5 ms·

Police detectors to warn mobile phone-using drivers

21 points by mintone 7y ago

mintone 7y ago
The article suggests that the detectors will detect 2G, 3G and 4G usage, but will recognise if a bluetooth hands-free kit is in use. This sounds like complete snake oil to me, please could someone explain if this is possible?
- justinjlynn 7y ago
  I would be amazed if this were reliable enough to survive legal challenge. Personally, it sounds too much like the old "TV detector vans". I'm skeptical.
  - tinus_hn 7y ago
    If you read the article, it says it gives warnings, not fines. It can’t tell if a phone is used by the driver or a passenger anyway.
    - justinjlynn 7y ago
      Well, that settles that then. Just another distracting flashing sign for the driver to deal with.
      - mosselman 7y ago
        Not for the people who are using their phone though. For them a push-notification would probably work best ;).
- allyant 7y ago
  Definitely - surely most phones will be using/connected-to data services even when not in use?
  - philjohn 7y ago
    Especially if you're using GPS software that has live traffic updates, or that downloads maps whilst you are navigating.
- lozenge 7y ago
  It would probably fall foul of hacking laws even if technically possible (which it isn't). They just don't want to say it is a camera based system for fear of... vandalism? An image classifier with a human check doling out fixed penalties would be more effective than this. So would a warning system on phones that shamed drivers. Neither are within the resources of the police to develop (as nearly all police in the UK are local).
  - stordoff 7y ago
    > It would probably fall foul of hacking laws even if technically possible (which it isn't) Probably not - Computer Misuse Act, s.10: > Sections 1 to 3A have effect without prejudice to the operation— > (a)in England and Wales of any enactment relating to powers of inspection, search or seizure or of any other enactment by virtue of which the conduct in question is authorised or required
- narrowtux 7y ago
  And what if you're using your phone for navigation? It will still transmit data to google maps or whichever maps service you use, but its usage would probably considered legal.
  - profmonocle 7y ago
    Heck, your phone could be on silent in your pocket and a push notification might set this off. Your phone still has to transmit the acknowledgment.
- bestnameever 7y ago
  Really a guess - an uneducated one at that but I'm guessing it is measuring rf signals transmitting out of the phone more so vs what is being received which is why it will also notify if someone is talking on the phone - the phone will be transmitting. There is probably a measurable difference in rf when a phone is trying to send data vs just acting as a receiver, right? From what I can recall, it generally takes more power for a phone to send data to the tower than to receive it. At the same time, you can measure whether Bluetooth is simultaneously being used.
- muttled 7y ago
  RF signal detectors can pick up what frequency the strongest signal in a range is broadcasting at. I had a cheapy ebay one that at a cost of $30 could pickup my phone ringing or on a call/text on its LTE frequency from about 6 feet away, and that was with it using an untuned antenna as the detector was able to pick up between 100mhz-2500mhz. I'd imagine with a much higher quality detector, a tuned, directional antenna, and a narrower range you needed to cover that you could up that distance several times from the 6 feet I got. We also had the police employing radar detector-detecting devices 15 years ago that could detect every single radar detector on the market in 2004, and none of those radar detectors were intentionally transmitting a signal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector_detector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector_detector
stephen_g 7y ago
This seems like a silly idea - as the article says, there's no way for it to tell whether it's the driver or a passenger, but even if there's only one person in the car, there's no way to tell if the person is actively using a mobile phone or if it's just sitting in the car and there's some app running on it that happens to be transmitting data... Then add in the likelihood that it'll pick up all sorts of random interference and have all sorts false-positives... It'd probably be just as accurate if it just had a sensor to detect cars, and flash the warning at a randomly chosen 30% or so of cars...
- Drakim 7y ago
  Maybe the real boon will be the way it can be used like drug dogs, to give "probable cause" on command to the police.
  - TheGrumpyBrit 7y ago
    We don't really have probably cause in that sense in the UK. Any driver can be stopped at any time purely to check documents if required - police don't need to have a reason.
    - devoply 7y ago
      Probable cause is used to search the car. Police can't randomly search cars. However in order to target areas with minorities who are involved with drugs, they use police dogs that can supposedly sniff drugs. But the dogs really just read their handlers and bark when their handlers want them to. Police can stop anyone at any time for documents. /papers please Recently in Canada a driver was charged for distracted driving for simply wearing headphones while driving. The judge decided that regardless of whether they were functional or not he was guilty. All these things just point to the fact that you don't want to deal with the police or with the law as both them don't really care about reality, just their manufactured fictions they use to justify their power over people. As Fault called it biopower.
      - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
esotericn 7y ago
