12 ms·

I'm a four season bike commuter, and have been wearing a helmet cam for the past year or so— it's just breathtaking the amount of small violations I catch on ca

I'm a four season bike commuter, and have been wearing a helmet cam for the past year or so— it's just breathtaking the amount of small violations I catch on camera: I don't even go looking for them or dwell at hotspots, and I pick up probably 5-10 instances per week of things like cars turning right on red without fully stopping, going through stop signs without fully stopping, not fully yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks, changing lanes in roundabouts/intersections, etc etc. As it is, it's a huge amount of effort to slice out these clips, upload them somewhere, figure out the plates involved, and then go through my police department's clunky incident reporting system. On the handful of times I've bothered to do it (like when I was almost creamed by someone running a red light), the response has been either nothing or "thanks but we just don't have time for that", or in one case an indication that they would be unable to charge the person unless I also had a face shot of who it was in the driver's seat. Now, we can argue until we're blue in the face about whether it's right to snitch on people for these "victimless crimes", but I suspect (and commenters like Neil Arason agree) that more consistent enforcement would go a long way toward promoting safer and more respectful driving. A lot fewer people would drift through stop signs and crosswalks if they didn't think they could get away with it 99% of the time. All that to say, if there was a portal somewhere where I could just upload my timestamped helmet cam and porch cam videos as part of a dragnet operation to identify and catch repeat violators of the rules of the road, I'd be awfully tempted to participate, despite ideological misgivings about pervasive surveillance.

