Using Speed Cameras To Send Tickets To Your Enemies 898
High school students in Maryland are using speed cameras to get back at their perceived enemies, and even teachers. The students duplicate the victim's license plate on glossy paper using a laser printer, tape it over their own plate, then speed past a newly installed speed camera. The victim gets a $40 ticket in the mail days later, without any humans ever having been involved in the ticketing process. A blog dedicated to driving and politics adds that a similar, if darker, practice has taken hold in England, where bad guys cruise the streets looking for a car similar to their own. They then duplicate its plates in a more durable form, and thereafter drive around with little fear of trouble from the police.
without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Informative)
The legislators have thought of that. It's an infraction, rather than a misdemeanor, so it's an administrative fine -- it goes on your driving record, but not your criminal record.
Because it's a criminal charge, you aren't given the right to face your accuser.
It's a perversion of justice for the profit of the state, but right now the judges let it pass constitutional muster.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a perversion of justice for the profit of the state, but right now the judges let it pass constitutional muster.
That's just because nobody bothered to do the the same trick with the correct government or state official plates.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Funny)
sounds like a dare
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Interesting)
sounds like a dare
I don't think anyone's really stupid enough to piss off someone who has the ability to ruin your life, or, if they're really corrupt, make you disappear.
Henry Mencken disagrees (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think anyone's really stupid enough to ...
Henry Mencken disagrees:
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." -- Henry Mencken
I know, he was talking about profit, but I think the sentiment applies more broadly.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Informative)
If you live in that much fear of government officials, then you have bigger problems than speed cameras. In a free society, the fear, if any, goes the other way.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell that to the US citizens who were served National Security Letters under the auspices of the PATRIOT Act. Oh wait, you can't, because those people are legally prohibited from disclosure, so there's no way to identify who they are.
The problem, of course, is not the validity of your statement. It's absolutely correct. But as we can clearly see, there really isn't such a thing as a truly free society, only those that call themselves "free."
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Insightful)
Only very recently. That doesn't mean (1) there wasn't years of unconstitutional harassment and curtailment of basic civil rights, and (2) suddenly, *presto*, everyone who ever received one of the notices can now speak up, no harm, no foul, no ruined lives. There will be years of appeals.
Anyway, the point is not that this particular provision was overturned. The point is that Americans for the most part live under the illusion of a free state. They do so because we are taught from childhood how great America is, and of the incredibly prescient wisdom of our founding fathers who wrote this beloved Constitution. Americans believe in their system of government so much that they will go to great lengths to force their political, economic, and cultural values upon other nations they see as being less developed.
But the sad truth is that it is a farce. We are not a free society. The government can make your life pure hell, destroy you financially, and with absolutely no cause. You may eventually be vindicated, but it could take most of your remaining lifetime, not to mention your livelihood.
This is, of course, true of most countries, not just the US. But again, that was never the point of my prior post. The point is that the citizens of those countries have no illusions about the grandeur of their political system. They know the state may capriciously destroy lives. Americans believe they are "free" only because they are sold the concept, hook, line, and sinker, by the very few, rich, powerful elite that truly run things behind the scenes. Is it really any wonder why the rest of the world hates us so much? They are all collectively waiting for us to wake the fuck up and realize just how deluded we've all been.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Insightful)
If you live in that much fear of government officials, then you have bigger problems than speed cameras. In a free society, the fear, if any, goes the other way.
Hell, It's not like some sick government Fsck could have you kidnapped right of the street and have you taken to a middle-eastern country to be tortured, in spite of the fact you were perfectly innocent...
I'm sorry, excuse me for just a moment... Oh, really?... Hmmmm...
Never mind.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me if you spot one of these "free societies."
America hasn't been one for about 150 years, and the decay has been getting worse for the last 60 or so.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Interesting)
I see you accept the US government official definition of "free country", with the cold war era anti-red addendum and everything. Voting is meaningless if only a small range of "mainstream" candidates have a chance. Free enterprise only matters when the market isn't rigged.
Ask yourself this: Is China a free country? What *practical* freedoms do Americans have that someone in China does not? There are some examples, and those are important, but there are less than you might think.
You touch upon the counter argument to your first sentence in your second. How many people does it take to make a policy change in a US state? At the federal level? Even organizations the size of the NRA and the Sierra club manage to accomplish surprisingly little at the federal level. Moving a policy from the states to the federal government results in a very practical decrease in the democratic control of that policy.
