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Future Ford's May Detect Speeding and Report You to the Cops
- mikequinlan 2y agoI've thought about that for a while now. My car knows how fast I am going and it now knows what the speed limit is, so all it needs is a little printer to print out the speeding tickets.
- bell-cot 2y agoAnd yet you still refer to it as "My car".
- standardUser 2y agoDo whatever you want with it, just not on "our roads".
- o11c 2y ago> knows what the speed limit is In my experience, it knows what the speed limit might have been at some time on some road. Not necessarily the one I'm actually on or at the current time.
- chrstphrknwtn 2y agoYeah, having driven long distances in all kinds of rental cars with speed limit information shown on the dashboard, the car "knows" the speed limit accurately about 50% of the time.
- jerrysievert 2y ago> My car knows how fast I am going and it now knows what the speed limit is does it really know what the speed limit is? apple maps in Oregon is frequently wrong about speeds - there are rural routes near me that are 55mph, that apple labels 25mph and refuses to change.
- genocidicbunny 2y agoProbably an artifact of being California centric. Afaik, California has an implied speed limit of 25mph (or is it 35?) when there's no posted limit. Oregon defaults to 55mph on most roads with no posted sign.
- cogman10 2y agoOregon specifies different speed limit for different zones (as does Idaho). The defaults are based on where you are driving.
- tadfisher 2y agoCorrect, see section 102 (page 2): https://www.oregon.gov/odot/Engineering/Docs_TrafficEng/Speed-Zone-Manual.pdf https://www.oregon.gov/odot/Engineering/Docs_TrafficEng/Spee...
- cogman10 2y agoMy car reads traffic signs to try and tell me what the speed limit is, it's wrong ALL THE TIME. The problem is signs that say things like "55 after midnight" or "65 for trucks" are interpreted as "55" and "65". And when it is relying on mapping data, it's not uncommon for it to mistakenly think I'm on a frontage road because the GPS/map is off by enough.
- wlesieutre 2y agoMy car doesn't have that, but in a rental Toyota it didn't understand "School zone 25 when flashing" only applied when flashing
- jeffbee 2y agoMy Honda frequently reads out god-knows-what as speed limits. 70 in school zones, 110 MPH somewhere. I think it sometimes reads gas station prices as speed limits.
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- sitkack 2y agoThe "legal argument" that Ford is making, "municipalities are forcing us to collect this information, and in turn we are taking 40% of ticket price". Apple and Google have all of this information in bulk.
- jsat 2y agoIf we cared about traffic violence, speeding would be a solved problem. But we don't.
- colonelspace 2y ago"Traffic violence" implies deliberate acts intended to cause harm, but I don't think that's what you're referring to.
- shkkmo 2y ago> "Traffic violence" implies deliberate acts intended to cause harm Not really. The violence of traffic crashes increases as the speed increases.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> violence of traffic crashes Within an individual human context, violence usually requires intent.
- shkkmo 2y ago> Within an individual human context, violence usually requires intent. There is a sense of the word that implies intent, but that is only one of the senses and another sense that means "forceful or strong" is often used in describing traits of individual humans and their behavior emotions. A violent nod is not a nod intended to cause harm. The violence of someone's emotions refers to their strength, not their intent.
- colonelspace 2y agoWithout devolving into a discussion of semantics too much, violence really does imply some intent to harm another person, or people. If I drive at ~200km/h on my way from Berlin to Munich, am I "being violent"?
- shkkmo 2y ago
- vundercind 2y agoOh wow. I definitely don’t want my car looping me into someone else’s legal issues. Any chance it’s gonna make me have to show up in court for something I had nothing to do with, is too much chance.
- PlunderBunny 2y agoIt will drive you to court!
- m3kw9 2y agoYou man a API where police servers can just subscribe
- buildbot 2y agoThis kind of automated ticket (or beyond, think apple on devices scanning) enforcement is straight up police state/Fascism - do you want to live in a world where your existence is at every second scanned for illegal acts?
- zoklet-enjoyer 2y agoI don't know how this is fascist
- toomuchtodo 2y agoDystopian?
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoTo the degree speed cameras are. (I’d call them annoying more than dystopian. They’re dystopian if used for broader surveillance.)
- jonhohle 2y agoIt often makes me think of Rick from The Young Ones[0]. 0 - https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/06/07/everyones-turning-into-rick-from-the-young-ones/amp/ https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/06/07/everyones-turning-i...
