4 ms·

I doubt it'd tell them any more than they already know. These drivers tend to have been given citations already. The real money would be in giving civilians wh

I doubt it'd tell them any more than they already know. These drivers tend to have been given citations already. The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine. NYC already has something like this for people who catch too-long idling trucks and photograph/video record it.

barbazoo 2y ago
Do insurers really know about citations?
- tylerrobinson 2y ago
  Are you kidding? Absolutely. For moving violations you can look forward to the ticket itself plus increased insurance premiums.
  - monkeywork 2y ago
    I'm not an expert and I'm not one to get many tickets however my understanding is that they only look up individuals during renewal time or if you change policy or company. If you got a speeding ticket on week 10 of the year there is unlikely to be any increase on your insurance on week 35. Like I said this was my perhaps incorrect understanding of how it works here in Canada.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      This is my understanding as well but with net technology perhaps they are checking more often now.
    - sib 2y ago
      This is not true in my experience in the US (thanks sneakily-placed rapidly-changing speed limit signs enforced against out-of-state plates in Utah!)
- atonse 2y ago
  I don't know how much detail they have but yes, insurers in the US do know if you've received a ticket for a moving violation (parking violations are irrelevant). Many of them use solutions like LexisNexis Risk Solutions (which is like a 3rd party API that can return this data). How LNRS gets the data, I'm not sure. For example, insurers also get data for stolen vehicles since it affects claims. I know this because in a previous (local government) job, I literally sat on calls about building an integration where we sent license plates of stolen cars (officially reported stolen to the police), if we wrote parking tickets for those cars, since we (another local gov agency) spotted the stolen car. To me, even though I have strong feelings against privacy and surveillance, this felt like a totally pragmatic (and laser focused, it only affect cars that were currently designated stolen) use of the data.
  - grepfru_it 2y ago
    Worked in NYS auto insurance. The government provided us an APi which we could use to pull driver records. While we could pull anyone that we want via the api, we get audited and must show reason for the pulls (such as a newly insured driver or renewal etc). I assume other states are similar
pixl97 2y ago
The level of crazy driving to citations is rather low.
mullingitover 2y ago
> The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine. I've heard lots of talk of civil war in this country, but this is the first serious plan I've seen for how to start one.
- sowbug 2y ago
  Contracting out patrolling to private citizens would be a brilliant way to get around that pesky Bill of Rights.
  - lr4444lr 2y ago
    This is already done via traffic cameras, which are operated by contracted private outfits. Letting any civilian submit the footage, for a judge to review, would amount to a qui tam action. It's not unprecedented. Would the average citizen want to risk his identity being exposed if the defendant demands an audit of the footage? I couldn't say.
    - monkeywork 2y ago
      You've heard all the horror stories of HOA's ... yeah lets add those people into other area's of peoples lives.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Can you elaborate on what would be bypassed by "patrolling?" If the government was really contracting something out, then there's an argument to be made that it's on behalf of the government therefore it's government action and therefore it may be prohibited. If nothing else, I'm pretty confident that my 3rd-amendment rights to not have soldiers crashing on my couch is safe from whatever my neighbor does with their dashcam.
    - sowbug 2y ago
      I think you're drawing the right distinction. It's likely state action if a city or county literally delegated beat-cop duties to citizens with smartphones. I'm more afraid of the slippery slope. I'm less confident courts find state action if a government is merely encouraging private citizens to supply evidence via a bounty system. Even if it's plain that this citizen-provided evidence is horribly biased, a court might say that the prosecuting entity has the responsibility to sift through the bias, and this responsibility is the difference between the state (the government) and non-state (the citizen who happens to submit only footage of people of a certain race). But eventually the flow of money effectively deputizes the citizen, replacing beat-cop budgets with crowd-source bounties, and years of abuse pass before the courts acknowledge that it's actually been state action for quite a while. (Interesting reading: Yick Wo v. Hopkins, which established that a fairly written law can still violate constitutional rights if the administration of that law is unjust. The City of San Francisco required permits for laundries, which is fine, but in actuality they never granted permits for people of Chinese descent. The US Supreme Court said nope. I could see similar reasoning applying here.)
ryandrake 2y ago
> The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine. I don't know where you live, but around me, the police are so disinterested in traffic safety that roads have turned into a Mad Max free-for-all. Red light running, stop sign running, lack of signaling, weaving in and out of lanes, and general belligerence on the road. That and 90% of drivers are playing on their smartphones. Police departments could get infinite money by just opening their eyes and pulling nearly anyone over.
- lr4444lr 2y ago
  In my area, this is one their most intense efforts - fines are very profitable to the municipality.
- rcpt 2y ago
  California?
  - rbalicki 2y ago
    Also NYC, also Miami. I never got this impression in the Bay Area when I lived there (10 years ago)
    - y-curious 2y ago
      Enforcement of red light running has been de facto nil for the past 4 years until a couple of months ago. The cynic in me guesses that this is due to the election cycle.
- monkeywork 2y ago
  That is typically a case of police trying to negotiate funding, it will go in a cycle once a contract gets renegotiated they will go on a blitz to show how effective the funding was and then over time let it start to slide again.
bsder 2y ago
> The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine. This is 200% in the wrong direction. We should be removing the incentive for the justice system to benefit from collected money at all let alone expanding it. "Incentivized" justice is gigantic moral hazard. The system will invent "crimes" in order to keep the money flowing.

