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I can't say I'm surprised that this is happening. As technology progresses, it only makes sense that government becomes more efficient at doing things that we l

I can't say I'm surprised that this is happening. As technology progresses, it only makes sense that government becomes more efficient at doing things that we like and don't like. As soon as red-light cameras became OK, or any license plate reading systems, this eventuality was on the table. I'm only saddened by the fact that they've been essentially duped by some private sector company into selling private citizens' data (and allowing them to retain it even after expiration of the contract) instead of trying to develop this technology themselves, and actually innovating. This move reduces citizen privacy, and costs citizens privacy all at the same time. The next thing I look to see happen is automated speeding tickets. There's no reason radars shouldn't be set up in conjuction with license plate readers, or actually just pulling speed data from cars with in-car transmission ability and tickets being auto-generated to constituents. Imagine trying to argue against why your car shouldn't be monitored for speeding infringements -- surely you're either a speeder trying to kill kids and families, or you're a getaway driver trying to commit crimes. Then the law goes into place (of course, save the kids), then people realize some car companies transmit location info by accident/on purpose, and people can now pretty much watch you drive places.

robk 11y ago
Camera speeding tickets are totally common across Europe already
JupiterMoon 11y ago
> The next thing I look to see happen is automated speeding tickets. There's no reason radars shouldn't be set up in conjuction with license plate readers, or actually just pulling speed data from cars with in-car transmission ability and tickets being auto-generated to constituents. I'm fairly certain that this happens already in the UK.
- brewdad 11y ago
  The system I witnessed set up in the UK seems reasonable, if you allow that such a system can ever be reasonable. The cameras capture plates entering and exiting a multiple mile stretch of highway and if your average speed exceeds the threshold, you get cited. No worries about momentary speeding and no need to immediately slam on the brakes as happens with single location cameras in the US.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    They have single point checks as well (some of which are variable). Personally I quite like the average speed checks+ as they keep people driving at the speed limit which I like to do myself. + When they are used properly. Often they are used in conjunction with spurious roadworks and a very low limit (I've seen 30mph on a motorway).
    - rconti 11y ago
      Why do you like to drive at the speed limit? Do you find it just happens to be reasonably set, and it happens to be a speed at which you feel comfortable? Have you driven vehicles in which the speed limit feels dangerously fast, as well as vehicles in which the speed limit feels somewhat low? Do you find the speed limit to be a reasonable "upper bound" for travel, with a fair number of people traveling below it? Or do you find it to be an artificial upper bound, with many vehicles traveling very close to that speed? If the latter, how do you feel about the clumping of traffic and inability to complete passes, change lanes for exits, and the like?
      - to3m 11y ago
        Your last sentence sounds so unlike my experiences driving on UK motorways that I imagine the experience just won't translate (for whatever reason).
      - gambiting 11y ago
        I actually have experience driving in multiple countries so I think I can add something to this. In Poland, where I am from, speed limits are retarded. Seriously, the speed limit can change several times on the distance of 1km. Seriously, pick any Polish street on Google StreetView and follow it for a bit - it will keep on going between 90km/h to drop to 40km/h to then go to 60km/h for 100m or so, to go down to 50km/g to go up to 90km/h again. So people sort of pick a middle speed somewhere between those and end up driving over/under the speed limit for 90% of the time. Of course the police knows this so they are usually waiting at this one bit where the speed limit drops for literally 50m of the road for no reason at all. I saw the speed limit falling from 90km/h to just 50km/h in the middle of nowhere, with nothing in sight, and a police car waiting just behind the sign to catch you speeding. In the UK on the other hand, it's much much much better. I never feel like the speed limits don't make sense. As you approach a city, the speed limit goes from 70mph to 50mph, then to 40mph, to finally fall down to 30mph in the city and 20mph in residential areas. I have never seen a situation where the speed limit would change multiple times on one stretch of road. Even driving in the countryside, the speed limit is always 60mph even if the road is not good enough to actually support that speed - you are expected to use your own judgement, if you go into a blind corner going 60mph you are an idiot, there's no need to set up speed limit before every single turn and tree like they do in Poland.
hardwaresofton 11y ago
