6 ms·

Interestingly, the car returned the (current?) speed: Speed: 81 mph I wonder if that, coupled with the GPS info (which wasn't included in the data returned, b

Interestingly, the car returned the (current?) speed: Speed: 81 mph I wonder if that, coupled with the GPS info (which wasn't included in the data returned, but I assume the car knows it) would be sufficient to issue a speeding ticket if the government had access to the data?

ars 7y ago
A car's self reported speed is not accurate enough - for example if you slip on gravel or ice, the reported speed would momentarily be higher.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rightbyte 7y ago
  Or if you are braking it will be lower.
danaur 7y ago
Some insurance companies are already doing this I think where they attach things to your car and if you stay under the speed limit you get discounts on your payments
- hobofromabroad 7y ago
  There are also companies like The Flow that offer that data directly from mobile devices via an app.
- floatrock 7y ago
  MetroMile does this with an OBD-II device... their niche is insurance for low-mileage vehicles, and they track your mileage with a dongle device that must always be plugged in. Seems like a huge information asymmetry, though. Anyone who's ever dealt with an insurance claim knows that they find any nitpick to get out of payments... having an insurance provider that can say "actually we don't owe you anything because according to our black box, you were 2 mph over the speed limit therefore you were negligent" seems like it defeats the purpose of having insurance. I like the idea of more accurate pricing based on actual (low) usage, but I don't like that it gives them a disproportionately larger surface area for their lawyers to find technicalities that gets them out of paying claims. When the tollbooth transponders came out, they explicitly said "this will never be used to issue speeding tickets" even though all the data was there... I don't believe MetroMile makes any similar promise.
  - gowld 7y ago
    Liability insurance exists for covering even when you are liable.
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    I wonder... Could you spoof that device? It doesn't seem all too hard to- the ODB-II interface is pretty well documented.
    - icelancer 7y ago
      Yeah, there's some reddit posts about doing it to the Progressive Snapshot device. But it being an insurer, you'd potentially be on the hook for insurance fraud, which doesn't carry a light penalty...
  - Johnny555 7y ago
    Anyone who's ever dealt with an insurance claim knows that they find any nitpick to get out of payments "Everyone" says that, but I haven't found it to be true. Progressive fixed my car without any hassle (they paid nearly $5K to replace a door and fender and repaint the side of the car after someone tried to pry open the door). I also made a claim against Geico when a USPS truck hit me, again, trouble free, they paid the claim (minus my deductible) quickly and it took 18 months to get the USPS t My sister lost her house to a fire and said that her insurance company (Allstate maybe) was super easy to deal with.
    - floatrock 7y ago
      I wish I had your experiences in such clear-cut cases. I had to perform an independent investigation to get the insurance company to honor my side of the story in my last car claim, and relatives are dealing with a nightmare of a home insurance story that's looking like the insurance company is going drop them because of the complications involved. In my experience, everyone is just trying to minimize their cash outflows. Incident claims are a zero-sum game, and if someone gets more or better information, that comes at the expense of someone else.
  - 7y ago
TomMarius 7y ago
In my country any device that would be giving fines has to be periodically checked every month by the authorities and made unmodifiable without oversight.
dalore 7y ago
Probably not if there is a +/- of 10% error rate.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  If you are manufacturing a vehicle/speedometer in 2019 with a 10% margin of error, I'd argue that was "not fit for purpose". I left Australia in 2006, but even before then, the government had altered the statutes on speeding from the old model - 10% margin of error, to a flat 3kph(2mph) due to "increased accuracy in manufacturing".
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    They probably use GPS? If not, then just get bigger tires.
  - rkangel 7y ago
    Speedometers measure speed by counting wheel rotations and multiplying them by the circumference. There's at least a few percent inherent error as circumference is going to vary with what tyre is fitted and how worn it is. F1 cars, and I believe now high end sports cars use a differebt system that's basically how an optical mouse works. They image the road underneath the car and measure it moving past. This gives turning in addition. If you watch an F1 night race you can see a glow on the ground under the nose - that's the illuminator for the sensor.
    - moftz 7y ago
      There are also Ka-band Doppler radar systems used for sensing speed on the vehicle (exactly like how a radar gun works). You mount it on the vehicle to point to the ground at an angle and then connect it to a speedometer. Accuracy is usually within 1-3% up to 300mph.
    - ollie87 7y ago
      I believe the sensor in F1 is actually measuring the ride height of the vehicle.
  - 7y ago
samirm 7y ago
But how would they know who to ticket? Just because your car is moving, doesn't mean you're the one driving it. If they cannot prove who was operating the vehicle at the time of infraction, they cannot issue a ticket.
- tashoecraft 7y ago
  That's not true, red light cameras have no problem issuing fines to the vehicle owner.
  - gowld 7y ago
    Yes they do. In many jurisdictions, if you are willing to perjure yourself (or are innocent), you can sign an affidavit that you were not driving the vehicle. Then it is up to the authorities to press the case based on quality of the video evidence. IMO it's a silly hack. The fine should go the vehicle owner, who is responsible for pursuing recompense from the person the lent the car to (or file a theft report, or whatever).
    - dole 7y ago
      Yeah, in our city a few years ago, a lawsuit was brought that even with camera pictures/video, it can't be proven the vehicle owner was driving the car and so all the red light camera tickets in process were thrown out and the cameras were deactivated. So definitely depends on jurisdiction.
      - freedomben 7y ago
        May I ask what city you live in?
  - jachee 7y ago
    Which is why they're a terrible idea, usually implemented out of sheer greed for passive income with no actual police work.
    - 7y ago
mstade 7y ago
I know in some jurisdictions at least you also need to identify the driver, because the ticket needs to be made out to whoever was speeding, which may or may not be the owner of the vehicle.
- DanBC 7y ago
  And some countries include a separate offence of "failing to identify the driver", with penalties usually more severe than the driving offence. A few British politicians have found this out the hard way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/29/labour-mp-fiona-onasanya-jailed-for-lying-speeding-ticket https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/29/labour-mp-fi...
  - velosol 7y ago
    I think this [1] Wikipedia article better covers the situation with Huhne. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Huhne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Huhne
  - jackvalentine 7y ago
    A former Australian federal court judge went to jail for two years for lying about who was driving his car when it incurred a speeding fine worth $77 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Einfeld#Criminal_conviction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Einfeld#Criminal_convic...
  - mstade 7y ago
    Unless I'm missing something, both of these cases (and the case of the Australian judge a sibling commenter pointed to) has nothing to do with "failing to identify the driver" but all to do with straight up lying to the courts, i.e. perjury. The fact that they were speeding seems incidental.
- Based_Detroiter 7y ago
  Don't worry well have facial recognition for that soon enough
Freestyler_3 7y ago
They would have to verify beforehand how accurate the speedometer is.
cjbprime 7y ago
Your cellphone already has all of this information too. Google Maps will tell me both my current speed and the road's speed limit while driving with navigation on.
penagwin 7y ago
It REALLY depends on your government. In Michigan doesn't allow automatic speeding camera things that automatically issue tickets, while New York does. Going off how Michigan operates then no, the GPS info wouldn't be enough. In another government such as China the answer is very likely "Yes".

