11 ms·

Motorist fined after CCTV confuses his number plate with woman’s T-shirt

64 points by dabeeeenster 5y ago

josephcsible 5y ago
IMO, only the operator of a vehicle should ever be responsible for moving violations, not the owner, and it also shouldn't be the owner's job to identify the operator. (In other words, I don't think you should ever be ticketed or fined for moving violations by any means other than being pulled over by a police officer.)
- ct0 5y ago
  I agree, I also try and keep sun visors in the down position for this reason. Way too many cameras on all the motorways.
macintux 5y ago
My license was suspended this summer for my failure to appear in court for a traffic infraction committed two hours away from me, by someone who clearly wasn’t me nor driving one of my vehicles. Fortunately after hours of phone calls and weeks of waiting my record was cleared. I never got an answer as to how I became entangled, but losing your license is no joke. I was quite fortunate that everyone involved agreed it was a mixup; no lawyers in that county would take the case because they all had close connections to the prosecutor’s office.
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
Such a great example of our "AI dystopian present", precisely because it's so absurd. After all, it would have been trivial to require that a real person review the footage, but no, that would actually cost money. It's the same reason it's nearly impossible to get in touch with a human at Google when something goes wrong with your account. We're trying to pretend AI/ML systems will make better decisions, and faster, but they always fail catastrophically at the edge cases in ways humans never do.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  > We're trying to pretend AI/ML systems will make better decisions, and faster, but they always fail catastrophically at the edge cases in ways humans never do. The pretense is that AI can handle the bulk, routine cases. Not keeping enough people to handle the edge cases is the real mistake.
  - Arrath 5y ago
    Something seems to get lost in translation from the premise of "increase efficiency and decrease your team size by letting the AI have a first pass at the data" and the execution of "well we have this fancy AI we can just fire everyone who used to touch this data"
  - mcphage 5y ago
    > The pretense is that AI can handle the bulk, routine cases. Unfortunately, determining whether something is a routine case, is often not a routine case.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  This is going to be a long live/learn, refine process. In this particular case, we should also pass it through another ML system that answers "are there any vehicles in this photo?", perhaps with a number plate in view (but without trying to read it).
h2odragon 5y ago
In the USA, the automated traffic cameras seem to be having a hard time in court, in some jurisdictions. Around here the State Representatives tell people to wipe their arse with "Violation Notices" they get mailed by companies claiming to have the authority of some barely extant town. So they have a new wrinkle: put the automated photography kit in someone's car, and pay them to sit and observe the machinery operate. Somehow this is supposed to serve as the same basis of authority as a publicly sworn peace officer who will be obligated to appear in court. I get that little towns have budget problems and Bubba's brother needs another bass boat, but setting the example of making up and attempting to enforce your own laws like this is a bigger can of worms than they wanted to open.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Outliers in rural Georgia and Ohio notwithstanding, wealthy suburbs are a million times worse than small towns when it comes to using fines to generate revenue. They have so few "real problems" that they have the man hours to spare on boondoggles, they have more people to prey on, their governments are big enough to provide plausible deniability and anonymity to the people deciding to do these things and they have far more resources to throw toward whatever they are trying to do.
- syshum 5y ago
  There is a little thing about having to have the ability to face your accuser in our constitution. When your accuser is an automated algorithmic system with the sole purpose of generating revenue not promoting public safety it will be hard to hold that up in court Many companies that run these systems will drop the fine because it is less costly then fighting it in court as most people just comply, and they do not want to run the risk of some judge ruling the entire system unconstitutional (which IMO it is)
  - only_as_i_fall 5y ago
    Couldn't you be accused by a prosecutor based on video evidence? I get that having some private company collect fines directly would be bad, but couldn't they solve that with a simple manual review process by law enforcement?
tartoran 5y ago
This is so funny. The AI system they have in place not only got the plate wrong but also confused the car with a woman. How did that go wrong? Regardless, the least they can do is have a human operator glance over the tickets about to be mailed out
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Why incur the cost of a min-wage employee when you can just mail out all the tickets and make the recipients fight them for free? Heck, some percentage of them will just pay the tickets if you make the appeal process suck enough.
syshum 5y ago
I am glad they all find it amusing... I find it to be incredibly worrisome, and dystopian.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Exactly. How many people are being sent wrongful tickets but are unable to appeal because the nature of the error is less obvious?
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