Thanks to people noting that this is already happening to some degree in Europe/UK (didn't even stop to consider what was happening there already, gotta widen my world view). What I'm worried is having it just be instant. Some regulation that requires speed-checkers in every car built, and reporting to find out any time your car goes over the speed limit, regardless if there's a camera in sight. But maybe driver-less cars will come first, and manual driving itself will be outlawed (or made prohibitively expensive). It's a balance -- it would seem to me that speed traps are stunningly effective at protecting a given intersections (if people have been speeding through it too much), but the logic applies pretty much everywhere, just waiting for someone to try and apply it. This is going to prompt some interesting soul searching from the populace. Yeah, you want the speed limit to be 35 (for the kids, of course), but now that you get penalized instantly when you break the rule you agreed on, the fine won't be so enjoyable. Or, laws will pass as they normally do without the majority of the populace thinking, caring, or getting a say.
- ascorbic 11y ago
  Just wait til you get the average speed check systems. Those are real bastards. Cameras at the start and end of a stretch of motorway which read your licence plate and catch you if your average speed is over the limit.
  - brewdad 11y ago
    Those seem entirely more reasonable to me than the "snapshot in time" system generally employed. There will no doubt be a painful transition period as driver's expectations of behavior adjust. Do you honestly think that if drivers know they will be ticketed for driving 36 in a 35 zone, every time, that they won't slow down to at least 34 as the new normal?
JadeNB 11y ago
> The next thing I look to see happen is automated speeding tickets. There's no reason radars shouldn't be set up in conjuction with license plate readers, or actually just pulling speed data from cars with in-car transmission ability and tickets being auto-generated to constituents. This seems like a Catch-22, though. Any state that actually enforced speeding laws systematically would wind up ticketing (almost) all drivers, (almost) all the time, and the selective nature of current enforcement of speeding limits would become so glaringly apparent that (one hopes) the problems with it couldn't be ignored. Especially in a state like Texas, where "no regulation" is a religious mantra, it's hard to imagine that the result would be anything but raising the speed limits on the road to reflect actual driving conditions—which, I'd argue, is a good thing. (I don't know anything about the reason, but I do know that, on a stretch of I-35 that I have driven regularly for a few years, the speed limit has increased; and the trend statewide seems to be towards higher limits, with much of I-10 having a speed limit of 80 mph—beyond which I, as a Prius driver, wouldn't go significantly even if I were legally allowed to do so.)
- hardwaresofton 11y ago
  Yeah I think this is the kind of thing that would actually happen -- people would have to actually confront what speed limits were/should be more practically. My other comment was a little more pessimistic (as the probability that people don't get outraged enough to set practical limits is non-zero) -- but it would be nice if people took more of a critical/practical view towards the current speed limits, and whether they reflect the abilities of modern cars (and their own tolerances for receiving tickets).
- vhold 11y ago
  I've heard the argument before, not sure if it was backed with any real data, that perfect enforcement leads to wiping out tickets as a source of revenue, because people start actually obeying the law. In some cases it actually makes things more dangerous, like red-light cameras appear to cause accidents, because people afraid of tickets start slamming on their brakes when the light turns yellow, and get rear ended. http://abcnews.go.com/US/red-light-camera-backlash-cameras-causing-accidents/story?id=13925887 http://abcnews.go.com/US/red-light-camera-backlash-cameras-c...
jimbobimbo 11y ago
"surely you're either ..." ...or the township elects to post artificially low speed limits to collect fines from the passerbys.
- hardwaresofton 11y ago
  Small Texas towns do this by the way (and are famous for it/well known) -- but AFAIK limits were placed on the percentage of revenue that a town can make from tickets from their stretch of highway.
- sehugg 11y ago
  or the township elects to post artificially low speed limits to collect fines from the passerbys Like the ones in Olney, Maryland: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2015/06/16/how-a-town-of-34000-ended-up-with-one-of-the-most-prolific-speed-cameras-in-the-region/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2015/06/1...
analyst74 11y ago
This exist in one city I lived for a while in Canada. It was quite annoying, but after 8 tickets or so, I learnt to drive within speed limit. The system was quite robust and nobody seems to have really bad things to say about it, other than curses when receiving a ticket in the mail.
tacon 11y ago
Radar guns have been around for many decades. They cost a few hundred dollars and can generate revenue of $1000/day. So why doesn't every police car in existence have a radar gun? The author I was reading claimed that local politicians would not stand for it, I guess because it would be too hard to fix that many VIP tickets. I wonder what the power elite is doing with automated ticket-issuing machines? Maybe the systems come with the ability to erase specific auto-generated tickets for "special" people.
- TACIXAT 11y ago
  Tint your windows and argue that you weren't the one driving.
nightcracker 11y ago
> The next thing I look to see happen is automated speeding tickets. You don't have those in America? Here in the Netherlands virtually every speeding ticket is given automatically.

