New Privacy Threat: Automated Vehicle Occupancy Detection 140
An anonymous reader writes: The Electronic Frontier Foundation is warning against a new potential privacy threat: cameras that look inside cars and try to identify how many people are inside. This technology is a natural combination of simpler ones that have existed for years: basic object recognition software and road-side cameras (red light cameras, speeding cameras, license plate readers — you name it). Of course, we can extrapolate just a bit further, and point out that as soon as the cameras have high enough resolution, they can start running face recognition algorithms on the images, and determine the identities of a vehicle's occupants.
"The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), a government umbrella group that develops transportation and public safety initiatives across the San Diego County region, estimates that 15% of drivers in High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes aren't supposed to be there. After coming up short with earlier experimental projects, the agency is now testing a brand new technology to crack down on carpool-lane scofflaws on the I-15 freeway. ... In short: the technology is looking at your image, the image of the people you're with, your location, and your license plate. (SANDAG told CBS the systems will not be storing license plate data during the trial phase and the system will, at least for now, automatically redact images of drivers and passengers. Xerox's software, however, allows police the option of using a weaker form of redaction that can be reversed on request.)"
"The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), a government umbrella group that develops transportation and public safety initiatives across the San Diego County region, estimates that 15% of drivers in High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes aren't supposed to be there. After coming up short with earlier experimental projects, the agency is now testing a brand new technology to crack down on carpool-lane scofflaws on the I-15 freeway. ... In short: the technology is looking at your image, the image of the people you're with, your location, and your license plate. (SANDAG told CBS the systems will not be storing license plate data during the trial phase and the system will, at least for now, automatically redact images of drivers and passengers. Xerox's software, however, allows police the option of using a weaker form of redaction that can be reversed on request.)"
Why do you need privacy ... (Score:1, Funny)
... unless you're doing something wrong?
Money (Score:5, Interesting)
At first glance, all of these technologies are implemented solely for the purpose for bring in more money to the government.
But I'm sure I'm not being at all cynical enough and probably a bit of Tin Foil Hat theory wouldn't be inappropriate.
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There's money involved but the enforcement of laws is more important. No enforcement = no compliance. Yes this can be used for bad, but so can every single technology ever made. It's all about how it is used.
Re:Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Money (Score:4, Insightful)
No enforcement = no compliance.
"The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) ... estimates that 15% of drivers in High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes aren't supposed to be there."
Apparently there's 85% compliance even without this particular means of enforcement. Is possibly gaining another 15% worth the cost? (Where "cost" includes money, privacy, increased government, etc.)
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If true, why are they even vaguely interested in the weaker form of redaction?
Seems like they are asking for a built-in option to abuse later.
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I can't help but feel it will be abused, no matter the purpose. What if you are chauffeuring somebody who is intoxicated in the back seat and slumped over, a kid, or a midget?
Re:Money (Score:4, Insightful)
At first glance, all of these technologies are implemented solely for the purpose for bring in more money to the government.
HOV lanes exist to encourage ride sharing and to reduce the traffic load during rush hour.
Ticketing cheaters serves that end and is not exclusively about monetary gain for the State
So yes, you are being cynical, though I wouldn't take off the tin foil hat.
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HOV lanes usually increase traffic (less total people flow per minute) as they're underutilized for peak flow. They're quite politically popular for the Left however, and that's more important than infrastructure, apparently. Make them toll lanes instead, with the toll being "free" if you're not driving solo, and now the Left and Right can enjoy equally. You'll also get far more people along that highway per minute as the lane gets closer to ideal load.
Re:Money (Score:5, Insightful)
HOV lanes exist to encourage ride sharing and to reduce the traffic load during rush hour.
Yeah, that's what it says on the tin. In reality they just eat up a lane of traffic that could otherwise be used to alleviate rush hour congestion. It might be different if they actually ADDED HOV lanes instead of taking one of the normal lanes and rebranding it. After all, who's going to get into a car with a bunch of strangers, and not have a vehicle when they reach their destination?
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All the Uber users, of course!
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In reality they just eat up a lane of traffic that could otherwise be used to alleviate rush hour congestion. It might be different if they actually ADDED HOV lanes instead of taking one of the normal lanes and rebranding it.
Uh, in many places they have done just that. I don't know how common it is, but I've been to a number of places in the US where the HOV lanes are even added as completely separate lanes from the rest of traffic, and I recall when one was constructed as such -- added into what was previously the wide median area of a highway.