catalogia 7y ago
> As it is, it's a huge amount of effort to slice out these clips, upload them somewhere, figure out the plates involved, and then go through my police department's clunky incident reporting system. On the handful of times I've bothered to do it (like when I was almost creamed by someone running a red light), the response has been either nothing or "thanks but we just don't have time for that", or in one case an indication that they would be unable to charge the person unless I also had a face shot of the driver." They're probably just sick of the cyclist who fancies himself an amateur traffic cop and want you to go away.
- huebomont 7y ago
  So... you're saying they're probably bad at their jobs? Got it.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Well, yes? That shouldn't be surprising, it's not an unusual phenomena, but it seems I've offended somebody enough to have them downvote every comment I've made in the past day (which is hilarious.) When you do something that somebody else should be doing but isn't, it's common for that somebody else to response in a less than gracious way. It's not limited to police, but it's particularly common with police.
- mikepurvis 7y ago
  I don't really fancy myself anything other than a guy trying to get to work and back without dying. I'd like to be able to make that trip on a bicycle, for various reasons. I had noted previously that these incidents were happening and that in many cases they made me feel unsafe. Various police contacts had told me that they didn't have time to be doing proactive enforcement. Submitting some reports was basically just checking to see which exact parts of the process they didn't feel they had time for— turns out it was basically all of it, unfortunately. But it was worth finding that out, I think, for the purposes of shaping other interactions with the PD, politicians, and local media. In any case, the higher level of government takes these kinds of violations very seriously— not yielding to a pedestrian crosswalk is 4 demerits and a fine of up to $1000, so it really is up to my local PD to pick their priorities, and for whatever reason they choose not to enforce it.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  Someone who reports a driver who nearly ran them over to police, with video evidence, is “an amateur traffic cop?” What’s your standard for reporting a crime or attempted crime?
sjg007 7y ago
This could be a startup. There are already local neighborhood watches where people sync up their cameras and added some AI to tag and identify cars. I think part of it was done to track porch pirates.
- ryanhuff 7y ago
  Doesn't Ring already have such a feature for users?
pc86 7y ago
> in one case an indication that they would be unable to charge the person unless I also had a face shot of who it was in the driver's seat. Because it's the truth. A driver receives a citation, not a vehicle. And a vehicle owner is under no legal obligation to say who was driving a given car at a given time. So based on those two facts alone, I don't see how you think the police can just drop citations in the mail based on a screenshot or a video clip.
- CobrastanJorji 7y ago
  This is not how the law works in a number of states.
- astura 7y ago
  But speed cameras and red light cameras exist and write legally binding citations...?
  - chmod775 7y ago
    In Germany speed cameras capture the face of the driver too, because it is a requirement to issue a citation. After a few days you get a letter in the mail with the photo they took of you and information about the fine to be paid.
- allannienhuis 7y ago
  Red light and speeding cameras are used in a lot of places. I think the idea is that the regulations are modified to allow this specific type of citation to the vehicle owner, or that they 'force' the owner to prove they weren't driving to avoid the ticket. They're pretty controversial, but it's nothing new. I suspect that the bigger issue might be that this type of footage supplied by citizens might not be considered verifiable (it's pretty easy to doctor videos/images these days). Video and images coming from devices that the police/government have vetted would be considered more likely to be authentic. Of course we know a bad actor (or a vendor working on commission!!) could still probably tamper with these...
  - 7y ago
laumars 7y ago
Reporting someone for minor traffic offences if they caused an accident is the right thing to do but reporting people for the sake of reporting people is a little unsympathetic. I've lost count of the number of times I've misjudged a situation because kids were screaming in the back of the car, I'm stressed about something at work and had the briefest laps in concentration; or even times when I just have a complete brainfart despite being fully focused on the drive. We also have senses that are entirely fallible -- for example it's very easy to miss-see something because your brain fills in gaps of information with "fake" information based on what you expect to see (there was a great blog post from an ex-fighter pilot on this topic). There needs to be some flexibility in society that allows for human error in instances where there is literally no personal, physical, monetary, etc damage. The kind of police state where all footage is processed for any minor traffic offences is such a dangerous road (if you pardon the pun) to take because it leaves people with no margin for genuine human error. Think of it like senior developers having a bad day and making school boy errors; or mistyping your username (something that should be muscle memory); or that guy who accidentally hits "reply to all" -- we've all made stupid mistakes. If those mistakes haven't caused harm then I don't see why need to be reported.
- majormajor 7y ago
  The gap between these mistakes causing harm and not causing harm is basically just luck. The less careful we are even when the mistake doesn't cause harm, the more frequently we'll make the mistake. Some feedback that made people be more careful, and pay more attention, would be good. And at a larger level: if we can't be bothered to be that careful (or simply can't at all), and want to be allowed to not be that careful, then maybe we should make more societal changes to stop depending on humans driving 3000+lb machines. All this is great data for less driving but because it's mostly invisible, it can't be used to rebut the "but I want my own car and I want to drive it myself" folks.
  - laumars 7y ago
    Obviously I agree that bad drivers deserve little sympathy. But not all human errors are down to bad drivers nor a lack of care. > The less careful we are even when the mistake doesn't cause harm, the more frequently we'll make the mistake. Some feedback that made people be more careful, and pay more attention, would be good. That only works if mistake are concious. My point is mistakes can be unintended like rowdy kids causing a distraction at the wrong time. > The gap between these mistakes causing harm and not causing harm is basically just luck. I agree. But also the gap between a good driver driving well and a good driver making an honest mistake because of a badly timed distraction is also just bad luck. It's happened to me before -- I've ran a red light at temporary traffic lights after my 2nd child was born (so I was tired thus required sharper focus) and my 1st child was so excited about having a baby sister that he kept making a scene. For a fraction of a second I lost focus and that fraction of a second happened to be when I was approaching road works. I was lucky that it was a Sunday evening and driving along a quiet village road so there wasn't any other vehicles. But I still had ran a red light despite my best efforts of driving safely. > And at a larger level: if we can't be bothered to be that careful... It's not about people not making the effort to drive safely; it's about human error. If it were that easy to drive then we'd already have infallible autonomous cars but we don't because driving isn't actually all that easy. This is also why I'm fully in favour of all these new smart safety features that autonomy has introduced; they help reduce the impact of the worst instances of human error. Just to recap: I have little sympathy for bad or negligent drivers. I just want to remind people that it's easy to demonise others but sometimes actions are genuine flukes of bad luck.