robk 11y ago

Camera speeding tickets are totally common across Europe already

JupiterMoon 11y ago

brewdad 11y ago
The system I witnessed set up in the UK seems reasonable, if you allow that such a system can ever be reasonable. The cameras capture plates entering and exiting a multiple mile stretch of highway and if your average speed exceeds the threshold, you get cited. No worries about momentary speeding and no need to immediately slam on the brakes as happens with single location cameras in the US.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  They have single point checks as well (some of which are variable). Personally I quite like the average speed checks+ as they keep people driving at the speed limit which I like to do myself. + When they are used properly. Often they are used in conjunction with spurious roadworks and a very low limit (I've seen 30mph on a motorway).
  - rconti 11y ago
    Why do you like to drive at the speed limit? Do you find it just happens to be reasonably set, and it happens to be a speed at which you feel comfortable? Have you driven vehicles in which the speed limit feels dangerously fast, as well as vehicles in which the speed limit feels somewhat low? Do you find the speed limit to be a reasonable "upper bound" for travel, with a fair number of people traveling below it? Or do you find it to be an artificial upper bound, with many vehicles traveling very close to that speed? If the latter, how do you feel about the clumping of traffic and inability to complete passes, change lanes for exits, and the like?
    - to3m 11y ago
      Your last sentence sounds so unlike my experiences driving on UK motorways that I imagine the experience just won't translate (for whatever reason).
    - gambiting 11y ago
      I actually have experience driving in multiple countries so I think I can add something to this. In Poland, where I am from, speed limits are retarded. Seriously, the speed limit can change several times on the distance of 1km. Seriously, pick any Polish street on Google StreetView and follow it for a bit - it will keep on going between 90km/h to drop to 40km/h to then go to 60km/h for 100m or so, to go down to 50km/g to go up to 90km/h again. So people sort of pick a middle speed somewhere between those and end up driving over/under the speed limit for 90% of the time. Of course the police knows this so they are usually waiting at this one bit where the speed limit drops for literally 50m of the road for no reason at all. I saw the speed limit falling from 90km/h to just 50km/h in the middle of nowhere, with nothing in sight, and a police car waiting just behind the sign to catch you speeding. In the UK on the other hand, it's much much much better. I never feel like the speed limits don't make sense. As you approach a city, the speed limit goes from 70mph to 50mph, then to 40mph, to finally fall down to 30mph in the city and 20mph in residential areas. I have never seen a situation where the speed limit would change multiple times on one stretch of road. Even driving in the countryside, the speed limit is always 60mph even if the road is not good enough to actually support that speed - you are expected to use your own judgement, if you go into a blind corner going 60mph you are an idiot, there's no need to set up speed limit before every single turn and tree like they do in Poland.

hardwaresofton 11y ago

Thanks to people noting that this is already happening to some degree in Europe/UK (didn't even stop to consider what was happening there already, gotta widen my world view). What I'm worried is having it just be instant. Some regulation that requires speed-checkers in every car built, and reporting to find out any time your car goes over the speed limit, regardless if there's a camera in sight. But maybe driver-less cars will come first, and manual driving itself will be outlawed (or made prohibitively expensive). It's a balance -- it would seem to me that speed traps are stunningly effective at protecting a given intersections (if people have been speeding through it too much), but the logic applies pretty much everywhere, just waiting for someone to try and apply it. This is going to prompt some interesting soul searching from the populace. Yeah, you want the speed limit to be 35 (for the kids, of course), but now that you get penalized instantly when you break the rule you agreed on, the fine won't be so enjoyable. Or, laws will pass as they normally do without the majority of the populace thinking, caring, or getting a say.