After all, who's going to get into a car with a bunch of strangers, and not have a vehicle when they reach their destination?
I could be wrong here, but I believe the idea behind carpooling is typically you'd want people who have similar schedules to you, e.g., your coworkers. I've never had a particularly he
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In reality they just eat up a lane of traffic that could otherwise be used to alleviate rush hour congestion. It might be different if they actually ADDED HOV lanes instead of taking one of the normal lanes and rebranding it.
Uh, in many places they have done just that. I don't know how common it is, but I've been to a number of places in the US where the HOV lanes are even added as completely separate lanes from the rest of traffic, and I recall when one was constructed as such -- added into what was previously the wide median area of a highway.
That's how it often is around here, although they did have to shift (and in some cases narrow) the other lanes a bit to make what used to be the shoulder wide enough for a lane. Part of the result is that you end up with two wheels constantly floating across the seams in the construction that were designed to be hidden between lanes rather than within them. They should have shifted things over a full half-lane so at least we'd be completely straddling the breaks.
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HOV encourage people to share a car, which reduces pressure on the other lanes.
After all, who's going to get into a car with a bunch of strangers, and not have a vehicle when they reach their destination?
Anyone who has ever taken a bus or a train. I know public transport sucks in the US but it is actually the best option in many places.
Also, many people share a vehicle with people they know from work. That's how it is supposed to work.
Re:Money (Score:4, Interesting)
In reality they just eat up a lane of traffic that could otherwise be used to alleviate rush hour congestion. It might be different if they actually ADDED HOV lanes instead of taking one of the normal lanes and rebranding it. After all, who's going to get into a car with a bunch of strangers, and not have a vehicle when they reach their destination?
That's why the more recent trend is to build HOT [wikipedia.org] lanes, which can also be used by anyone willing to pay a toll (HOVs can use it for free). The toll is dynamically adjusted based on how congested the road is, so that the HOT lane always has a significant amount of traffic but is never congested.
This solves your problem, and also gives people a reason to carpool (no tolls) which maximizes the number of people able to use the road.
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Came here to say just this. The HOT lanes in VA were allegedly going to get some of these thermal cameras to catch HOV cheaters, but AFAIK they aren't installed yet (too expensive). Since you have to use an EZPass on those lanes anyway, I'm not concerned about them being able to count occupants - they already know when you're on the road. Also, GP:
After all, who's going to get into a car with a bunch of strangers, and not have a vehicle when they reach their destination?
google "SLUG" - tons of people pick up strangers everyday near the HOV lanes in VA. Drivers get to work quicker, slugs get a free ride and don't have to pay for parking in DC - win-win.
I gooigled "SLUG." Are you referring to the unit of mass, or the shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusk? And what does it have to do with traffic?
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You'd think more lanes would mean less congestion, but the data doesn't always agree. It seems that humans are programmed to spend a certain amount of time on trips, and if congestion is removed and the average speed increases, people just end up driving for greater distances. That concept is called "induced demand", and has been compared to fighting obesity b
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it's like the tradeoff between perfect safety, and good enough safety. the cost/benefit of adding more and more lanes quickly ramps into inefficiency. an example being during the majority of the day you only need 2 maybe 3 lanes each way. But to eliminate congesting for rush hour you need 10+, leaving 7 lanes unused. not all cities like to waste money like that.
plus its very much a behavioral phenomenon.
people will modify behavior, such as work schedules, depending on circumstances.
a frequent occurrence is
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I guess it depends where you live. In Vancouver BC, Canada, they redid a large portion of the huge portion of the highway/bridge and added a long HOV lane. The last time I went through there were still plenty of jackasses using it as a passing lane etc despite only having one person in the vehicle
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I think you might have confused government and certain (big multinational) companies here. It's like the full body scanners, those don't bring in any money for the government (or such a thing as improved security), only for the company involved in producing those items and selling them to the government. The governemnt, and by extension all citizens, get screwed by big capital, just like in the 1800s. What else is new?
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What is the expectation of privacy in a car on the freeway? How is using cameras any different to placing a person on the side of the freeway and stopping all cars on the HOV lane to confirm the correct number of people are there?
needed to have the goal of one toll transponder fo (Score:1)
needed to have the goal of one toll transponder for all of the usa no more of the mix of differnt HOV modes on diffident transponders.