There's nothing "whack job" about libertarian ideas. Like any ideas, it's reasonable to disagree with them once you clearly understand them (and, necessarily, their historical and philosophical background), but simply dismissing them as crazy marks you as willfully ignorant. And there's nothing worse than being willfully ignorant (and proudly admitting to it).
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Insightful)
The "150 years ago" part was a generalization. Yes, the Civil War was the beginning of broadening the power of the federal government, but more importantly it was the era where corruption began to be visible in American politics. This is the era when first began to lose sight of the "of the people, by the people, for the people" ideals that we were founded upon.
60 years ago was the beginnings of the Cold War. This is where the American people began to see large-scale prosperity, and lost sight entirely of the individualist spirit of our Founders. Once the beast of government got a taste of the power it could obtain by maintaining a state of constant war (or plausible threat of war), we have been in one ever since. First was the Cold War. Then the intensification of the "War on Drugs". In the 90s, it was on "militias" and "extremists". Now its "terrorism" and "fundamentalism".
America today is little related to the country we once were. Of course there were injustices, and we have grown much as a people since then - but we have lost the basis that made us great in the process. In our rush to see everyone equal, we've created classes and division based on gender, race, and who we prefer to sleep with. Alongside the heady excitement of prosperity in the 80s and 90s was the greatest degradation of civil right we have seen as a country.
As an example, in 1986 the NFA registry was closed, by unfunding a program. This created a de facto ban on an entire class of firearms. This may not mean much to you, or you may be entirely opposed to civilian ownership of weapons - but by God, it means something to me. It means that the government founded over 200 years ago by my ancestors, based on the idea that government rules at the behest of the citizens, no longer trust its citizens. That is a scary thought, at it will lead to conflict, eventually, whether violent, economic, or ideologic.
Regardless of whether or not the name lives on, or if this country remains a world power - make no mistake, we are living through the death throes of this once great nation. How much will survive is yet to be seen, but the idea of Liberty is already lost on my fellow citizens.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Funny)
You just gotta have a huge set of grapefruits.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Informative)
The legislators have thought of that. It's an infraction, rather than a misdemeanor, so it's an administrative fine -- it goes on your driving record, but not your criminal record.
I don't know about where you are, but in Ohio automatic speed camera fines do not go on your driving record.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Informative)
Where I am, they recently took down some red light cameras because they were not generating enough revenue for the company and the city didn't want to pay for them. It has nothing to do with law and everything to do with profit.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Funny)
So, I have to wonder: how many times a week do you have to hit one of these things with a paintball before they're not cost-effective to maintain?
One way to put a stop to any for-profit effort is to make it unprofitable.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Informative)
Fill them with birdshot and you'd have a Glaser Safety paintball. No ricochets and quite an impact.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't advocate doing this with tires that you bought new if you registered the warranty on them, but tires on wheels can sometimes be bought for $8.00 on half-price day at the junk yard, and dismounting them isn't that difficult if they're not those low-profile or large rim types. I'd imagine that you'd put the gasoline into the tire while it's on the ground, then lift it up and on, then toss a match or two into it.
Not that I'd advocate such a simple, destructive, and highly self-contained method of destroying speed cameras, but here are some results: http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gatso2.htm [speedcam.co.uk]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm curious as to what your target audience was for that point
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well then it would be much more because at the time our dollar was worth more than yours. I don't think it really matters though, because they don't change the fines based on our dollar's worth that day. I just provided a point of reference as to what I would pay if I received that same ticket today.
It was a failed attempt at not confusing American readers. I'm starting to think this is an impossible thing to do.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Insightful)
whoa there! You mean there's something wrong with the citizens "cheating" if automated cameras aren't recording enough violations... heaven forbid most people obey the law!!! What a concept..
That's why this kind of "infractions for profit" are such a bad idea because somebody in the chain needs to keep their margin.. not improve safety or obey the laws.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've heard the trick is to put the vehicle in a trust. Makes it a bit more difficult to enforce automated red light/speeding ticketing systems. YMMV and IANAL.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point. A lot easier just to copy another plate as described in TFA.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Insightful)
Admittedly rear ending is up a bit, but you have to draw a line somewhere
This usually happends because the yellow is too short for the speed limit there. Here's one guide [shortyellowlights.com] (there are others more official but this one is simple and to the point.) Some people blame malice on the part of the local government in wanting camera revenue but they're more likely just ignorant. Time some lights in your area and bring this up at the next public town coucil meeting.