megablast 7y ago
> and I pick up probably 5-10 instances per week of things like cars turning right on red without fully stopping, going through stop signs without fully stopping, not fully yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks, changing lanes in roundabouts/intersections, etc etc. You must be kidding, I live in a major city and see around 10 of these every single day. Peak hour seems to be a lot worse.
fpgaminer 7y ago
Couldn't agree more as a former bicyclist and now often a pedestrian. It's amazing the number of times I've almost been hit in my short 1 mile walk to the local coffee shop. Apparently getting to work 2 seconds faster is more important than a pedestrian's life in many people's minds.
wswope 7y ago
A dashcam/helmet-cam upload website that lets people tag videos by license plate number and state has been something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Can't believe it's not a thing already.
Jamwinner 7y ago
How do I report all the dangerous cyclists I see on my commute every day? If someone filmed you, would you be innocent? Draw then line when harm is done, or you are the person doing actual harm. Shame on you.
mdorazio 7y ago
I'd support this if my in-car dashcam can do the same for cyclists such as yourself. Driving in Portland I see at least that many moving violations by cyclists on a regular basis as well. And that's the problem with proposals like these - everyone is in favor of them until they realize that they might be on the receiving end as well. If you support a position like this, make sure you support it for everyone, not just the people you don't like.
- kaikai 7y ago
  Any time someone brings out the “bicyclists break laws, too” argument I’m surprised to hear what people think the laws actually are. I’ve heard people complain about bicyclists taking the full lane, using the turn lane to turn left instead of crossing at a crosswalk, moving to the front of the line at stoplights, etc as broken laws. Turns out, they’re not. Just because something might slightly inconvenience you as a faster driver doesn’t make it illegal. For all the other things, like rolling through stop signs, i think we should be changing the laws to allow bicyclists to yield instead of stop rather than using them as a gotcha.
  - prepend 7y ago
    I think we should allow cars to roll through stop signs. I think it’s comical because here’s the laws broken by cyclists every day- running stop signs, right turn on red without stopping, turning without signalling, running red lights, using phone, using headphones. I typically don’t care because bikes aren’t very dangerous to cars. But I think it’s comical that a cyclist thinks they citizen reported traffic citations is a meaningful use of anyone’s time. Some people think that being a hall monitor might be fun. I suspect it’s not fun at all, because the value created is negative. The time to capture, prepare and enforce is a net loss to society.
    - mikepurvis 7y ago
      Using a phone or headphones while riding a bike is idiotic, but for these: > running stop signs, right turn on red without stopping, turning without signalling, running red lights It's important to understand a few things: a) A person on a bike is 1000x more vulnerable than a person in a car, and will definitely lose (physically, legally) if they misjudge the situation and end up getting struck. b) A person on a bike has way better situational awareness than a person in a car— they have a higher vantage point, and a very wide field of view. They're extremely well equipped to judge distances and speeds and to catch things in their peripheral vision. c) A person on a bike often faces obstacles you wouldn't be familiar with as a driver. For example, a red light that can only be changed by triggering the in-pavement car sensor or riding up on the sidewalk to push the beg button. I have such a light on my commute, and I feel that it's safe for me to look both ways and proceed when it's clear (treating the red light as a stop sign). You may disagree on this choice and call me a scofflaw cyclist, but at the end of the day I'm still basically just endangering myself. When drivers whip around a RTOR with their head hanging out the window looking at the traffic they're trying to merge with, they're endangering anyone who might step out to cross the road. All that said, if my local PD committed to broad and consistent enforcement of minor traffic violations, I would absolutely get on board and either commit to riding/walking up on the sidewalk to use the beg button or choosing a route that avoids that intersection. But as it is, they don't have any interest in enforcing any of it, so I think it's reasonable and non-hypocritical for me to make a choice that slightly improves my commute and endangers only me to a degree that I am comfortable with.
fencepost 7y ago
As it is, it's a huge amount of effort to slice out these clips, upload them somewhere, figure out the plates involved, and then go through my police department's clunky incident reporting system. Hm. What's your stance on mandatory visible license plates for all bicycles on the street so people with dash cams can clip video and report bicyclists who improperly use lanes or who blow through stop or yield signs? Or who cycle without helmets in places where they're required?
- mikepurvis 7y ago
  Opposed, but not on principle. It's been studied and tried in many places [1] and just doesn't make any sense pragmatically. It doesn't make people safer and erects yet another barrier to cycling at a time when we need to be making it _more_ attractive and accessible. And the people who propose such schemes are usually not doing so in good faith. It's not because they actually want to make cyclists safer, they're typically just making a "gotcha" argument that attempts to equate irresponsible cycling and irresponsible driving in terms of the danger that each poses. [1]: https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/cycling-in-toronto/cycling-and-the-law/bicycle-licencing/ https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-tra...
  - kortilla 7y ago
    Right, and cyclists don’t want vehicle drivers cited in good faith. If so, there would be no reason to even argue against an automated citation system for bikers causing danger for pedestrians.
    - mikepurvis 7y ago
      Honestly, if we had an automatic citation system in place for automobiles, I would probably support some kind of identification system be put in place to make it work for bikes as well. Perhaps there would be a way to make it voluntary and create an incentive which encouraged people to opt in, rather than making it a mandatory requirement? Maybe a modest tax credit if you ride your (tagged) bike more than X days per year? This way children and occasional users would still have an on-ramp to cycling that didn't have to start with a trip to the DMV. In any case, this isn't the world we live in, so it's all hypothetical at this point. In the short-to-medium term, the overwhelming danger on the road is from motorists.
kortilla 7y ago
You can change lanes in a roundabout on dotted whites...
tripzilch 7y ago
> if there was a portal somewhere where I could just upload my timestamped helmet cam and porch cam videos as part of a dragnet operation to identify and catch repeat violators of the rules of the road, I'd be awfully tempted to participate, despite ideological misgivings about pervasive surveillance. What do you mean, despite ideological misgivings about pervasive surveillance? You're literally saying you would upload your private videos as part of a dragnet operation, so it doesn't really sound like you have any ideological misgivings about pervasive surveillance.
tripzilch 7y ago
One of the US's problems with (bicycle) road safety, is the hostile attitude between cars and cyclists. You're really not helping that by wearing a helmetcam and reporting minor traffic infractions. Cars are generally respectful towards bikes in the Netherlands, but if some dude were to try this, don't expect too much sympathy ... from anyone, including the police apparently.