- chank 2y agoIt's more something Fascists tend to do. Strict Monitoring/Policing of the populace to elicit desired behavior.
- coffeecloud 2y ago“Existence at every second” is very different than “when choosing to drive on a public road”
- chank 2y agoIt is, but it's also a slippery slope to constantly monitor behavior in order to coerce a desired response.
- MisterBastahrd 2y agoNo they won't. Because future Fords that detect speeding are future vehicles from a defunct manufacturer.
- jwineinger 2y agoThus generating aftermarket demand for car cellular modem faraday cages
- ben7799 2y agoThis is coming whether we like it or not. At least in the US the average driver seems to have this incorrect idea that driving is a right and speeding is a right. Making the cars safer hasn't been working as drivers are managing to kill more people as the cars get safer by behaving more and more badly. So this is going to be the next thing once the public gets sick of the carnage. Ford is likely working on this because the EU is finalizing rules to make cars warn drivers when they're speeding.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoClickbait title. In the patent “Ford discusses using cars to monitor each other's speeds.” Key word: others’. They’re essentially discussing tattle mode. I could see myself turning it on for e.g. 25 over on the freeway.
- mikestew 2y agoWhat do you mean, clickbait? Why is the 2nd car taking pictures of mine when I'm over the limit, and what is the intended use of that image? I'm not saying that you didn't read TFA, but I don't think you read all of it. Take a look at that flowchart that's toward the bottom. And what is referred to with the word "pursuit" in that flowchart?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> What do you mean, clickbait? I read the “you” in the title to imply it’s reporting on its owners. That’s a massive breach of trust. > Why is the 2nd car taking pictures of mine when I'm over the limit I’ve snapped a license plate of a reckless driver and sent it to 311. This is the same thing, except the car is doing it for me.
- mikestew 2y agoI read the “you” in the title to imply it’s reporting on its owners. I see the confusion now. "May Detect Your Speeding..." must have been one word too much for the headline editor. Still, poorly-worded for sure but I don't think "clickbait" entails someone reading the title differently than intended.
- eschneider 2y agoThis isn't going into production, for the obvious reason that customers would flat out hate it. This is on a patent because at many manufacturing companies legal comes by a few times a year to collect patentable ideas from engineering, and someone coughed this one up. Simple as that.
- fsflover 2y ago> This isn't going into production, for the obvious reason that customers would flat out hate it. Like the "telemetry" on Windows?
- philip1209 2y agoEnforcement is always a losing battle. Look at red light cameras. New York City introduced red light cameras in 1994 to stop offenders. In 2022, NYC cameras issued 618,000 red light violation tickets. If you want to limit behavior, use engineering. Add speed limiters to cars, or speed bumps to roads.
- spankalee 2y agoOne of the core problems with enforcement right now is that municipalities rarely impound cars because of unpaid tickets. So often you'll see that someone that caused a major fatality crash had thousands in unpaid fines. I think if we just took away cars and licenses, and eventually throwing people in jail, it would have a huge positive impact.
- philip1209 2y agoWe've normalized car culture so much that we forget how dangerous cars can be to pedestrians. And, we've built cities to favor cars over people. Prioritizing pedestrian safety will take a lot of work. Japan values pedestrians. There, it's a 3-year prison sentence for drinking and driving.
- ranger_danger 2y agoI don't consider it a losing battle if the punishment is severe enough. But I also don't object, in principle, to cars reporting each other speeding.
- jbjohns 2y agoI used to get a lot of tickets until I cruise control got reliable traffic detection. Now I have it on almost exclusively. The only places I get tickets now are usually places that the speed changes and I don't notice. I would like to set my cruise control to just be "current speed limit". If these cars are going to start monitoring the speed limit to the degree of being able to tell if you're breaking the law, they better have such a setting. If they don't then it seems almost like some sort of entrapment.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> would like to set my cruise control to just be "current speed limit" The one Tesla self-driving feature I want on my Subaru.
- fragmede 2y agoblue cruise is amazing for that, though I'll note that there's a setting for how much above the speed limit you're comfortable with, so you could set it to 0, but you can also set it to 14 over limit and it'll cruise control quite well, turning and braking for you.
- archagon 2y agoHow do folks get so many speeding tickets in the first place? I’ve never gotten one in my life.