barbazoo 2y ago

Do insurers really know about citations?

tylerrobinson 2y ago
Are you kidding? Absolutely. For moving violations you can look forward to the ticket itself plus increased insurance premiums.
- monkeywork 2y ago
  I'm not an expert and I'm not one to get many tickets however my understanding is that they only look up individuals during renewal time or if you change policy or company. If you got a speeding ticket on week 10 of the year there is unlikely to be any increase on your insurance on week 35. Like I said this was my perhaps incorrect understanding of how it works here in Canada.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    This is my understanding as well but with net technology perhaps they are checking more often now.
  - sib 2y ago
    This is not true in my experience in the US (thanks sneakily-placed rapidly-changing speed limit signs enforced against out-of-state plates in Utah!)
atonse 2y ago
I don't know how much detail they have but yes, insurers in the US do know if you've received a ticket for a moving violation (parking violations are irrelevant). Many of them use solutions like LexisNexis Risk Solutions (which is like a 3rd party API that can return this data). How LNRS gets the data, I'm not sure. For example, insurers also get data for stolen vehicles since it affects claims. I know this because in a previous (local government) job, I literally sat on calls about building an integration where we sent license plates of stolen cars (officially reported stolen to the police), if we wrote parking tickets for those cars, since we (another local gov agency) spotted the stolen car. To me, even though I have strong feelings against privacy and surveillance, this felt like a totally pragmatic (and laser focused, it only affect cars that were currently designated stolen) use of the data.
- grepfru_it 2y ago
  Worked in NYS auto insurance. The government provided us an APi which we could use to pull driver records. While we could pull anyone that we want via the api, we get audited and must show reason for the pulls (such as a newly insured driver or renewal etc). I assume other states are similar

pixl97 2y ago

The level of crazy driving to citations is rather low.

mullingitover 2y ago

> The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine. I've heard lots of talk of civil war in this country, but this is the first serious plan I've seen for how to start one.

sowbug 2y ago
Contracting out patrolling to private citizens would be a brilliant way to get around that pesky Bill of Rights.
- lr4444lr 2y ago
  This is already done via traffic cameras, which are operated by contracted private outfits. Letting any civilian submit the footage, for a judge to review, would amount to a qui tam action. It's not unprecedented. Would the average citizen want to risk his identity being exposed if the defendant demands an audit of the footage? I couldn't say.
  - monkeywork 2y ago
    You've heard all the horror stories of HOA's ... yeah lets add those people into other area's of peoples lives.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Can you elaborate on what would be bypassed by "patrolling?" If the government was really contracting something out, then there's an argument to be made that it's on behalf of the government therefore it's government action and therefore it may be prohibited. If nothing else, I'm pretty confident that my 3rd-amendment rights to not have soldiers crashing on my couch is safe from whatever my neighbor does with their dashcam.
  - sowbug 2y ago
    I think you're drawing the right distinction. It's likely state action if a city or county literally delegated beat-cop duties to citizens with smartphones. I'm more afraid of the slippery slope. I'm less confident courts find state action if a government is merely encouraging private citizens to supply evidence via a bounty system. Even if it's plain that this citizen-provided evidence is horribly biased, a court might say that the prosecuting entity has the responsibility to sift through the bias, and this responsibility is the difference between the state (the government) and non-state (the citizen who happens to submit only footage of people of a certain race). But eventually the flow of money effectively deputizes the citizen, replacing beat-cop budgets with crowd-source bounties, and years of abuse pass before the courts acknowledge that it's actually been state action for quite a while. (Interesting reading: Yick Wo v. Hopkins, which established that a fairly written law can still violate constitutional rights if the administration of that law is unjust. The City of San Francisco required permits for laundries, which is fine, but in actuality they never granted permits for people of Chinese descent. The US Supreme Court said nope. I could see similar reasoning applying here.)

ryandrake 2y ago

> The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine. I don't know where you live, but around me, the police are so disinterested in traffic safety that roads have turned into a Mad Max free-for-all. Red light running, stop sign running, lack of signaling, weaving in and out of lanes, and general belligerence on the road. That and 90% of drivers are playing on their smartphones. Police departments could get infinite money by just opening their eyes and pulling nearly anyone over.

lr4444lr 2y ago
In my area, this is one their most intense efforts - fines are very profitable to the municipality.
rcpt 2y ago
California?
- rbalicki 2y ago
  Also NYC, also Miami. I never got this impression in the Bay Area when I lived there (10 years ago)
  - y-curious 2y ago
    Enforcement of red light running has been de facto nil for the past 4 years until a couple of months ago. The cynic in me guesses that this is due to the election cycle.
monkeywork 2y ago
That is typically a case of police trying to negotiate funding, it will go in a cycle once a contract gets renegotiated they will go on a blitz to show how effective the funding was and then over time let it start to slide again.

bsder 2y ago

> The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine. This is 200% in the wrong direction. We should be removing the incentive for the justice system to benefit from collected money at all let alone expanding it. "Incentivized" justice is gigantic moral hazard. The system will invent "crimes" in order to keep the money flowing.