catalogia 7y ago

> As it is, it's a huge amount of effort to slice out these clips, upload them somewhere, figure out the plates involved, and then go through my police department's clunky incident reporting system. On the handful of times I've bothered to do it (like when I was almost creamed by someone running a red light), the response has been either nothing or "thanks but we just don't have time for that", or in one case an indication that they would be unable to charge the person unless I also had a face shot of the driver." They're probably just sick of the cyclist who fancies himself an amateur traffic cop and want you to go away.

huebomont 7y ago
So... you're saying they're probably bad at their jobs? Got it.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Well, yes? That shouldn't be surprising, it's not an unusual phenomena, but it seems I've offended somebody enough to have them downvote every comment I've made in the past day (which is hilarious.) When you do something that somebody else should be doing but isn't, it's common for that somebody else to response in a less than gracious way. It's not limited to police, but it's particularly common with police.
mikepurvis 7y ago
I don't really fancy myself anything other than a guy trying to get to work and back without dying. I'd like to be able to make that trip on a bicycle, for various reasons. I had noted previously that these incidents were happening and that in many cases they made me feel unsafe. Various police contacts had told me that they didn't have time to be doing proactive enforcement. Submitting some reports was basically just checking to see which exact parts of the process they didn't feel they had time for— turns out it was basically all of it, unfortunately. But it was worth finding that out, I think, for the purposes of shaping other interactions with the PD, politicians, and local media. In any case, the higher level of government takes these kinds of violations very seriously— not yielding to a pedestrian crosswalk is 4 demerits and a fine of up to $1000, so it really is up to my local PD to pick their priorities, and for whatever reason they choose not to enforce it.
pmiller2 7y ago
Someone who reports a driver who nearly ran them over to police, with video evidence, is “an amateur traffic cop?” What’s your standard for reporting a crime or attempted crime?

