrest and recognizing their plates helps the cops grab them, great - It cost me a little less to pay cops to apprehend them because they were caught in traffic instead of being stalked and grabbed.
Some laws are BS and some warrants are served based on those BS laws. I've spent a good deal of time breaking them openly and was always willing to serve the consequences if caught. But whining about cops having computers that can run checks on license plates is just silly. If you're going to that level, object to having the identifier on your car or go 'Civil Disobedience' and drive around without plates. But don't just whine because your publicly displayed identifier is being checked against known offenses. You may as well bitch because your picture is posted in a post-office with the word 'Wanted' above it. Automation is a sensible too and the solution to the real problem isn't to allow law-breakers to hide - It's to catch and convict law-breakers, fight the hell out of the legal system when people are going away for BS reasons, and continue to openly fight BS laws instead of trying to hide from enforcement.
Claiming to break the law as a right of 'Civil Disobedience' while hiding from law enforcement is cowardly and counter-productive.
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble is...there is really no way to mandate what 'else' can be done with this information. They're also scanning innocent peoples' plates. What is done with that information? What will be done with it in the future? Let's say they start using this to map out where everyone is during the day...time and location stored. Let's say you drove somewhere and were scanned...and a major crime had happened in that area? Guess what, you are automagically now on a suspects list. Sure..you may get cleared, but, what if by strange circumstances, you aren't cleared for awhile. Personally, I don't wanna ever be on a 'list' such as that. Innocent people do get caught and falsely charged these days even without this kind of tech, this only adds great possibilities.
With all the hoopla of an Amber alert going off, man, I'd hate to even have it known I was in the neighborhood where a child crime happened. These days, it is so easy to be guilty until proven innocent in cases like this. Ask the Ramsey's about that one.
Ok...what if you are in a bad marriage...and this info shows you were at the 'hop on inn' with a girl, and then these records are then available for divorce lawyers. Sure, it might not be a nice or moral thing to do, but, it isn't the business of the state to be collecting personal information on you like this.
And, there is no law or regulations saying what is to be done with innocent scanned plates. There is nothing preventing it from being one more way to store information about the populace. And so far, I've not seen a 'tool' given to law enforcement that has not had new and creative ways of using, not foreseen by the creators of said technology or law..
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm happy for them to do absolutely anything with it - provided that all the license plate tracking information, including that of politicians and off-duty police, is a matter of public record.
You probably wouldn't be so happy after your house got burgled because the criminal knew you were away on a long driving trip. Of course, exactly the same thing could be done by a corrupt policeman, which is why the data shouldn't be collected in the first place.
Rich.
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:5, Insightful)
In a way, I like the use of these cameras - for now - as I have nothing outstanding on my name, and it should keep the cops tied up stopping other people who aren't me. But at what price? I don't think the cops should be spending their time pulling over the common public just because a computer said so.
I also don't see this as a big revenue generator as those are mostly speeders and red light runners, oh, and they have cameras for those all over MD already. I speculate these were purchased through DHS grants in the name of catching terrorists. Unfortunately it is now the police who appear to be the terrorists.
Parent
Re:It's misnamed (Score:5, Insightful)
" don't think the cops should be spending their time pulling over the common public just because a computer said so. "
What if the government spent billions hiring enough police that they could call the insurance companies manually for each car that drove past? Would that be suitable? This is exactly the same, it's just more efficient. Why do you hate efficiency!
Parent
Poor analysis (Score:5, Interesting)
The real mission creep isn't these cameras. It is the license plates themselves. They were initially designed only as proof that an owner of the vehicle paid the registration licensing fee, not as a mobile vehicle identification number. It is only logical that once the license plates were no longer used for strictly licensing purposes that things like this would occur.
License plates should never have been designed. Their only purpose was to be a loophole for "unreasonable searches" since they are in public view. There is about as much justification to putting a license plate on a car as there is to putting one on your house to verify that you have paid your property taxes.
Re:Poor analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Poor analysis (Score:5, Funny)
Turned the key.
Whole building started up.
So he drove it around for a while.
Cop pulled him over, asked "Where do you live?"
He said "Right here".
Parent
Re:Poor analysis (Score:5, Funny)
He's from Arkansas.