Notice that the too-short yellow is probably why the light was being run too often in the first place. Now that the camera is there, the too-short yellow requires slamming on the brakes to stop in time rather than a normal stop. That in turn causes rear-endings.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Informative)
That's the situation here in Orlando - the city recently passed an ordinance authorizing camera enforcement at six intersections in the area, but they know there's not a chance in hell it would actually stand up in court so they take the civil route in an attempt to avoid the courts altogether. I'm hoping the state hands their ass to them, though - Florida state law specifically forbids localities to enact traffic ordinances that deal with situations already covered under state law unless they have a special authorization from the state legislature, and the state hasn't given them one. So far, everyone that's had a ticket written has tried to contest the ticket (good luck arguing with a code enforcement officer) instead of arguing the legality of the ordinance itself, which has made me consider going to one of the intersections at 3am or so, stopping at the light, and then deliberately running it when the intersection is safely clear. I'd of course expect to get a ticket for it, which then would give me standing to do all kinds of things.
Additionally, Florida has very specific rules about how the revenues from traffic enforcement are to be allocated, and after some somewhat heated discussions with city officials, I've been able to determine that Orlando's portion of the take stays in the city while the rest goes directly to LaserCraft, Inc. (the camera vendor/operator), and the state doesn't see a dime of it. I'm still waiting for a copy of the city's contract to get some hard numbers. I'm thinking the money angle will probably be more apt to get the state involved than the apparently minor fact that the city is breaking state law.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Interesting)
...It's a perversion of justice...
No it is not, but just an extra road tax. Justice isn't involved in any way shape or form. If it a speeding ticket, you basically get taxed extra for the privilege or fun of driving fast.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Insightful)
What should we think of a government that tries to find new ways to make our highways safe.
However, red light cameras do not make it safer. In most places, red light cameras INCREASE the occurrence of rear-end accidents because people are afraid they might get a ticket and stop short. And in my area, those tickets are nearly $200. On top of that, the camera companies get a cut in the profits from the tickets. So there is an incentive to ticket people. And it has been proven in certain cities that the governments are shortening the yellow-light times to catch people off guard. So even people who are not trying to "run" the light get caught in it. And speed cameras on on-ramps are just friggin stupid. There are enough people out there who dont know how to merge into freeway traffic. THEY are the ones who cause congestion.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=red+light+camera+accident+statistics [google.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_light_camera [wikipedia.org]
You're welcome.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Funny)
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Informative)
I haven't seen a city in California whose times aren't already unsafely short. You can't tell me that a two second yellow is EVER safe, yet I've seen them that short in Sunnyvale, and many, many intersections at only three. And I've seen three seconds with zero all-red seconds for lights that allow left turns across five lanes of traffic. If you enter at the speed limit as it turns yellow, you will be in the intersection for at least two seconds while the light is green in the other direction. I can count at least a dozen lights between Fair Oaks and Sunnyvale roads alone that are dangerous, and those aren't even the intersections with cameras....
The other dirty thing they do to try to anger drivers and make them run red lights is to time the lights so you hit every second light red reproducibly. Again, the two major roads through Sunnyvale are timed in this way for the vast majority of the day. Not only does it increase the rate of road rage significantly, it encourages people to exceed the speed limit to beat the lights, encourages people to run the lights when they change to red right in front of them, and likely wastes millions of gallons of gasoline every year in California alone, all so they can raise a little more red light revenue at a few intersections....
IMHO, we need a California-wide ballot measure to demand citizen oversight committees be in charge of all traffic light management. That's the only way the abuse will stop. And red light cameras are abuse. Every study of red light cameras has shown that increasing the length of yellow lights to a minimum of seven seconds has the same benefits in terms of sideswipe accident reduction without the increased rate of rear end collisions, without wasting tons of fuel, without causing road rage, etc. Unfortunately, the people in power are not about to admit that they were wrong, so the only way to fix the problem is to wrest control away form them through a referendum.