For context, across the UK we have similar systems for speed limits. They are not used for enforcement or prosecution. They are informational boards. Actual speed cameras are different (usually a yellow or blue box that doesn't give any feedback). It's basically a sort of 'big brother is watching' reminder. Some of them show your actual speed on a big LED board, leading to individuals attempting to get a "high score". It sounds from the article like this would be the same. A board that flashes a mobile phone if you might be using one. As far as I'm concerned, it's a complete waste of time (because I know these boards are meaningless), but the other side of the coin is that a decent number of people actually are afraid of enforcement action due to the signs and slow down.
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  It's not fear of enforcement that motivates people to act on these signs, it is the moral reminder that their behaviour is not socially acceptable (not to mention illegal). For a large group of people this works. Speeding (and being a smombie behind the wheel) is something people often do unintentionally, or with a rationalization mindset of 'everybody does it' (or something along those lines). For both these cases a reminder without further consequences can guide them to better behaviour. For the rest who just make their own rules enforcement remains necessary of course, but it helps if you can get a good number of people to cooperate intrinsically.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    I suppose it depends a lot on your local area. Where I live there are tons of these 'flashy speed limit' signs. I don't think I've ever seen anyone obey them. 35-40mph in the new London '20 zones' is completely normal behaviour if the road permits; everyone does indeed do it, including buses and off-duty police/ambulances. It is, in fact, empirically socially acceptable (by the drivers if not necessarily by people who live there). In areas with speed bumps you see much lower speeds because people don't want to damage their vehicles. Enforcement, basically. The same is true for real speed cameras, people tend to speed up and slow down. That said, mobile phone use is different. I think most people intuitively recognise that using a phone at the wheel, particularly in an urban area, is really quite dangerous, and maybe a sign would work.
CableGorilla 7y ago
I use my phone every day for Google Maps, surely that is going to be a false positive?
Bombthecat 7y ago
I'm in Houston right now, no car, so we walk around here (it is very rare seeing someone not in a car here, no public transport, but that's another topic) what really baffled me was the amount of people on there phone while driving. Its insane. I read about that problem. But I thought it was exaggerated. But hooollyy Molly. It is a lot. There was even an add on tv for a collision detector along the line of:while distracted by your phone, it warns you about an upcoming collision!
black6 7y ago
Using a phone wile driving is one of my pet peeves, but this doesn't seem like an effective approach. If a problem person is already distracted (not a false-positive), will they even pay attention to the flashing sign? Just last night I had to knock on the hood of a woman using her phone while driving in the parking lot after she nearly ran over my wife and daughter walking to a restaurant. She was completely oblivious to the goings on around her and got extremely offended when I made the "hang up" gesture and told her to put down her phone while driving. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
mosselman 7y ago
"The technology will not be used as an "enforcement tool", the forces said, but was instead aimed at educating motorists..." I hope there will be enforcement tools in the near future and I believe the fines and other forms of punishment should be very high. First offence could mean no driving for a month along with a huge fine that is based on salary, second offence something along the lines of losing your license completely and having to go through the complete process of examination, etc after a year of reflection without driving, again with a hefty fine. Apparently you weren't that interesting in driving to begin with, in the bus you can look at your phone all you want. Third offence means you don't get a license for 20 years. Killing/injuring someone while using your phone in the car should result into some form of prison sentence. In my eyes there is 0 excuse for being engaged with your phone in the car in any other form than passively while using it for navigation. The worst are people who are looking at messages and writing. A few weeks ago I was almost hit by a driver who sped over the crossing I was walking on. I was paying attention enough to see him with his phone in his hand, looking at something on the screen, never looking up and I was just able to stop walking. I don't know if I'd been killed if I weren't paying attention, but it wouldn't have been pretty. I don't even care that much about myself though, I already have little faith in people's ability to drive properly so I pay attention and hope that keeps saving me. What I worry about are my children, who are bound to make some mistakes when crossing streets, etc, them being kids after all. The idea of someone killing them because they had to make a lame joke in a group chat in order to earn some emoji-based kudos is insane yet somehow not impossible.
nmstoker 7y ago
It should just turn on when there's a car as that will be equally effective as the system (with its flaws) and then they could save the £6,000
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
teilo 7y ago
Anyone using Carplay or Android Auto is going to get flagged by this. This is stupid.