Parent
Re:Poor analysis (Score:4, Insightful)
Just about every project grows well beyond it's initial purpose.
Parent
Re:Poor analysis (Score:5, Informative)
I have a problem related to this.
I lived in PA until recently. Once I, oh the horrors, changed insurance companies... You know what the knuckleheads at PennDOT did? They sent me a letter telling me that my insurance had lapsed, and demanding that I send them proof of insurance or face castration (or maybe it was just a fine).
I looked into it, and found out that EVERY SINGLE PERSON in PA who changes their insurance gets this letter. Why? The jackasses in Harrisburg passed a law that demanded the insurance companies notify the government when someone drops insurance, but did not write into the law that they need to notify the government when someone BUYS coverage. I mean, holy shit... only politicians can be so dense. I wrote a letter much more politely phrased than this post and got the expected blow-off from my state representatives.
So if PA ever adopts this policy of scanning for dropped insurance, they will end up pulling over anyone who has recently SWITCHED insurance and is unlucky enough to be in view of a trooper. Groovy, what a country.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You almost have it. It's not that license plates should never have been designed. It's that the state never should be granted the coercive monopoly power of vehicle registration. Forced state license registration is purely for revenue purposes.
Re:There is a workaround though. (Score:4, Informative)
It's a legal "grey area" known as "tag applied for".
Want to be anonymous going someplace for the day? just get a random piece of cardboard, write a date about 3 weeks from now, and replace your plate with it.
My friend tried this a few years back when his temporary tag got destroyed by a really bad rainstorm. He posted all the same information as on his temp tag on the cardboard. I rode with him as a passenger to see what would happen. We got pulled over by a group of 5 cop cars after 10 minutes, like we were some sort of terrorists. They let us go because everything was legit, but have no illusions that you will certainly attract MORE scrutiny, and LESS anonymity.
Parent
Efficiency. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mindless seeking towards some arbitrary level of "efficiency" (which is never achieved, requiring yet more investment in equipment and technology and more loss of civil liberties) should not be the primary function of law enforcement.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Boy, I sure am glad that those detectives won't be wasting their time tracking down those with lapsed insurance and emissions tests so that they can instead be freed up to work on important things instead.
Oh wait, they wouldn't have done it in the first place and now it's just made a nearly unnecessary job a lot easier to generate revenue for the city and headaches for people who are already short on cash for various real-world reasons. Awesome.
Yay, America is safe from those horrendous evils and now offic
Re:Efficiency. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
I've got no problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as technology like this is used only for identifying stolen cars, cars with expired registrations, insurance, etc. I'm perfectly fine with it. I like the idea of making sure cars are properly registered, insured, inspected, etc. because I'm the only safe driver out there and everybody else is a terrible driver! Seriously, though, driving is a privilege, and if you want that privilege then you need to make sure your car is safe (inspected) and insured in the event of an accident with another drive.
Where I get concerned is if, as the submission mentions, is if the police, feds, etc. decide to start using this to track people randomly. I recall reading an article about this technology a few years ago and it indicated that license plate data wasn't archived in any way. The camera just snaps a picture of the plate, uses image recognition to determine the numbers & letters, then does a quick database search to see if it's stolen, etc. then discards the data if no match is found. One issue I recall in the article I read was that it wasn't 100% accurate, so if a potential match was found it would display it for the officer in the car to make the final determination. If the technology still isn't 100% accurate then simply storing results wouldn't be all that useful since you couldn't rely on it. But if they've improved the accuracy then it certainly wouldn't be too difficult to start doing that...
Having said all that, if you're concerned about this then you might as well just stay locked in your home for the rest of your life. The growing use of security cameras means many people are caught on video numerous times a day. Cameras are being used more and more to help deal with traffic congestion in major cities, so they can already track cars that way. And most toll roads now let you use transponders to pay without stopping, and all that data can easily track you as well. Add to all that the fact that cellular phones can be tracked if you have your phone on, GPS units in cars may cache data that can be recovered, etc.
So if you don't want to be tracked then don't ever use a cell phone, gps, drive on toll roads, or drive through any cities or other areas where traffic cameras are used....