- sublinear 2y agoMight depend on where you live. Not all roads are created equal. I'm thinking stuff like many posted speed limit changes within a short length, damaged or missing signs, non-obvious construction and school zones, road passes through varying types of neighborhood, speed limit unexpectedly low for the design, etc. By far the most annoying to me are off ramp speed limits that are so unrealistically slow they'd probably cause rear-end collisions or pile ups if anyone actually tried to obey them.
- dave333 2y ago
- jijji 2y agoif they advertise this patent as a "feature", i'm sure the result will be less people buying Ford vehicles
- MattDaEskimo 2y agoTo promote self-driving cars, I would start by implementing intrusive surveillance, such as speed monitors. Next, I would lobby the government to allow this data to be used for prosecution. Make it fearful to actually drive. a similar effect to speed cameras. Who doesn't go 10 over in typical loose traffic?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> lobby the government to allow this data to be used for prosecution Criminal speeding is typically 25+ over. If you’re doing 50 in a 25, yes, you should be prosecuted.
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- arduanika 2y agoTitle should not have an apostrophe. (Is that too on the nose? Minor infractions and all...)
- sublinear 2y agoIf anything, this system would be useful to help avoid high speed chases. This still wouldn't obsolete GPS darts though (unreported stolen vehicle scenario). Otherwise I'd expect the cops to ignore almost all requests to catch a speeder, and I'd expect local courts to become so overwhelmed that they'd ignore reports without multi-dashcam evidence. They'd also have to implement their own validation against known posted speed limits vs what the car thinks the speed limit is. There are also legitimate reasons to speed up such as avoiding an accident. What used to be an act of defensive driving is now a ticket to fight? That's ridiculous and by no means uncommon. Shouldn't the patent office do a sanity check on decidability for ideas involving computers?
- puppycodes 2y agoI can't help but laugh at the idea of this being implemented and the immense drop in sales for ford vehicals that would follow.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago> In the application, Ford discusses using cars to monitor each other's speeds. If one car detects that a nearby vehicle is being driven above the posted limit, it could use onboard cameras to photograph that vehicle. A report containing both speed data and images of the targeted vehicle could then be sent directly to a police car or roadside monitoring units via an Internet connection, according to Ford. > [...] > It's unclear what legal argument Ford would make should it try to implement this tech, as human police officers wouldn't be witnessing the alleged speeding being reported through the connected cars. Speed cameras already provide stationary enforcement of speed limits, but they can only issue tickets based on a vehicle's license plate number because they can't confirm who is driving. That's kind of my first question - isn't there a chain of custody problem or something? If I took a picture of a car and texted it to a cop with the message "hey this guy is speeding", I would fully expect them to discard it on the grounds that they can't prove it and frankly have little reason to believe me. Why would they believe this? And if they do, how hard is it to abuse? Are we going to see "how to give anybody you want a speeding ticket" blog posts?
- dave333 2y agoSimpler just to limit speed to the limit. Have the car do the policing for free. I just drove from LA to San Jose on I-5 (400 miles of mostly two lane freeway) using speed control set at the speed limit and it was very easy when everyone is going at that speed. Problems arise when there are slow trucks or people driving over the limit trying to pass any way they can. E.g. slow truck A passes even slower truck B and blocks the fast lane for speed limit traffic.
- m463 2y agoI suspect setting it at the exact speed limit leads to excessive passing of your car under good conditions, decreasing safety. In poor conditions, it might be too fast. It is much safer to go with the flow of traffic, which can vary due to lots of factors, but on a clear freeway will generally be slightly above the speed limit. I tried the telsa full self driving mode at the speed limit, and it leads to frustrated people behind you. There is also an AUTO setting that adjusts to the flow of traffic and it blends much better with traffic. EDIT: data on speed variance vs safety (fig 4): https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/17098/003.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/17098/...
- dave333 2y agoNot sure about optimal speed, but long term it makes sense to have technology police speeding and minimize accidents whatever that takes for free.
- m463 2y agoThis will turn the world into one giant HOA. also, I suspect speed information gathered in this way couldn't be used as evidence in court, it would not be certified speed information.
- GolberThorce 2y agoand that's a good thing
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- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y agoTesla being served with subpoenas or warrants re: recordings made by their products after purchase and automatically sent to Tesla.