sjg007 7y ago

This could be a startup. There are already local neighborhood watches where people sync up their cameras and added some AI to tag and identify cars. I think part of it was done to track porch pirates.

ryanhuff 7y ago
Doesn't Ring already have such a feature for users?

pc86 7y ago

> in one case an indication that they would be unable to charge the person unless I also had a face shot of who it was in the driver's seat. Because it's the truth. A driver receives a citation, not a vehicle. And a vehicle owner is under no legal obligation to say who was driving a given car at a given time. So based on those two facts alone, I don't see how you think the police can just drop citations in the mail based on a screenshot or a video clip.

CobrastanJorji 7y ago
This is not how the law works in a number of states.
astura 7y ago
But speed cameras and red light cameras exist and write legally binding citations...?
- chmod775 7y ago
  In Germany speed cameras capture the face of the driver too, because it is a requirement to issue a citation. After a few days you get a letter in the mail with the photo they took of you and information about the fine to be paid.
allannienhuis 7y ago
Red light and speeding cameras are used in a lot of places. I think the idea is that the regulations are modified to allow this specific type of citation to the vehicle owner, or that they 'force' the owner to prove they weren't driving to avoid the ticket. They're pretty controversial, but it's nothing new. I suspect that the bigger issue might be that this type of footage supplied by citizens might not be considered verifiable (it's pretty easy to doctor videos/images these days). Video and images coming from devices that the police/government have vetted would be considered more likely to be authentic. Of course we know a bad actor (or a vendor working on commission!!) could still probably tamper with these...
- 7y ago

laumars 7y ago

Reporting someone for minor traffic offences if they caused an accident is the right thing to do but reporting people for the sake of reporting people is a little unsympathetic. I've lost count of the number of times I've misjudged a situation because kids were screaming in the back of the car, I'm stressed about something at work and had the briefest laps in concentration; or even times when I just have a complete brainfart despite being fully focused on the drive. We also have senses that are entirely fallible -- for example it's very easy to miss-see something because your brain fills in gaps of information with "fake" information based on what you expect to see (there was a great blog post from an ex-fighter pilot on this topic). There needs to be some flexibility in society that allows for human error in instances where there is literally no personal, physical, monetary, etc damage. The kind of police state where all footage is processed for any minor traffic offences is such a dangerous road (if you pardon the pun) to take because it leaves people with no margin for genuine human error. Think of it like senior developers having a bad day and making school boy errors; or mistyping your username (something that should be muscle memory); or that guy who accidentally hits "reply to all" -- we've all made stupid mistakes. If those mistakes haven't caused harm then I don't see why need to be reported.