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"That can be reversed on request" (Score:3)
So it's not really redacted. It's like all those PDF's that redact text with a black box. The original footage still has to be there and the government will keep it.
If you want to enforce HOV lanes, enforce it, have a cop pulling people in the HOV lane over. Automated camera systems are easily defeated in court (they were sitting in the back seat and I have tinted windows, they were giving me a blowjob, reflections, ...) and cost more than hiring actual officers (small (~10 camera) systems are reported to have a final cost in the area of $1-5M/y)
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So let me get this straight rich gits with chauffeurs get priority over everyone else because why, why the fuck, why? So do you or do you not count a professional driver in the car with one, just one fucking person actually travelling to a destination. That other person is just a labour saving device and not a person going to a destination, yet the rich git in the back gets priority over the nobodies who can not afford a limousine with an associated driver. Should a taxi with one passenger be in the HOV la
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So let me get this straight rich gits with chauffeurs get priority over everyone else because why, why the fuck, why?
When I was serving in the Marines, we would periodically have to provide a few privates to ride in the back seat of the colonel's car so he could take the HOV lane from Quantico to a meeting at the Pentagon. Your tax dollars at work.
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You mean a Colonel drives himself on official business?
Shit, even higher ranking enlisted people (E-8 and above) would be assigned a personal driver when I was in the Army, same with practically any Officer grade, but an O-6 in the Marine corps doesn't have one?
In the Army, the rationale for that is the higher ranking people usually have paperwork to take care of on the way, so somebody else does the work of driving while they get stuff done.
Re:"That can be reversed on request" (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me get this straight rich gits with chauffeurs get priority over everyone else because why, why the fuck, why?
Because "people being chauffeured around" represent such a small proportion of rush-hour traffic that basing a decision around this particular concern would be far more emotional than pragmatic.
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A whitelist is less susceptible to abuse than a cop, in that the whitelist is a file that can be examined and is not susceptible to bribery.
You have your wish I guess (Score:2)
Although I doubt it was done to solve the problem you outline, many HOV lanes are going to 3+ instead of 2+. So the single guy with a driver is no longer clear to go free...
Not that they will care; if you can afford a driver you can afford the toll easily. But at least they will have to pay going forward.
On the other hand, I find going to 3+ to be a burden on families where a wife and husband work, who may well not be able to afford to pay the full HOV fee every day and will no longer be able to use it f
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But at least they will have to pay going forward.
Will they get a refund if they go backwards?
(Perhaps the words you were looking for were "in future".)
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The words I carefully selected are more interesting and thematically relevant than your "In future" alteration.
They are also no less clear, as much as you try to confuse the issue.
So going forward I will write as I chose, not by the dictates of someone who has not been writing as long as I have...
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.... someone who has not been writing as long as I have...
Just to satisfy my curiosity, could you quantify that please?
How long have I been writing, and how long have you been writing?
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I'm just basing the relative experience level by your UID (well, that and a correction I do not find valid).
I've been writing for about 35 years.
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I'm just basing the relative experience level by your UID ...
And on what did you base your assumption that UID correlates to writing experience? I would have expected that someone who has apparently been writing for longer than Slashdot has existed would have realised that other posters might also have been writing for longer than they have been registered at Slashdot.
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And on what did you base your assumption that UID correlates to writing experience?
As stated, that was just one facet.
other posters might also have been writing for longer than they have been registered at Slashdot.
Very (VERY) unlikely. I myself joined kind of late as it was, so your joining even later puts that probability as extremely low.
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"Going forward" is not quite the same as "in the future", yes.
(I've been writing professionally almost as long as SK, and have a lower UID. Make of that what you will.)
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I agree they are not the same.
Don't you think that it's more appropriate to use in this case though?
It's a term saying you are changing how you are doing something from a specific point onward... "in the future" is less specific, not really tied to the original subject, and also does not clearly convey the permanence of the change. And of course, I actually like that the term is intertwined (sort of) with driving.
I'm perfectly open to changing my writing, if the changes make things clearer...
BTW, I'm not
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Disclaimer: Not yet had coffee this morning.
I would equate "going forward" with "henceforth" or "from now on", that is, starting with the present moment and extending into the foreseeable future, possibly permanently, but at least until some future event mandates a change. "In the future" doesn't necessarily provide a starting point (IMO) other than "sometime later than now", and is even less precise regarding continuity or durability.