This is obviously a silly case but I think traffic cameras are one of the few places surveillance could actually be called for. I'm not sure what the perfect system looks like, but the current system in the US seems broken. Not only is traffic enforcement a huge time waste for police, but traffic stops create an unnecessary hazard while failing to discourage dangerous driving.
- fy20 5y ago
  For those who aren't aware, bus lanes like this are often the only roads passing through city centres in the UK. The surrounding area is often a pedestrian area, with the only traffic being buses, registered taxis and emergency vehicles (delivery and utility vehicles are allowed in the early morning). The alternative route for regular traffic would be a few miles longer - which could mean 30 mins or more at rush hour.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    Vast majority of bus lanes are a dedicated lane down a multi lane road for pushbikes, buses, motorbikes (and for some stupid reason taxis). It effectively allows a bus with 50 people on to jump the queue. In this particular case it is a "bus" only lane over the river, the diversion for non buses is less than a mile, and far less for almost any actual car journey (given that if you just wanted to cross the bridge you'd walk. The far more problematic issue in Bath is the continued closure of Cleveland Place due to the bridge falling to bits.
- kawsper 5y ago
  The UK also have average speed zone cameras where the average speed is calculated across a long stretch of road, in Denmark I've only seen fixed speed cameras.
  - beardyw 5y ago
    Very civilized driving in those stretches with everyone going exactly the same speed (more or less).
- 5y ago
morsch 5y ago
Let's phase out camera based ticketing. But clearly, some drivers cannot be trusted to drive the speed limit, stop at red lights, or generally drive in a sensible manner. In many cases, it may happen accidentally, even to conscientious drivers. Thankfully, we're living in modern times, and while autonomous driving is not there yet, we can use similar technology to prevent traffic violations. When you are on a public road with a speed limit, your car will simply not accelerate beyond the speed limit. When you are missing a red light, the car will not let you run it. Of course, there are emergencies where you need to do these things: your pregnant wife is giving birth, you are Jack Bauer and preventing nuclear war. Activating the hazards disables the traffic assist. It also keeps a log of all violations and forwards it to the authorities, but since it's a medical or national security issue, nothing will come of it. This cannot be done overnight, which is why there will be a generous period while the old system is phased out and the new system is debugged.
- gus_massa 5y ago
  > your pregnant wife is giving birth Nitpicking: This is very common in movies, but it's not how real life work. The first delivery takes a long time, probably two days with random isolated contractions that make sleeping very difficult. And after the 10 minutes interval between contractions, there is still plenty of time. Ask your medical doctors for recommendations and good time estimations. You don't want to have an unnecessary accident that day. Third and fourth delivery may be faster. Don't get too complacent because the first one took so much. Also, ask your doctor about this. PS: If you want to read another rant, I can write one about the "first word of the baby".
  - nautilius 5y ago
    Here's a counter-rant ;-) : in many countries, you should actually talk to your midwife rather than the doctor. In France, this is a 5 year medical degree, and they will have the hands-on experience in thousands of births, rather than some doctor who read about it at college 20 years ago and has never actually seen one through, but for historical reasons is now in a hierarchical position to impose his 'knowledge'.
  - 5y ago
aaron695 5y ago
China shamed a women who's face was on a bus ad for jaywalking - https://www.techinasia.com/businesswoman-china-caught-jaywalking-face-bus https://www.techinasia.com/businesswoman-china-caught-jaywal... These systems are far more accurate than humans, but if you want to cling to the fake facts they are not, cool. When even these small amount of errors are gone and they are every part of your life then what will you do? Whatever they tell you I guess.
sys_64738 5y ago
In Ireland they post CCTV signs all over the shop. But there are few cameras.
thunderrabbit 5y ago
They had a laugh because it's funny the first time, but this type of error will cause nightmares if the problem is not dealt with quickly. Serious question: what would it take to make it illegal to send false tickets? I am not a lawyer, but I think falsely accusing someone of a crime can be a crime if it's "known to be false" In this case it wasn't "known" to be false because there was no human checking things.. but the fact they (who?) sent the ticket means they assumed it was true.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Isn't "reckless disregard for the truth" often applicable in the same sorts of places that "knowingly false" is? If you know your AI makes mistakes like this, wouldn't letting it make accusations without a human checking them be reckless disregard for the truth?
mlac 5y ago
I had to go to traffic court and defend myself from a parking ticket because a meter monitor typed in my license plate instead of the offender’s. I had a valid permit for the space, so I was good to go. When I went to court, the person had actually taken photos of the other vehicle (with a completely different license plate). Thing is - in both systems there are costly errors - human and technical. You have to look at the total cost of the system to figure out the net benefit to society.
haspoken 5y ago
https://archive.md/ANw87 https://archive.md/ANw87