majormajor 7y ago
The gap between these mistakes causing harm and not causing harm is basically just luck. The less careful we are even when the mistake doesn't cause harm, the more frequently we'll make the mistake. Some feedback that made people be more careful, and pay more attention, would be good. And at a larger level: if we can't be bothered to be that careful (or simply can't at all), and want to be allowed to not be that careful, then maybe we should make more societal changes to stop depending on humans driving 3000+lb machines. All this is great data for less driving but because it's mostly invisible, it can't be used to rebut the "but I want my own car and I want to drive it myself" folks.
- laumars 7y ago
  Obviously I agree that bad drivers deserve little sympathy. But not all human errors are down to bad drivers nor a lack of care. > The less careful we are even when the mistake doesn't cause harm, the more frequently we'll make the mistake. Some feedback that made people be more careful, and pay more attention, would be good. That only works if mistake are concious. My point is mistakes can be unintended like rowdy kids causing a distraction at the wrong time. > The gap between these mistakes causing harm and not causing harm is basically just luck. I agree. But also the gap between a good driver driving well and a good driver making an honest mistake because of a badly timed distraction is also just bad luck. It's happened to me before -- I've ran a red light at temporary traffic lights after my 2nd child was born (so I was tired thus required sharper focus) and my 1st child was so excited about having a baby sister that he kept making a scene. For a fraction of a second I lost focus and that fraction of a second happened to be when I was approaching road works. I was lucky that it was a Sunday evening and driving along a quiet village road so there wasn't any other vehicles. But I still had ran a red light despite my best efforts of driving safely. > And at a larger level: if we can't be bothered to be that careful... It's not about people not making the effort to drive safely; it's about human error. If it were that easy to drive then we'd already have infallible autonomous cars but we don't because driving isn't actually all that easy. This is also why I'm fully in favour of all these new smart safety features that autonomy has introduced; they help reduce the impact of the worst instances of human error. Just to recap: I have little sympathy for bad or negligent drivers. I just want to remind people that it's easy to demonise others but sometimes actions are genuine flukes of bad luck.

megablast 7y ago

> and I pick up probably 5-10 instances per week of things like cars turning right on red without fully stopping, going through stop signs without fully stopping, not fully yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks, changing lanes in roundabouts/intersections, etc etc. You must be kidding, I live in a major city and see around 10 of these every single day. Peak hour seems to be a lot worse.

fpgaminer 7y ago

Couldn't agree more as a former bicyclist and now often a pedestrian. It's amazing the number of times I've almost been hit in my short 1 mile walk to the local coffee shop. Apparently getting to work 2 seconds faster is more important than a pedestrian's life in many people's minds.

wswope 7y ago

A dashcam/helmet-cam upload website that lets people tag videos by license plate number and state has been something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Can't believe it's not a thing already.

Jamwinner 7y ago

How do I report all the dangerous cyclists I see on my commute every day? If someone filmed you, would you be innocent? Draw then line when harm is done, or you are the person doing actual harm. Shame on you.

mdorazio 7y ago

I'd support this if my in-car dashcam can do the same for cyclists such as yourself. Driving in Portland I see at least that many moving violations by cyclists on a regular basis as well. And that's the problem with proposals like these - everyone is in favor of them until they realize that they might be on the receiving end as well. If you support a position like this, make sure you support it for everyone, not just the people you don't like.