So I think you and I are in agreement.
Now... about that coffee...
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So it's not really redacted. It's like all those PDF's that redact text with a black box.
True, but it is easier this way than to store non-redacted copies on the side when you want to use them in court later. (They are not letting go of that data. No government agency ever will unless forced to in a way they cannot ignore...) And most of the general public will be too stupid to know or understand.
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BTW use of words like 'free' or 'just' in the answer makes it invalid automatically.
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One with deeply entrenched moral puritanism which says "sex is bad, we don't want to know about sex, and we don't want to educate our children about sex in the hopes they won't have any until marriage".
In other words, a deeply irrational one.
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The camera systems cost $1-$5M but do not reduce the necessity of police officers as each ticket the system writes has to be reviewed and signed off by a cop who then also has to be present at court challenges. Since the system in 24/7 each of the camera's thus has to be manned 24/7 as well
So in reality, you just moved 3 cops/camera 'on the beat' from the street into a desk job and thus have less police presence in your city.
Burden of proof (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond the privacy problem, a key issue here is the problem of false positives. The system claims a 96% accuracy in detecting people in passenger seats, which is a huge error rate for sending people fines. A policeman can actually stop you and look in the car, which they have to do before writing a ticket.
The problem is that such fines are expensive to contest (you have to take time off work, show up to court etc). Many people will just pay. This is not a criminal prosecution situation where "presumption of innocence" in the legal sense is relevant, but the principle applies here too: you should hold the government to a high standard of proof here.
Re:Burden of proof (Score:4, Insightful)
Passenger seat, how about the back seat. Last I checked if somebody has kids with them it's ok to use the lane. So this thing is not even close to accurate.
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Yup. I've been stopped 4 or 5 times because I was driving one or more kids somewhere and using the carpool lanes. I once had 4 people in the car in an HOV-2 lane and was stopped because 3 of them were not visible from outside.
In every case the officer apologized and explained they couldn't see the kids. I doubt a photo would do that.
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Re:Burden of proof (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, that's one change I'd like to see--there has to be more than one licensed driver in the vehicle in order to use the carpool lane. You're not really removing a car from the road if the people you're transporting can't drive.
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You are if you're driving, say, your kids and your neighbor's kids to school, instead of you and your neighbor driving your respective kids to school separately.
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My precious little one can't be seen in a school bus! Think of the embarrassement and damage to the child's self esteem if it is not dropped at school in the obligatory Range Rover. They even dark tint school bus windows now so passers-by can't recognize and/or taunt the poor kids degraded by having to ride in the big yellow bus.
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You're not really removing a car from the road if the people you're transporting can't drive.
I'd like to point out that the traffic problem in cities is not caused by all the cars that are full of people.
there has to be more than one licensed driver in the vehicle in order to use the carpool lane.
But then we'll all bitch about that married couple that work near each other and get to use the carpool lane, and would carpool even there were no HOV lanes... so they aren't removing any cars from the road.
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It is erroneous to assume that the lack of a license is indicative of a lack of need for a car; it only indicates that a person has chosen an alternate to driving their own car for some reason.
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It is erroneous to assume that the lack of a license is indicative of a lack of need for a car
Exactly. I drove 3 kids to their baseball game yesterday (2 of them were not my kids). If I hadn't, it would have been 3 cars on the road instead of 1, and I was the only licensed driver.
Re:Burden of proof (Score:4, Interesting)
I recently got a notice from Washington State that my car was in the carpool like without 2 passengers. Another driver reported me. The only problem is that we did have 2 people in the car. One was in the backseat. Any visual identification technique will not see most passengers in the rear seats. The letter threatened that if we were reported 3 times, they would forward our information to the State Patrol.
So now, if a human driving next to the car is too dumb to see passengers in the rear seat, how can a camera see it? Side facing Infrared?
Unfortunately anything beside physically accessing the vehicle to assess if there are 2, 3+ people would be a pretty good 4th Amendment issue. An automated system could not and should not be able to send you an infraction if they are not able to reasonably look into the vehicle from the outside and have 100% accuracy. Only a police officer standing next to your vehicle can do that. And they would need a reasonable suspicion that you were in violation of the law.