21 points by mintone 7y ago

The article suggests that the detectors will detect 2G, 3G and 4G usage, but will recognise if a bluetooth hands-free kit is in use. This sounds like complete snake oil to me, please could someone explain if this is possible?

justinjlynn 7y ago
I would be amazed if this were reliable enough to survive legal challenge. Personally, it sounds too much like the old "TV detector vans". I'm skeptical.
- tinus_hn 7y ago
  If you read the article, it says it gives warnings, not fines. It can’t tell if a phone is used by the driver or a passenger anyway.
  - justinjlynn 7y ago
    Well, that settles that then. Just another distracting flashing sign for the driver to deal with.
    - mosselman 7y ago
      Not for the people who are using their phone though. For them a push-notification would probably work best ;).
allyant 7y ago
Definitely - surely most phones will be using/connected-to data services even when not in use?
- philjohn 7y ago
  Especially if you're using GPS software that has live traffic updates, or that downloads maps whilst you are navigating.
lozenge 7y ago
It would probably fall foul of hacking laws even if technically possible (which it isn't). They just don't want to say it is a camera based system for fear of... vandalism? An image classifier with a human check doling out fixed penalties would be more effective than this. So would a warning system on phones that shamed drivers. Neither are within the resources of the police to develop (as nearly all police in the UK are local).
- stordoff 7y ago
  > It would probably fall foul of hacking laws even if technically possible (which it isn't) Probably not - Computer Misuse Act, s.10: > Sections 1 to 3A have effect without prejudice to the operation— > (a)in England and Wales of any enactment relating to powers of inspection, search or seizure or of any other enactment by virtue of which the conduct in question is authorised or required
narrowtux 7y ago
And what if you're using your phone for navigation? It will still transmit data to google maps or whichever maps service you use, but its usage would probably considered legal.
- profmonocle 7y ago
  Heck, your phone could be on silent in your pocket and a push notification might set this off. Your phone still has to transmit the acknowledgment.
bestnameever 7y ago
Really a guess - an uneducated one at that but I'm guessing it is measuring rf signals transmitting out of the phone more so vs what is being received which is why it will also notify if someone is talking on the phone - the phone will be transmitting. There is probably a measurable difference in rf when a phone is trying to send data vs just acting as a receiver, right? From what I can recall, it generally takes more power for a phone to send data to the tower than to receive it. At the same time, you can measure whether Bluetooth is simultaneously being used.
muttled 7y ago
RF signal detectors can pick up what frequency the strongest signal in a range is broadcasting at. I had a cheapy ebay one that at a cost of $30 could pickup my phone ringing or on a call/text on its LTE frequency from about 6 feet away, and that was with it using an untuned antenna as the detector was able to pick up between 100mhz-2500mhz. I'd imagine with a much higher quality detector, a tuned, directional antenna, and a narrower range you needed to cover that you could up that distance several times from the 6 feet I got. We also had the police employing radar detector-detecting devices 15 years ago that could detect every single radar detector on the market in 2004, and none of those radar detectors were intentionally transmitting a signal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector_detector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector_detector

stephen_g 7y ago

This seems like a silly idea - as the article says, there's no way for it to tell whether it's the driver or a passenger, but even if there's only one person in the car, there's no way to tell if the person is actively using a mobile phone or if it's just sitting in the car and there's some app running on it that happens to be transmitting data... Then add in the likelihood that it'll pick up all sorts of random interference and have all sorts false-positives... It'd probably be just as accurate if it just had a sensor to detect cars, and flash the warning at a randomly chosen 30% or so of cars...

Drakim 7y ago
Maybe the real boon will be the way it can be used like drug dogs, to give "probable cause" on command to the police.
- TheGrumpyBrit 7y ago
  We don't really have probably cause in that sense in the UK. Any driver can be stopped at any time purely to check documents if required - police don't need to have a reason.
  - devoply 7y ago
    Probable cause is used to search the car. Police can't randomly search cars. However in order to target areas with minorities who are involved with drugs, they use police dogs that can supposedly sniff drugs. But the dogs really just read their handlers and bark when their handlers want them to. Police can stop anyone at any time for documents. /papers please Recently in Canada a driver was charged for distracted driving for simply wearing headphones while driving. The judge decided that regardless of whether they were functional or not he was guilty. All these things just point to the fact that you don't want to deal with the police or with the law as both them don't really care about reality, just their manufactured fictions they use to justify their power over people. As Fault called it biopower.
    - 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