ars 7y ago

A car's self reported speed is not accurate enough - for example if you slip on gravel or ice, the reported speed would momentarily be higher.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rightbyte 7y ago
Or if you are braking it will be lower.

danaur 7y ago

Some insurance companies are already doing this I think where they attach things to your car and if you stay under the speed limit you get discounts on your payments

hobofromabroad 7y ago
There are also companies like The Flow that offer that data directly from mobile devices via an app.
floatrock 7y ago
MetroMile does this with an OBD-II device... their niche is insurance for low-mileage vehicles, and they track your mileage with a dongle device that must always be plugged in. Seems like a huge information asymmetry, though. Anyone who's ever dealt with an insurance claim knows that they find any nitpick to get out of payments... having an insurance provider that can say "actually we don't owe you anything because according to our black box, you were 2 mph over the speed limit therefore you were negligent" seems like it defeats the purpose of having insurance. I like the idea of more accurate pricing based on actual (low) usage, but I don't like that it gives them a disproportionately larger surface area for their lawyers to find technicalities that gets them out of paying claims. When the tollbooth transponders came out, they explicitly said "this will never be used to issue speeding tickets" even though all the data was there... I don't believe MetroMile makes any similar promise.
- gowld 7y ago
  Liability insurance exists for covering even when you are liable.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  I wonder... Could you spoof that device? It doesn't seem all too hard to- the ODB-II interface is pretty well documented.
  - icelancer 7y ago
    Yeah, there's some reddit posts about doing it to the Progressive Snapshot device. But it being an insurer, you'd potentially be on the hook for insurance fraud, which doesn't carry a light penalty...
- Johnny555 7y ago
  Anyone who's ever dealt with an insurance claim knows that they find any nitpick to get out of payments "Everyone" says that, but I haven't found it to be true. Progressive fixed my car without any hassle (they paid nearly $5K to replace a door and fender and repaint the side of the car after someone tried to pry open the door). I also made a claim against Geico when a USPS truck hit me, again, trouble free, they paid the claim (minus my deductible) quickly and it took 18 months to get the USPS t My sister lost her house to a fire and said that her insurance company (Allstate maybe) was super easy to deal with.
  - floatrock 7y ago
    I wish I had your experiences in such clear-cut cases. I had to perform an independent investigation to get the insurance company to honor my side of the story in my last car claim, and relatives are dealing with a nightmare of a home insurance story that's looking like the insurance company is going drop them because of the complications involved. In my experience, everyone is just trying to minimize their cash outflows. Incident claims are a zero-sum game, and if someone gets more or better information, that comes at the expense of someone else.
- 7y ago

TomMarius 7y ago

In my country any device that would be giving fines has to be periodically checked every month by the authorities and made unmodifiable without oversight.

dalore 7y ago

Probably not if there is a +/- of 10% error rate.