ascorbic 11y ago
Just wait til you get the average speed check systems. Those are real bastards. Cameras at the start and end of a stretch of motorway which read your licence plate and catch you if your average speed is over the limit.
- brewdad 11y ago
  Those seem entirely more reasonable to me than the "snapshot in time" system generally employed. There will no doubt be a painful transition period as driver's expectations of behavior adjust. Do you honestly think that if drivers know they will be ticketed for driving 36 in a 35 zone, every time, that they won't slow down to at least 34 as the new normal?

JadeNB 11y ago

> The next thing I look to see happen is automated speeding tickets. There's no reason radars shouldn't be set up in conjuction with license plate readers, or actually just pulling speed data from cars with in-car transmission ability and tickets being auto-generated to constituents. This seems like a Catch-22, though. Any state that actually enforced speeding laws systematically would wind up ticketing (almost) all drivers, (almost) all the time, and the selective nature of current enforcement of speeding limits would become so glaringly apparent that (one hopes) the problems with it couldn't be ignored. Especially in a state like Texas, where "no regulation" is a religious mantra, it's hard to imagine that the result would be anything but raising the speed limits on the road to reflect actual driving conditions—which, I'd argue, is a good thing. (I don't know anything about the reason, but I do know that, on a stretch of I-35 that I have driven regularly for a few years, the speed limit has increased; and the trend statewide seems to be towards higher limits, with much of I-10 having a speed limit of 80 mph—beyond which I, as a Prius driver, wouldn't go significantly even if I were legally allowed to do so.)

hardwaresofton 11y ago
Yeah I think this is the kind of thing that would actually happen -- people would have to actually confront what speed limits were/should be more practically. My other comment was a little more pessimistic (as the probability that people don't get outraged enough to set practical limits is non-zero) -- but it would be nice if people took more of a critical/practical view towards the current speed limits, and whether they reflect the abilities of modern cars (and their own tolerances for receiving tickets).
vhold 11y ago
I've heard the argument before, not sure if it was backed with any real data, that perfect enforcement leads to wiping out tickets as a source of revenue, because people start actually obeying the law. In some cases it actually makes things more dangerous, like red-light cameras appear to cause accidents, because people afraid of tickets start slamming on their brakes when the light turns yellow, and get rear ended. http://abcnews.go.com/US/red-light-camera-backlash-cameras-causing-accidents/story?id=13925887 http://abcnews.go.com/US/red-light-camera-backlash-cameras-c...

jimbobimbo 11y ago

"surely you're either ..." ...or the township elects to post artificially low speed limits to collect fines from the passerbys.

hardwaresofton 11y ago
Small Texas towns do this by the way (and are famous for it/well known) -- but AFAIK limits were placed on the percentage of revenue that a town can make from tickets from their stretch of highway.
sehugg 11y ago
or the township elects to post artificially low speed limits to collect fines from the passerbys Like the ones in Olney, Maryland: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2015/06/16/how-a-town-of-34000-ended-up-with-one-of-the-most-prolific-speed-cameras-in-the-region/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2015/06/1...

analyst74 11y ago

This exist in one city I lived for a while in Canada. It was quite annoying, but after 8 tickets or so, I learnt to drive within speed limit. The system was quite robust and nobody seems to have really bad things to say about it, other than curses when receiving a ticket in the mail.

tacon 11y ago

Radar guns have been around for many decades. They cost a few hundred dollars and can generate revenue of $1000/day. So why doesn't every police car in existence have a radar gun? The author I was reading claimed that local politicians would not stand for it, I guess because it would be too hard to fix that many VIP tickets. I wonder what the power elite is doing with automated ticket-issuing machines? Maybe the systems come with the ability to erase specific auto-generated tickets for "special" people.

TACIXAT 11y ago
Tint your windows and argue that you weren't the one driving.

nightcracker 11y ago

> The next thing I look to see happen is automated speeding tickets. You don't have those in America? Here in the Netherlands virtually every speeding ticket is given automatically.