At least speed cameras are illegal in California. We got one right, anyway. It's a good thing, too. There's a radar sign on Highway 17 that routinely overestimates the speed of oncoming traffic by up to 15 MPH. If such a device were handing out speeding tickets, I'd have a thousand of them, all while going the speed limit, all with a confused look on my face staring at the completely incorrect speed on the sign....
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Insightful)
The best way is to make the intersection designs controlled by insurance companies. It is in their best interest not to ever pay out, so the interesections that they can reduce accidents in will be made as safe as possible.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Informative)
Got any links to these studies? I googled "red light camera study" and found a recent news article [go.com] which makes some interesting claims:
Ah, well here we go. Here [thenewspaper.com] is a page that has a collection of 10 or so studies which seem to suppport your claim.
Hopefully this information will be of use to the typically [in my experience] ungrateful /. crowd.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't set aside the abuse-- that's the whole issue.
The city's stated goal is supposedly to increase safety, by using cameras to deter running reds. Properly timing lights, though, with adequate yellows and four-way reds, is more effective, but doesn't give drivers money to the gov't with tickets. Shaving time off yellows and adding traffic cameras, on the other hand, makes the intersection less safe, while snagging more drivers and making more money for the government. If the government wants to take your money, they need to ask for it through the proper channels, not just by setting up trip-wires than fining people for stumbling.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm talking about the studies that have compared the effectiveness of adding red light cameras versus making the yellow light longer. There have been several studies on that, and they have all consistently and conclusively stated that increasing the yellow cycle is more effective. Sorry, guess I should have been more precise in qualifying the word "every". I just assumed it was obvious from the context.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Informative)
Did you read your own link? It described the type of word as "Nonstandard", and goes on to say:
Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term.
So, yes, there are plenty of things wrong with that word.
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Pizzaz aren't French, they're Italian.
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Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Insightful)
Could the (U.S.) legal department weigh in on this...
Where did this whole idea of "you have rights, except in civil cases" come from? Am I missing the part that says "These rights are only valid when defending against police or government accusation, dealing with over $5000 penalty or personal imprisonment."
While it may not be much to some people, my traffic fine is enough of a slice of my personal property to warrant playing by the rules writ in big letters.
All well and good, except... (Score:3, Interesting)
In Arizona, all tickets are reviewed by
the police or local municipality of which
the ticket was issued.
ie, if the car doesn't match the ticket,
no ticket gets sent. If the driver is
one sex and the vehicle is registered
to the opposite sex, a notice is sent,
not a ticket. I can drive my wife's
vehicle and speed all I want, she gets
a notice that says, "Do you know this
person".
I can't see any instance where this would
work except same vehicle, same sex driving.
So... Fail.
-AI
Re:All well and good, except... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Or some very unique bumper stickers.
"You see a Republicans for Voldemort bumper sticker on that car? Do you?! Move along, thanks."
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Funny)
"I've often thought if I got one of these tickets I would take it to court and ask for the right to see my accuser."
Print your tag using this link, along with some random tags from your area.
I found out about it when my co-workers pranked me by placing a "MAN SEX" fake over the plate on my tow truck...
Funny thing is that I towed several cars that weekend right past police without knowing about the plate (which is near my lightbar so I don't look at it).
Enjoy:
http://license.plates.txt2pic.com/ [txt2pic.com]
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Funny)
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Interesting)
Karl Marx actually proposed a way improved form of democracy where the workers united in neighborhood committees will decide their own neighborhood policies, their city, their state, their country and the world's policies, all through direct debate and vote, with EVERYBODY being part of the decision and policy elaboration process.
That is way much more democratic than we have anywhere in the world in the world these days, and specially in the US, where if you don't have a billion dollar to waste away you cannot run for president.
So, forget a little bit about pr0n and WoW and go read, or at least google a bit, before you make pathetic loser jokes about things you don't know.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wait 'till your neighbor paints his house purpl (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait 'till your neighbor paints his house purple. Or has 100 cats.
My neighbor has the right to paint his house any color he wishes, including purple. I welcome his creativity, and no I don't care if it devalues my home. My right to make a profit in my investment ends at his property.
As far as having 100 cats, as long as those cats are not coming into my property, not being mistreated, and as long as it's not violating any municipal/city/state/federal health codes, it's none of my business either.