64 points by dabeeeenster 5y ago

IMO, only the operator of a vehicle should ever be responsible for moving violations, not the owner, and it also shouldn't be the owner's job to identify the operator. (In other words, I don't think you should ever be ticketed or fined for moving violations by any means other than being pulled over by a police officer.)

ct0 5y ago
I agree, I also try and keep sun visors in the down position for this reason. Way too many cameras on all the motorways.

macintux 5y ago

My license was suspended this summer for my failure to appear in court for a traffic infraction committed two hours away from me, by someone who clearly wasn’t me nor driving one of my vehicles. Fortunately after hours of phone calls and weeks of waiting my record was cleared. I never got an answer as to how I became entangled, but losing your license is no joke. I was quite fortunate that everyone involved agreed it was a mixup; no lawyers in that county would take the case because they all had close connections to the prosecutor’s office.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

Such a great example of our "AI dystopian present", precisely because it's so absurd. After all, it would have been trivial to require that a real person review the footage, but no, that would actually cost money. It's the same reason it's nearly impossible to get in touch with a human at Google when something goes wrong with your account. We're trying to pretend AI/ML systems will make better decisions, and faster, but they always fail catastrophically at the edge cases in ways humans never do.

ASalazarMX 5y ago
> We're trying to pretend AI/ML systems will make better decisions, and faster, but they always fail catastrophically at the edge cases in ways humans never do. The pretense is that AI can handle the bulk, routine cases. Not keeping enough people to handle the edge cases is the real mistake.
- Arrath 5y ago
  Something seems to get lost in translation from the premise of "increase efficiency and decrease your team size by letting the AI have a first pass at the data" and the execution of "well we have this fancy AI we can just fire everyone who used to touch this data"
- mcphage 5y ago
  > The pretense is that AI can handle the bulk, routine cases. Unfortunately, determining whether something is a routine case, is often not a routine case.
karmakaze 5y ago
This is going to be a long live/learn, refine process. In this particular case, we should also pass it through another ML system that answers "are there any vehicles in this photo?", perhaps with a number plate in view (but without trying to read it).

h2odragon 5y ago

In the USA, the automated traffic cameras seem to be having a hard time in court, in some jurisdictions. Around here the State Representatives tell people to wipe their arse with "Violation Notices" they get mailed by companies claiming to have the authority of some barely extant town. So they have a new wrinkle: put the automated photography kit in someone's car, and pay them to sit and observe the machinery operate. Somehow this is supposed to serve as the same basis of authority as a publicly sworn peace officer who will be obligated to appear in court. I get that little towns have budget problems and Bubba's brother needs another bass boat, but setting the example of making up and attempting to enforce your own laws like this is a bigger can of worms than they wanted to open.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Outliers in rural Georgia and Ohio notwithstanding, wealthy suburbs are a million times worse than small towns when it comes to using fines to generate revenue. They have so few "real problems" that they have the man hours to spare on boondoggles, they have more people to prey on, their governments are big enough to provide plausible deniability and anonymity to the people deciding to do these things and they have far more resources to throw toward whatever they are trying to do.
syshum 5y ago
There is a little thing about having to have the ability to face your accuser in our constitution. When your accuser is an automated algorithmic system with the sole purpose of generating revenue not promoting public safety it will be hard to hold that up in court Many companies that run these systems will drop the fine because it is less costly then fighting it in court as most people just comply, and they do not want to run the risk of some judge ruling the entire system unconstitutional (which IMO it is)
- only_as_i_fall 5y ago
  Couldn't you be accused by a prosecutor based on video evidence? I get that having some private company collect fines directly would be bad, but couldn't they solve that with a simple manual review process by law enforcement?

tartoran 5y ago

This is so funny. The AI system they have in place not only got the plate wrong but also confused the car with a woman. How did that go wrong? Regardless, the least they can do is have a human operator glance over the tickets about to be mailed out

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Why incur the cost of a min-wage employee when you can just mail out all the tickets and make the recipients fight them for free? Heck, some percentage of them will just pay the tickets if you make the appeal process suck enough.

syshum 5y ago

I am glad they all find it amusing... I find it to be incredibly worrisome, and dystopian.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Exactly. How many people are being sent wrongful tickets but are unable to appeal because the nature of the error is less obvious?

only_as_i_fall 5y ago

This is obviously a silly case but I think traffic cameras are one of the few places surveillance could actually be called for. I'm not sure what the perfect system looks like, but the current system in the US seems broken. Not only is traffic enforcement a huge time waste for police, but traffic stops create an unnecessary hazard while failing to discourage dangerous driving.