The police don't pull over most mini-vans and SUV's with mom's inside because they realize that most of the time they have are kiddle-poolers.
The other way to fix the issue is to change it from 2+ people, to 2+ licensed drivers. The true intent is to remove vehicles from the road, so let's start calling it out and get rid of the kiddie-poolers.
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She was probably texting.
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Many jurisdictions charge you a fee which may be equal or greater than the fine to contest the fine.
Lifehacking (Score:2)
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Couldn't this system be easily defeated by using an inflatable person or maybe even just a stick with a cut out of Bill Oddie's face glued on the top, resting on your passengers seat?
You're asking "couldn't I defeat this by committing fraud"? Quite obviously if you get caught, you won't be fined for driving in the carpool lane, but for driving in the carpool lane and committing fraud to get away with it. I could easily see you getting a criminal conviction.
what are they really trying to achieve? (Score:2)
is the point of such devices to enforce HOV as a method to encourage more people to carpool in an effort to reduce traffic and pollution or is this just a money grab? if the point is to encourage people to carpool, it will fail as some people simply cannot carpool and the 15% that are scofflaws will simply add to existing traffic congestion which will ultimately cause more pollution. if it's just a money grab, this makes total sense.
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HOV is a money grab, they all fail at the most important task making it faster than not. Get busses out of HOV and increase the speed limit.
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Pathetic excuse for sheeple (Score:1)
This is a pathetic excuse for introducing intrusive technology to solve a non-problem. If you think about it for a bit, it would be a simple matter to have a cop start issuing fines until the non-compliance rate drops to an acceptable level. This would cost nothing, as traffic cops generally collect far more in fines than their wages. Instead, our Dear Leaders want to use this situation to direct the indignant fury against cheaters towards promoting an array of face recognition cameras to track your every m
But Xerox, on the other hand... (Score:4, Insightful)
Electrical Tape (Score:1)
If the Dealer won't remove this from the car you are purchasing, just pu a piece of black electricians' tape.
Better yet, recall that YOU OWN THE VEHICLE. Simply remove the device(s).
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The cameras are not in the cars, they are roadside cameras like the red-light and speed cameras we already have. They are just adding a face/body detection algorithm to it.
Just An Excuse (Score:2)
No on gives a rat's ass about the U.S. Constitution anymore.
What country are they working for?
Not this one.
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Uh, what? Last I heard, state and local governments must also abide by the US Constitution.
Kids and carseats (Score:3)
Maybe time (Score:2)
to put up Anonymus face masks when driving and put life-size puppets in back seats.
Baby-Baking (Score:2)
And here I thought they were going to do this to save the helpless children left in cars in extreme heat.
Even "Think of the children" pretenses are dropped now.
But the real question is... (Score:2, Funny)
...will it detect when my passenger is a corporation [nbcnews.com]?
Sure, sugar... (Score:2)
I'm sure those cameras will be able to look through windows into cars moving at speed, and detect thing like this [twentytwowords.com]...not.
Bring out the love dolls! (Score:2)
Reminds me of a story about how a guy got pulled over by the cops because he was in the HOV lane...with a blow-up doll in the passenger seat!
Wonder how good this new "solution" would be in detecting that?
Also, for privacy concerns, is it illegal to drive wearing, say, a Nixon rubber face mask? That would probably get you pulled by the cops pretty fast.
Finally! (Score:2)
Relief via scofflaws (Score:2)
We Promise... (Score:2)
Child car seats. (Score:2)
One potential problem I see (it happens already) is people being ticketed for driving solo, when in fact they have a baby in the car with them. You might not feel they should be in the HOV lane because that baby would never be out driving by itself, therefore they aren't saving any congestion, but it does meet the letter of the law. It also isn't going to be easily picked up on a camera. These people already get pulled over (and released) by cops who can't see the passenger in back. What is going to happen
Sevice vs. Ownership (Score:1)
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Like you won't be asked to provide valid ID to rent/borrow a car. And that a condition of running such a service won't be to hand over records to the local authorities. And if there is an issue of abuse (anything from vandalism to car services being held liable for the presence/absence of occupants) internal cameras will become a condition of rental.
Self driving car == torpedo (Score:2)
Fill it with explosives, give it a destination.
Such cameras might not be a altogether horrible idea.
I have no problem ... (Score:2)
But what I want is for all of those cars full of passengers to get ticketed for using the single occupant lanes!