You forgot, "inform on others" (Score:4, Insightful)
And what does the government do a little girl opens a lemonade stand and tries to keep the profits? Little handcuffs and off to the gulag!
There's a very scary scene depicting what these local committees were like in the movie The Red Violin. Go rent that and see how local government worked under Mao.
Of course, these elections never actually happened anyway, or any elections for that matter, local or national, under any Marxist regimes. Or a single, fixed election, like in Venezuela.
Sorry brother, but when I hear "Marx," I don't think "democracy."
Re:You forgot, "inform on others" (Score:4, Insightful)
Informants are a sign of totalitarianism. Left and right wing regimes, secular and religious regimes have all produced totalitarianism (and informants). Marxism has been strongly associated with informants, but so has Christianity, and for far longer. Even the US had informants during the McCarthy era.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Funny)
Obama will replace him in a few weeks.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:4, Insightful)
Socialism simply doesn't work. Here is why. The people who want it are the people who expect to get something in return. Those that don't want it expect to be loosing something in return. Because politics is relatively expensive, those who will lose control the policies on it. When you take them out of the mix, they get defiant which means you will have to enforce the socialist views and policies on them. This enforcement grows and pretty soon you will have the fascism and communism the world has seen.
It's an inevitable ending because people have desire and greed. You essentially need to beat that out of them or put in a position where they are too afraid to act on it. Otherwise, I can take my ball and go home, keeping it all to myself. If I can't make more then I am now, I have no reason to work harder. If I don't want to work harder, then why am I working in the first place, after all, socialism will take care of me. Well, they you go back to getting more for working and someone will need to keep those people in their place. Despite the incompetent asshole management syndrome that many people with the slightest but of authority over someone else gets, the entire system will have to depend on voluntary participation.
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK we have cameras that face towards you, taking a picture of the driver that will be used as evidence if you say "I wasn't driving".
Take advantage of this while you can.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yea but you still have to take a day off of work. So it's still an inconvenience even if you win.
[John]
Re:without any humans ever having been involved (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Traffic police in England also have handheld PDA-type devices that they can type a numberplate into and retrieve the driving license details of the registered driver (including photo). If they pull you over and you have false plates your details won't match those of the legitimate registered owner and you'll be in trouble.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Dude, I think you need to do two out of three options:
1 - Drink at a party
2 - get Laid
3 - Smile
I'm a positive guy, yet you got me looking at that glass and wondering if it even matters that the glass has anything in it.
Then I realize that it is still half full of Vodka and I can still hope to party and smile (this is /., getting laid is less likely). I am sorry that this got moderated insightful, it should be +5 cynical.
Glossy Paper and Printers (Score:4, Funny)
Duplicate plates? When I was in school, we used to actually swap the plates themselves lol.
Kids and technology these days.
Re:Glossy Paper and Printers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That would place him firmly in category 4. People so stupid they shouldn't be allowed access to the internet.
Predictable. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the inevitable result of the 'panopticon' model of legal harmony. A car does not positively identify a person, nor does a license plate or a blurry photo.
The authorities can cast a wider net by being lazy, but this is the real reason we shouldn't tolerate it: it's almost laughably exploitable.
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Typical procedure in Australia was that the fine went to the reg'd owner, who could either then pay or submit an affidavit saying "X was driving". You can't just say "Someone else was driving". You can get access to the photos used, but they absolutely can and will pull your license and registration until there's some form of 'retribution'.
Re:Predictable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Predictable. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it will just be used as an excuse to make the governor and other politicians exempt from the law.
Re:Predictable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Then target their golfing buddies and their largest campaign donors.
Re:Predictable. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Predictable. (Score:4, Interesting)
The legal system needs to employ a few game designers to help them avoid such obvious griefing opportunities.
Re:Predictable. (Score:4, Insightful)
There, fixed that for you. You employ the guy that wrote WOWGlider, not the doofus who designed trust into the client in the first place.
Hope for the future? (Score:4, Insightful)
If we're lucky.
Unless they are caught... (Score:5, Informative)
It's interesting though that penalties are apparently tied to the car in the us, not the driver. I still remember the police showing up regularly at the door showing me a (usually bad) picture of my father and asking if I knew the person. Thank god^M^M^M the constitution for family privilege.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
...when they usually pay through the nose or get jailtime for counterfeiting an official document (which a license plate is).