FireBeyond 7y ago
If you are manufacturing a vehicle/speedometer in 2019 with a 10% margin of error, I'd argue that was "not fit for purpose". I left Australia in 2006, but even before then, the government had altered the statutes on speeding from the old model - 10% margin of error, to a flat 3kph(2mph) due to "increased accuracy in manufacturing".
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  They probably use GPS? If not, then just get bigger tires.
- rkangel 7y ago
  Speedometers measure speed by counting wheel rotations and multiplying them by the circumference. There's at least a few percent inherent error as circumference is going to vary with what tyre is fitted and how worn it is. F1 cars, and I believe now high end sports cars use a differebt system that's basically how an optical mouse works. They image the road underneath the car and measure it moving past. This gives turning in addition. If you watch an F1 night race you can see a glow on the ground under the nose - that's the illuminator for the sensor.
  - moftz 7y ago
    There are also Ka-band Doppler radar systems used for sensing speed on the vehicle (exactly like how a radar gun works). You mount it on the vehicle to point to the ground at an angle and then connect it to a speedometer. Accuracy is usually within 1-3% up to 300mph.
  - ollie87 7y ago
    I believe the sensor in F1 is actually measuring the ride height of the vehicle.
- 7y ago

samirm 7y ago

But how would they know who to ticket? Just because your car is moving, doesn't mean you're the one driving it. If they cannot prove who was operating the vehicle at the time of infraction, they cannot issue a ticket.

tashoecraft 7y ago
That's not true, red light cameras have no problem issuing fines to the vehicle owner.
- gowld 7y ago
  Yes they do. In many jurisdictions, if you are willing to perjure yourself (or are innocent), you can sign an affidavit that you were not driving the vehicle. Then it is up to the authorities to press the case based on quality of the video evidence. IMO it's a silly hack. The fine should go the vehicle owner, who is responsible for pursuing recompense from the person the lent the car to (or file a theft report, or whatever).
  - dole 7y ago
    Yeah, in our city a few years ago, a lawsuit was brought that even with camera pictures/video, it can't be proven the vehicle owner was driving the car and so all the red light camera tickets in process were thrown out and the cameras were deactivated. So definitely depends on jurisdiction.
    - freedomben 7y ago
      May I ask what city you live in?
- jachee 7y ago
  Which is why they're a terrible idea, usually implemented out of sheer greed for passive income with no actual police work.
  - 7y ago

mstade 7y ago

I know in some jurisdictions at least you also need to identify the driver, because the ticket needs to be made out to whoever was speeding, which may or may not be the owner of the vehicle.

DanBC 7y ago
And some countries include a separate offence of "failing to identify the driver", with penalties usually more severe than the driving offence. A few British politicians have found this out the hard way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/29/labour-mp-fiona-onasanya-jailed-for-lying-speeding-ticket https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/29/labour-mp-fi...
- velosol 7y ago
  I think this [1] Wikipedia article better covers the situation with Huhne. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Huhne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Huhne
- jackvalentine 7y ago
  A former Australian federal court judge went to jail for two years for lying about who was driving his car when it incurred a speeding fine worth $77 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Einfeld#Criminal_conviction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Einfeld#Criminal_convic...
- mstade 7y ago
  Unless I'm missing something, both of these cases (and the case of the Australian judge a sibling commenter pointed to) has nothing to do with "failing to identify the driver" but all to do with straight up lying to the courts, i.e. perjury. The fact that they were speeding seems incidental.
Based_Detroiter 7y ago
Don't worry well have facial recognition for that soon enough

Freestyler_3 7y ago

They would have to verify beforehand how accurate the speedometer is.

cjbprime 7y ago

Your cellphone already has all of this information too. Google Maps will tell me both my current speed and the road's speed limit while driving with navigation on.

penagwin 7y ago

It REALLY depends on your government. In Michigan doesn't allow automatic speeding camera things that automatically issue tickets, while New York does. Going off how Michigan operates then no, the GPS info wouldn't be enough. In another government such as China the answer is very likely "Yes".