esotericn 7y ago

For context, across the UK we have similar systems for speed limits. They are not used for enforcement or prosecution. They are informational boards. Actual speed cameras are different (usually a yellow or blue box that doesn't give any feedback). It's basically a sort of 'big brother is watching' reminder. Some of them show your actual speed on a big LED board, leading to individuals attempting to get a "high score". It sounds from the article like this would be the same. A board that flashes a mobile phone if you might be using one. As far as I'm concerned, it's a complete waste of time (because I know these boards are meaningless), but the other side of the coin is that a decent number of people actually are afraid of enforcement action due to the signs and slow down.

Freak_NL 7y ago
It's not fear of enforcement that motivates people to act on these signs, it is the moral reminder that their behaviour is not socially acceptable (not to mention illegal). For a large group of people this works. Speeding (and being a smombie behind the wheel) is something people often do unintentionally, or with a rationalization mindset of 'everybody does it' (or something along those lines). For both these cases a reminder without further consequences can guide them to better behaviour. For the rest who just make their own rules enforcement remains necessary of course, but it helps if you can get a good number of people to cooperate intrinsically.
- esotericn 7y ago
  I suppose it depends a lot on your local area. Where I live there are tons of these 'flashy speed limit' signs. I don't think I've ever seen anyone obey them. 35-40mph in the new London '20 zones' is completely normal behaviour if the road permits; everyone does indeed do it, including buses and off-duty police/ambulances. It is, in fact, empirically socially acceptable (by the drivers if not necessarily by people who live there). In areas with speed bumps you see much lower speeds because people don't want to damage their vehicles. Enforcement, basically. The same is true for real speed cameras, people tend to speed up and slow down. That said, mobile phone use is different. I think most people intuitively recognise that using a phone at the wheel, particularly in an urban area, is really quite dangerous, and maybe a sign would work.

CableGorilla 7y ago

I use my phone every day for Google Maps, surely that is going to be a false positive?

Bombthecat 7y ago

I'm in Houston right now, no car, so we walk around here (it is very rare seeing someone not in a car here, no public transport, but that's another topic) what really baffled me was the amount of people on there phone while driving. Its insane. I read about that problem. But I thought it was exaggerated. But hooollyy Molly. It is a lot. There was even an add on tv for a collision detector along the line of:while distracted by your phone, it warns you about an upcoming collision!

black6 7y ago

Using a phone wile driving is one of my pet peeves, but this doesn't seem like an effective approach. If a problem person is already distracted (not a false-positive), will they even pay attention to the flashing sign? Just last night I had to knock on the hood of a woman using her phone while driving in the parking lot after she nearly ran over my wife and daughter walking to a restaurant. She was completely oblivious to the goings on around her and got extremely offended when I made the "hang up" gesture and told her to put down her phone while driving. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

mosselman 7y ago

"The technology will not be used as an "enforcement tool", the forces said, but was instead aimed at educating motorists..." I hope there will be enforcement tools in the near future and I believe the fines and other forms of punishment should be very high. First offence could mean no driving for a month along with a huge fine that is based on salary, second offence something along the lines of losing your license completely and having to go through the complete process of examination, etc after a year of reflection without driving, again with a hefty fine. Apparently you weren't that interesting in driving to begin with, in the bus you can look at your phone all you want. Third offence means you don't get a license for 20 years. Killing/injuring someone while using your phone in the car should result into some form of prison sentence. In my eyes there is 0 excuse for being engaged with your phone in the car in any other form than passively while using it for navigation. The worst are people who are looking at messages and writing. A few weeks ago I was almost hit by a driver who sped over the crossing I was walking on. I was paying attention enough to see him with his phone in his hand, looking at something on the screen, never looking up and I was just able to stop walking. I don't know if I'd been killed if I weren't paying attention, but it wouldn't have been pretty. I don't even care that much about myself though, I already have little faith in people's ability to drive properly so I pay attention and hope that keeps saving me. What I worry about are my children, who are bound to make some mistakes when crossing streets, etc, them being kids after all. The idea of someone killing them because they had to make a lame joke in a group chat in order to earn some emoji-based kudos is insane yet somehow not impossible.

nmstoker 7y ago

It should just turn on when there's a car as that will be equally effective as the system (with its flaws) and then they could save the £6,000

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

teilo 7y ago

Anyone using Carplay or Android Auto is going to get flagged by this. This is stupid.