kaikai 7y ago
Any time someone brings out the “bicyclists break laws, too” argument I’m surprised to hear what people think the laws actually are. I’ve heard people complain about bicyclists taking the full lane, using the turn lane to turn left instead of crossing at a crosswalk, moving to the front of the line at stoplights, etc as broken laws. Turns out, they’re not. Just because something might slightly inconvenience you as a faster driver doesn’t make it illegal. For all the other things, like rolling through stop signs, i think we should be changing the laws to allow bicyclists to yield instead of stop rather than using them as a gotcha.
- prepend 7y ago
  I think we should allow cars to roll through stop signs. I think it’s comical because here’s the laws broken by cyclists every day- running stop signs, right turn on red without stopping, turning without signalling, running red lights, using phone, using headphones. I typically don’t care because bikes aren’t very dangerous to cars. But I think it’s comical that a cyclist thinks they citizen reported traffic citations is a meaningful use of anyone’s time. Some people think that being a hall monitor might be fun. I suspect it’s not fun at all, because the value created is negative. The time to capture, prepare and enforce is a net loss to society.
  - mikepurvis 7y ago
    Using a phone or headphones while riding a bike is idiotic, but for these: > running stop signs, right turn on red without stopping, turning without signalling, running red lights It's important to understand a few things: a) A person on a bike is 1000x more vulnerable than a person in a car, and will definitely lose (physically, legally) if they misjudge the situation and end up getting struck. b) A person on a bike has way better situational awareness than a person in a car— they have a higher vantage point, and a very wide field of view. They're extremely well equipped to judge distances and speeds and to catch things in their peripheral vision. c) A person on a bike often faces obstacles you wouldn't be familiar with as a driver. For example, a red light that can only be changed by triggering the in-pavement car sensor or riding up on the sidewalk to push the beg button. I have such a light on my commute, and I feel that it's safe for me to look both ways and proceed when it's clear (treating the red light as a stop sign). You may disagree on this choice and call me a scofflaw cyclist, but at the end of the day I'm still basically just endangering myself. When drivers whip around a RTOR with their head hanging out the window looking at the traffic they're trying to merge with, they're endangering anyone who might step out to cross the road. All that said, if my local PD committed to broad and consistent enforcement of minor traffic violations, I would absolutely get on board and either commit to riding/walking up on the sidewalk to use the beg button or choosing a route that avoids that intersection. But as it is, they don't have any interest in enforcing any of it, so I think it's reasonable and non-hypocritical for me to make a choice that slightly improves my commute and endangers only me to a degree that I am comfortable with.

fencepost 7y ago

As it is, it's a huge amount of effort to slice out these clips, upload them somewhere, figure out the plates involved, and then go through my police department's clunky incident reporting system. Hm. What's your stance on mandatory visible license plates for all bicycles on the street so people with dash cams can clip video and report bicyclists who improperly use lanes or who blow through stop or yield signs? Or who cycle without helmets in places where they're required?

mikepurvis 7y ago
Opposed, but not on principle. It's been studied and tried in many places [1] and just doesn't make any sense pragmatically. It doesn't make people safer and erects yet another barrier to cycling at a time when we need to be making it _more_ attractive and accessible. And the people who propose such schemes are usually not doing so in good faith. It's not because they actually want to make cyclists safer, they're typically just making a "gotcha" argument that attempts to equate irresponsible cycling and irresponsible driving in terms of the danger that each poses. [1]: https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/cycling-in-toronto/cycling-and-the-law/bicycle-licencing/ https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-tra...
- kortilla 7y ago
  Right, and cyclists don’t want vehicle drivers cited in good faith. If so, there would be no reason to even argue against an automated citation system for bikers causing danger for pedestrians.
  - mikepurvis 7y ago
    Honestly, if we had an automatic citation system in place for automobiles, I would probably support some kind of identification system be put in place to make it work for bikes as well. Perhaps there would be a way to make it voluntary and create an incentive which encouraged people to opt in, rather than making it a mandatory requirement? Maybe a modest tax credit if you ride your (tagged) bike more than X days per year? This way children and occasional users would still have an on-ramp to cycling that didn't have to start with a trip to the DMV. In any case, this isn't the world we live in, so it's all hypothetical at this point. In the short-to-medium term, the overwhelming danger on the road is from motorists.

kortilla 7y ago

You can change lanes in a roundabout on dotted whites...

tripzilch 7y ago

> if there was a portal somewhere where I could just upload my timestamped helmet cam and porch cam videos as part of a dragnet operation to identify and catch repeat violators of the rules of the road, I'd be awfully tempted to participate, despite ideological misgivings about pervasive surveillance. What do you mean, despite ideological misgivings about pervasive surveillance? You're literally saying you would upload your private videos as part of a dragnet operation, so it doesn't really sound like you have any ideological misgivings about pervasive surveillance.

tripzilch 7y ago

One of the US's problems with (bicycle) road safety, is the hostile attitude between cars and cyclists. You're really not helping that by wearing a helmetcam and reporting minor traffic infractions. Cars are generally respectful towards bikes in the Netherlands, but if some dude were to try this, don't expect too much sympathy ... from anyone, including the police apparently.