No problem as it is, if implemented correctly (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't see a problem with the current use of these camera systems, assuming it is implemented reasonably. By "reasonably", I mean something like the following: Each camera is connected to a database of the plates of known "offenders", such as stolen cars, fugitives, or more trivial things like cars with lapsed registration, insurance, or failed emissions tests. It scans all the licence plates it sees and checks them against the database - if there is a match, the police or Motor Vehicle Administration enforcement can take action. Otherwise, the scanned plate is not stored and certainly the time and place at which is was scanned is not stored.
As I said, if the system is implemented in a reasonably way, like my scenario, then I have no problem with it being used to check for known infractions and offences - no matter how trivial.
Concerning (Score:4, Interesting)
So for just 3 or 4 of these "softballs" we can pay the salary for a police officer on the streets. That sounds really efficient.
Ohhh, but let's be FAIR. How more effectively does this allow a police officer to play traffic cop?
Well, I got to admit it. That sounds really nice. Cops don't have to pay attention to stolen car reports anymore in the squad car. Just listen for the ding-ding-ding of their information systems indicating that the car in the left hand lane is reported stolen.
Ummm, how? This presumes that the databases are updated to reflect this in the first place. With emissions it is entirely possible that the person DID get it corrected, but the database was not updated. This is awfully dependent on a LOT of systems operating properly. I am not even aware that this data IS being transmitted to the DMV from the shops.
Insurance? They must be smoking something. I myself, along with TWO other people, have had letters sent from the DMV indicating that our insurance has been dropped by the insurance agency and that we must rectify it immediately. Problem is, they were DEAD WRONG. Not only did we all have proof of insurance in our vehicles, but we all had proof of payments to our respective companies during the period we were covered.
Both of this situations is going to get pretty ugly on the road. It puts the officers in the position of *trusting* the data in their information systems against the drivers who will probably have documentation to the contrary at least 1/3 of the time. Maybe more, I don't know. My own personal experience and the experience of others would seem to indicate it could be higher.
I'm sorry I just read that as, "We don't have to do our jobs anymore and we can also think a heck of a lot less. Having blind trust in the pretty lights in the car makes it really us for to concentrate on driving and eating donuts".
Maybe that was not fair, but I see it as the same situation as the new rifles that can choose between lethal and non-lethal. It is taking too much responsibility away from the officers to apply their judgment. I want officers to think and interact with their environment personally. I strongly support more training and higher salaries too.
The last thing we need is a bunch of dumbasses in uniforms running around with PDA's going, "Uhhhhhh, doh... the smart box says I got to take you in since you is a suspicious looking person or something. Are you going to resist? Hehe.. I have not hit anything with my stick in like 3 days so please resist".
Now this just sounds outright ludicrous. How can a traveling squad car with a softball that recognizes license plates determine what the hell a parked car is doing?. I don't think it can. The only thing I can think of is recording the dates, times, and positions that a car may be in to apply some sort of rules about how long a particular car can be there. I can POKE a hole in that RIGHT NOW. I park my car there for X amount of hours during which a squad car records that I am there during the time I am parked. I leave, thereby resetting whatever time limit there was, and come back X amount of time later. During my second stay a whole different squad car can record my position and time I was there. WHen applying the rules how do they: 1) Know exactly when I parked and when I left? 2) Know that if my car was there the
100% enforcement would also prompt changes. (Score:5, Interesting)
100% enforcement of outrageous laws which were passed under the assumption they would be difficult to enforce would eventually lead to the repeal of said laws.
A little pain now means a lot less later.
Re:100% enforcement would also prompt changes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. It is the laws that are the problem. No law should exist that you don't want enforced 100% of the time.
Selective enforcement or lax enforcement encourage injustice and allow government power to grow quietly.
If we had 100% enforcement, the majority would support freedom. Would-be tyrants are in the majority now -- they think it's cool to use government power against people they don't like to promote their tyrannical preferences.
Parent
Bah... if Google did this... (Score:4, Interesting)
...you'd see a metric shit-ton of comments pointing out that -eeeeeeeeeeverybody- can take pictures of, and store into database the information relevant to, your license plates... how your car is out in public and you have no expectation of privacy there.. blablabla. No.. if Google did this, it'd be all good*. Heck, if an insurance company gave everybody who cooperated with their employees tracking their license plates in exchange for a 5% discount (that is.. raise the rates for everybody else), the vast majority would go for it.