I was thinking the same thing. I'm not a fan of universal ID's and the like, but I am a fan of really strong penalties for impersonating some one else. It seems like that would apply to a lot of things: Voter fraud, credit theft, privacy violations. Maybe this is already the case and it just isn't a deterrent.
BTW - I think you meant ^H (BS), not ^M (CR).
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Look, I know you're trying to act all cool with your tech shit but Ctrl-M? LOL
Shut your mouth, real geeks are talking.
yeah great idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
sounds like a great idea until the first time a cop is on scene to pull you over.
I hope those kids like jail time!
Re:yeah great idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, so you personally commit fraud and forgery to get your "enemy" a $40 speeding ticket?
sounds like a great idea until the first time a cop is on scene to pull you over.
I hope those kids like jail time!
You're serious??? You would give kids jail time for an administrative prank? For $40? That's sick. Just plain sick. With these kinds of opinions, no wonder we have these kinds of laws.
America would be a better place if we stopped trying to 0wn people in real life, instead of just video games and movies. There is such a thing as partial victories and conditional surrenders.
Re:yeah great idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
When does it stop being a prank? 2nd time? 10th time?
Re:yeah great idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Never. It's always a prank. If you want to argue that after getting caught ten times and clearly refusing to mend your ways that you should face some stiffer penalties, I couldn't agree more. That doesn't change that putting someone in jail for an administrative prank is wrong. And the knee jerk reaction to *want* that is perverted.
Here's a solution: why not take away their driver's license? That would have the same effect on stopping the abuse, while ratcheting up the pressure (getting caught driving with a suspended license is far more serious) all without the slightest risk of permanently scars.
Re:yeah great idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're serious??? You would give kids jail time for an administrative prank? For $40? That's sick. Just plain sick. With these kinds of opinions, no wonder we have these kinds of laws.
Costing someone a $40 ticket goes way beyond a "prank". A prank is a practical joke you pull on your friends, and you all laugh about it afterward. This is economic vandalism.
Jail time would be unlikely (hell, you can steal a car and not get jail time if you're a first offender), but I'd certainly advocate some sort of required community service. Maybe 16 hours of picking up trash alongside a road will encourage someone to think a bit more about the consequences of bad choices. We can get creative in the sentencing too. [rockymountainnews.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Heh. That's a funny way of expressing things. I'll have to remember that later. Especially as now living in Europe for the past years I can definitely relate to what you're saying, since at the time when I got my license in my state you only had to have your permit for 30 days after you turned 16.
(As an aside, I'll say I'm against drawing to stiff a line on what's a kid and what's not. My concern is that sometime in the future, the Supreme Court is going to hear a case against some category of blatenly wron
Re:yeah great idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
Putting the fakes on, driving through a light that just turned red, pulling off on a side road and removing the plates should take no more than 5 or 10 minutes. The chances of a cop pulling you over in that amount of time is close to nil.
I agree it would be monumentally stupid to drive around with the fake covering on, but then again, anyone smart enough to want to do this in the first place isn't going to do that for exactly that reason.
If someone actually wanted to make a statement... (Score:5, Insightful)
...they could create a website listing the make, model and licenses of cars belonging to police and other public officials; with convenient license plate templates or maybe a PDF license plate generator. Don't host it the US or UK though.
But that would be wrong.
Dinsdale? (Score:3, Funny)
A blog dedicated to driving and politics adds that a similar, if darker, practice has taken hold in England, where bad guys cruise the streets looking for a car similar to their own. They then duplicate its plates in a more durable form, and thereafter drive around with little fear of trouble from the police.
The Monty Python folks referred to this as, "the other, other operation."
Profit?
Driving and politics . . . sounds like a deadly mix to me.
Teachers? Aim higher... (Score:3, Interesting)
Another interesting tidbit (Score:3, Interesting)
I have no idea whether or not this information is actually accurate, but I found it interesting none-the-less.
While watching an episode of Top Gear where Jeremy Clarkson was in Japan driving a car, he mentioned that photographs taken by speed cameras were only valid if your face could be identified from the picture. He had a paper cutout of another person's face that he would hold over his own whenever passing by a camera so that he could not be given a ticket.
I'm sure that this was mostly for comedic effect, but if true, doesn't something like this make speed cameras completely pointless?