fy20 5y ago
For those who aren't aware, bus lanes like this are often the only roads passing through city centres in the UK. The surrounding area is often a pedestrian area, with the only traffic being buses, registered taxis and emergency vehicles (delivery and utility vehicles are allowed in the early morning). The alternative route for regular traffic would be a few miles longer - which could mean 30 mins or more at rush hour.
- iso1631 5y ago
  Vast majority of bus lanes are a dedicated lane down a multi lane road for pushbikes, buses, motorbikes (and for some stupid reason taxis). It effectively allows a bus with 50 people on to jump the queue. In this particular case it is a "bus" only lane over the river, the diversion for non buses is less than a mile, and far less for almost any actual car journey (given that if you just wanted to cross the bridge you'd walk. The far more problematic issue in Bath is the continued closure of Cleveland Place due to the bridge falling to bits.
kawsper 5y ago
The UK also have average speed zone cameras where the average speed is calculated across a long stretch of road, in Denmark I've only seen fixed speed cameras.
- beardyw 5y ago
  Very civilized driving in those stretches with everyone going exactly the same speed (more or less).
5y ago

morsch 5y ago

Let's phase out camera based ticketing. But clearly, some drivers cannot be trusted to drive the speed limit, stop at red lights, or generally drive in a sensible manner. In many cases, it may happen accidentally, even to conscientious drivers. Thankfully, we're living in modern times, and while autonomous driving is not there yet, we can use similar technology to prevent traffic violations. When you are on a public road with a speed limit, your car will simply not accelerate beyond the speed limit. When you are missing a red light, the car will not let you run it. Of course, there are emergencies where you need to do these things: your pregnant wife is giving birth, you are Jack Bauer and preventing nuclear war. Activating the hazards disables the traffic assist. It also keeps a log of all violations and forwards it to the authorities, but since it's a medical or national security issue, nothing will come of it. This cannot be done overnight, which is why there will be a generous period while the old system is phased out and the new system is debugged.

gus_massa 5y ago
> your pregnant wife is giving birth Nitpicking: This is very common in movies, but it's not how real life work. The first delivery takes a long time, probably two days with random isolated contractions that make sleeping very difficult. And after the 10 minutes interval between contractions, there is still plenty of time. Ask your medical doctors for recommendations and good time estimations. You don't want to have an unnecessary accident that day. Third and fourth delivery may be faster. Don't get too complacent because the first one took so much. Also, ask your doctor about this. PS: If you want to read another rant, I can write one about the "first word of the baby".
- nautilius 5y ago
  Here's a counter-rant ;-) : in many countries, you should actually talk to your midwife rather than the doctor. In France, this is a 5 year medical degree, and they will have the hands-on experience in thousands of births, rather than some doctor who read about it at college 20 years ago and has never actually seen one through, but for historical reasons is now in a hierarchical position to impose his 'knowledge'.
- 5y ago

aaron695 5y ago

China shamed a women who's face was on a bus ad for jaywalking - https://www.techinasia.com/businesswoman-china-caught-jaywalking-face-bus https://www.techinasia.com/businesswoman-china-caught-jaywal... These systems are far more accurate than humans, but if you want to cling to the fake facts they are not, cool. When even these small amount of errors are gone and they are every part of your life then what will you do? Whatever they tell you I guess.

sys_64738 5y ago

In Ireland they post CCTV signs all over the shop. But there are few cameras.

thunderrabbit 5y ago

They had a laugh because it's funny the first time, but this type of error will cause nightmares if the problem is not dealt with quickly. Serious question: what would it take to make it illegal to send false tickets? I am not a lawyer, but I think falsely accusing someone of a crime can be a crime if it's "known to be false" In this case it wasn't "known" to be false because there was no human checking things.. but the fact they (who?) sent the ticket means they assumed it was true.

josephcsible 5y ago
Isn't "reckless disregard for the truth" often applicable in the same sorts of places that "knowingly false" is? If you know your AI makes mistakes like this, wouldn't letting it make accusations without a human checking them be reckless disregard for the truth?

mlac 5y ago

I had to go to traffic court and defend myself from a parking ticket because a meter monitor typed in my license plate instead of the offender’s. I had a valid permit for the space, so I was good to go. When I went to court, the person had actually taken photos of the other vehicle (with a completely different license plate). Thing is - in both systems there are costly errors - human and technical. You have to look at the total cost of the system to figure out the net benefit to society.

haspoken 5y ago

https://archive.md/ANw87 https://archive.md/ANw87