( * okay, granted, there were actually a few people who felt Google was in the wrong with that private road thing (pending court decision, was it?).. but then the sheer number of comments saying that they should have made it gated if they didn't want anybody trespassing.. errrrr. )
But I'm not here to rant on the topic of Big Government vs Big Corporation.
"They [...] cost $25K". So two of those could employ an additional actual flesh and blood cop. Or two depending on just how bad their pay is. I'd go for the two additional cops.
Then again...
"and can scan and run thousands of plates a day through the local Motor Vehicle Administration database."
If that means they catch more people who break the law* and that ends up in a net positive exceeding the 25k (presumably a one-time purchase, but who am I kidding) by a healthy margin, maybe they could also afford an additional copper or two. If nothing else, they might not have to send rookies out to collect on some fine and put those rookies to work patrolling the streets instead, and seasoned cops don't have to waste time in their patrols doing 'quick' checks on plates in the area that seem out of place.
( * I understand some laws are unjust - so get 'm changed. Guess what.. everybody speeding 5mph hasn't upped the speed limits on a large scale officially.. unofficially officers probably don't care much as long as you go with the flow of traffic.. unless they're having a bad day or have to meet a quota. Sucks to be you when that is the case. )
"The easy mission creep these devices encourage is summarized in the article"
mission creep... well we all know what the mission is supposed to be (peace and safety and order and all that) and what the mission tends to be (revenue, statistics, making the mayor look good, blabla), but let's err on the side of the benign and try the next sentence...
"Initially purchased to find stolen cars, a handful of so-called tag readers are in use across the Washington region to catch not just car thieves, but also drivers who neglected or failed their emissions inspections or let their insurance policies lapse."
In other words... initially purchased to [help uphold the law], but [some now] also [help uphold the law] and [help uphold the law].
Yeah, I can see how that is evil.
I'm far more worried about explicit -and- implicit loss of privacy than the throwing of the "now the cops can tell, with near-zero effort, that I let my insurance lapse! It's not fair! *stomps feet*" tantrums. I hate the "I've got nothing to hide" argument, relevant to the privacy issue, but I hate it when people who know they broke the law and then get all huffy when they get caught by a machine rather than a human even more.
Anyway - you want scary.. go to The Netherlands come 2012-2016. Apparently we are all to drive around with government-monitored GPS on-board by then. To have us pay road use taxes based on the hour of the day, which road it was, etc. I'm sure being able to track whoever they want from a Lay-Z Boy is just an added perk they'll reveal when the tech is entrenched in use and they've got a high profile case (a murderer, perhaps a pedophile, being arrested) to demonstrate that being able to track everybody is a Good Thing(TM). Ba-a-a-a-a, bleated the population, as their road use taxes were lowered ( not really - they're making up for it with a wide margin in the 'provincial tax'... which will apply to -all- citizens, not just those who actually drive cars.)
But that, too, is another rant.
Beyond Tracking Violators (Score:4, Insightful)
Like the article said: What happens when this system is expanded to track people's legal movements? Put up enough of these cameras and one can track all vehicles moving into/out of various sectors of a city. Look at London.
What scares the hell out of me is how readily our government will sell this data to private concerns. Anything to boost revenue. What happens if your competitor pays the local police department to place a camera in front of your businesses parking lot and generate a customer list? Your health insurance provider can get a list of people who frequent bars. A foreign government can get a list of all the cars parked at a defense contractor. There are many ways this information could be abused.
Nothing to hide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously you have never been accused of doing something that you didn't do.
> Living in Texas (and yes, I like it here, even though it was 105 today) > there are more than a fair share of illegal immigrants on our roadways. > Many of them downright suck at driving. Most of them don't have insurance.
Build a fence. Post armed guards.
Outsource to Mexico instead of China, so they will have paying jobs at home and aren't tempted to try and get past the armed guards.
> 3. What do I have to hide? Who cares where I go, or how I get there
Your vehicle was recorded as being near the scene of some horrible crime. Can you prove you didn't commit said horrible crime? No? Off to jail with you.
> Your location in a public place is
No one's business. It is not even remotely reasonable to suggest that we must stay home 24x7 with blinds drawn.