I've also read a few stories where those who especially hate speed cameras will obscure its vision in some manner so that it cannot take accurate pictures or any pictures at all. Assuming that the rate of this mischief is high enough and there are enough other methods available to circumvent the accuracy of these cameras, is it really worthwhile to use them?
Re:Another interesting tidbit (Score:5, Funny)
Well, yes... But to be fair, nobody wants to look like Jeremy Clarkson, not even Jeremy Clarkson.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
German police seek speeding British Muppet [blogspot.com]
This kind of thing has never happened before! (Score:4, Insightful)
This entirely new type of crime can only come about because of speed cameras! If we didn't try to punish people breaking the law this kind of thing would never happen!
Digital traps in an analog world (Score:5, Insightful)
This just shows again the problems with applying a digital measure to our analog world. Speeding is by no means a crime. A crime implies harm, and having an instantaneous velocity over a certain point on a road hardly qualifies as a crime. Here we have a case of the computer being judge, jury, and executioner. This means that gone are the *very* valid justification that "that's the speed limit because driving any slower was dangerous."
Before, real-life situations could trump an engineer's arbitrary classification of a road. Which is good, because in real life, the situation *is* more important than the simulation. Now, instead of a judge who makes an informed decision that can be understood and formally disagreed with, we have a contractor, who is completely removed from the job. No one to get mad at, and, most importantly, no one to feel guilty. Every person in the chain has no responsibility and no reason to feel bad.
No matter the efficiency advantages of doing otherwise, every penalty applied to a human should be applied by a human.
Re:Digital traps in an analog world (Score:5, Insightful)
But, speeding is a crime in that by speeding you are needlessly endangering other people's lives. Laws are not necessarily what is moral and in some cases for need of practicality, laws must be preventative instead of reactionary. Not that I'm advocating the extent to which they go, but by your logic we should remove ALL airport security.
Driving needlessly endangers other people's lives. Heck, so does existence. There's a certain amount of gray area in this. And while laws are not necessarily moral, the people who apply them are by definition.
In any case, not to get distracted from the subject at hand, I refute that speeding, as defined by going faster than a posted limit, is needlessly endangering lives. Those limits are decided by engineers who have NOT decided on the best speed. They've applied some rules of thumb, some rules of law, and some rules of common sense to arrive at a nice round number that is more correct than not. However, with cameras you're no longer talking more or less. You're talking exactly, atomically, right or wrong.
P.S. I'm missing the link between airport security and machines making legal choices.
P.S.S. And being a pilot, I can assure you that most of airport security is a farce. But I think just about everybody already knows that.
the real problem is the speed limits themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem, imho, is that speed limits are artificially low. In the US anyway, the only reason to follow the speed limit is to avoid fines. The numbers are unnecessarily conservative for most driving.
In fact, i can drive past a cop at the speed limit in the rain and not get a ticket though clearly I have a much lower margin of safety going 65 in the rain than I do going 65 on dry pavement.
Similarly, one is allowed to go the same speed at night as during the day even though visibility is definitely impaired.
(Yes, I know the limit is set as an upper limit and that cops can ticket you for going an unsafe speed for the conditions, etc, etc. but in practice it doesn't happen for up to moderate levels of inclement levels. And in fog or a downpour or blizzard, well most people slow down well below the speed limit anyway.)
I do like the "advised speed" that's attached to signs signaling curves ahead. That actually provides useful information about the road rather than info about the revenue generation and/or paranoia of the local residents.
Mandatory RFID license plates (Score:5, Insightful)
It still holds true after all these years... (Score:5, Insightful)
Be excellent to each other.
The speed camera should at least verify car type! (Score:3, Informative)
Here in Norway (nearly?) all speed trap cameras use roadbed sensors which detect each vehicle axle as the car/truck passes over it.
There are two such sensors a few meters apart, and the speed trap logic will calculate both the speed the car must have had between the two sensors, and the distance between the vehicle axles.
The gear is supposedly sensitive/accurate enough that the axle distance can be measured within a cm or so.
This still leaves a lot of possible car models, but it is used as a first-order check of the license plate OCR sw.
When the ticket is mailed to the (assumed) owner of the car, it includes a copy of the photo, so the owner can verify that it is indeed the correct car and driver.
Terje
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Excepts identical twins, 3 occurrences per 1000 births...