Compare to the UK... (Score:4, Interesting)
Here, We have "congestion charge cameras" that record every single car's numberplate in every single street (where there is no "congestion charge" they call them "autoreaders" - they are on all the motorwars, bridges, & who knows where else...): apart from this, all of central London and most public places within the M25 are covered - very extensively - by CCTV.
Furthermore, the public transport is paid for by using a ticket in the form of an electronic, registered-to-your-home-address "oyster card" which again monitors everywhere you go.
The mobile phones you carry have - by law - every single phone-call and text recorded for the government: this same law covers email and the data is available not just to MI5 & MI6, not even just to the police - but "social workers" and "local government workers" have access to it.
In short, depending on the study you choose the average Londoner is recorded on CCTV 200-450 times per day, their mobile is continously tapped (remember when people used to need a warrant? haha...) and their car is under observation all of the time...
Compare that with only when a police car is passing...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You most likely can't. But the police can. They have access to that sort of data. Mostly they have databases containing the license plates of known stolen cars, etc. Since many police cars now have laptop computers in them it's an easy enough process for a police department to upload a database of known stolen car license plates to each officers car, then let the cameras do their thing. As the cop is driving down a street the laptop just pops up an alert if he passes a car with the plate.
Re:Just Looking Up a License Plate Number? (Score:4, Informative)
For one, you need to get some help, and for two, www.publicdata.com.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The scary thing about murderers, is they drive just like you and me!
Re:Just Looking Up a License Plate Number? (Score:5, Interesting)
How do I just look up a license plate number, without the fancy gizmos? Just an app or webpage that I can query with the plate number. Or the VIN. To get the owner's name, and hopefully their address.
I'm tired of people driving like murderers, especially when I'm on my motorcycle. I usually get up close to them and snap their picture, and their plate. Which calms me down a little, especially when they start covering their face. (No, I don't care if that endangers them, and I only do it when I am fully safe to do it.) But if I could go home and look up their identity, I could drop by with a note reminding them that they can't just get away with it.
Someday I'd love to send a video of these jerks driving recklessly direct to the cops, and get a call back from them with me bearing witness to the report. Then they can round up that jerk, and I can narrate the video to the judge, and really help get these homicidal drivers off the road.
But in the meantime, how do I just look up their plate# or VIN?
And i'm tired of motorcyclists thinking they own the road.
Recently I was visiting my family in detroit and was rented a grand prix.
So i'm driving down telegraph, check behind me, and change lanes.
Suddenly, this motorcyclist is hitting my window.. he was hugging my blind spot (you can't check it, that's why it's called a "blind spot"), which is particularly large on the model i was driving.
I tell him where to stick it, and he speeds off. Over the next 5 minutes, i watch him hug the blind spots of 3 more vehicles before I finally reached my turn.
If so many people are near-missing you, maybe you're that guy!
do you by chance drive a black crotch rocket in the detroit area?
Accidents are a two-way affair.
By the way, snapping people's pictures while at speed on a public road is a good way to get yourself, the other driver, and innocent third parties killed. Remember princess Dai?
Parent
Re:Just Looking Up a License Plate Number? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not a motorcyclist - that's an organ donor waiting to happen.
Please don't judge the rest of us on two wheels by his actions.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think I almost ran someone like you over the other day. I was merging across lanes to get to the fast lane, and I didn't see him. It's not that I wasn't looking, but motorcycles are so small, and he was in my blind spot. I felt bad until he got up next to my window and started yelling something at me. What a jerk! He must have though I did it on purpose. I just shrugged my shoulders at him.
You must understand that a motorcycle is just not as safe as a full-sized car.
Re:And.... (Score:4, Insightful)
New father here, too. And I would hate to think that when he eventually starts driving that he could be possibly be added to a database for doing nothing wrong at all. I don't want him to get abducted, either, but again, what does that have to do with this camera system? The cameras won't prevent abductions from occurring, nor would they magically yield the abductor's plates or insure that he wasn't using alternate means of transportation.
I too have nothing to hide, but I've a hell of a lot that I don't want people to know about me, I'm not going to hide any of it and I'll be damned if I let someone try to force me to give up information that I don't need or want to make known.
Parent