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You clearly haven’t received a letter in the mail for $250 because a camera saw you barely not fully stop for a red light right turn at 3am with zero traffic A

You clearly haven’t received a letter in the mail for $250 because a camera saw you barely not fully stop for a red light right turn at 3am with zero traffic A human in the loop needs to be the first line of defense, if an officer isn’t willing to be in the field to issue the ticket and show up in court to defend it then there shouldn’t be a ticket in the first place, full stop

askvictor 2y ago
Were you in that much of a hurry to not be able to wait 30 seconds for the traffic light?
- repeekad 2y ago
  That’s not the point, a surveillance state where the panopticon autonomously gives $250 tickets is the issue Rules aren’t meant to be cold hard algorithms to blindly punish people with; we wouldn’t automate a judge with an algorithm why is it somehow different to automate a police officer with one?
  - froggit 2y ago
    > Rules aren’t meant to be cold hard algorithms to blindly punish people with; we wouldn’t automate a judge with an algorithm why is it somehow different to automate a police officer with one? The role of enforcing certain laws can be easily fulfilled with simple algorithms as the logic required is on early grade school level. In this case it's something like: if "stoplight is red" and "car doesn't stop", then "driver gets ticket." That's all the algorithm has to do, super easy to automate. Automation allows for enforcement where it would otherwise not be cost effective, like when it's 3am and no one else is around. The judiciary, however, has to interpret all kinds of crazy edge cases that people come up with to try and get out of tickets for rolling stops or whatever legal case, for all laws, because every now and then someone has a valid case. That's a bit harder to do with a couple lines of code and some low cost hardware.
  - try_the_bass 2y ago
    Why is that not the point? You violated a law and received a penalty. You're not disputing that you violated said law, but are instead trying to justify it with "barely didn't stop" and "it's 3am and there is no traffic". Isn't the point that you got punished for doing something you would have gotten away with had no one been watching?
    - tway_GdBRwW 2y ago
      because maybe the point is "The basic premise of democracy is that the citizens/ordinary people are trusted as the ultimate source of the law, and the law is to serve them, not them to serve the law." Nice twist to the premise at the end, but no, the point is that the person got punished for using sound and reasonable judgement in a situation where the regulation (not law) was ill thought out.
      - try_the_bass 2y ago
        "Sound and reasonable judgement" to save a couple seconds? That still just seems like rationalization of bad behavior. You're right that the basic premise of democracy is that citizens can be trusted as the source of the law, but it seems to me that this particular citizen can't actually be trusted? I mean, they're demonstrating a lack of integrity, are they not?
        deergomoo 2y ago
        You're talking about someone who, from their description, slowed down to something like 0.1mph instead of absolute zero. At 3am, in an empty road. How is that bad behaviour, lack of integrity, and a sign someone can't be trusted?
        try_the_bass 2y ago
        Integrity is commonly defined as "doing the right thing, even if no one is watching", is it not? I highly doubt this person would have rolled through the light if a cop were sitting at the intersection watching them, and they knew they were being observed. To several other posters' points, the specific regulation in question exists for safety reasons. Those safety reasons don't go away just because you don't think they apply in the moment. I'm sure every person who has hit (or been hit by) another person when rolling through a right turn like that thought their judgement in the moment was reasonable, too. I'm also sure not every one of those would have been prevented by coming to a complete stop and looking at the turn, but certainly some of them would have, which is a net positive for everyone. This comes at a cost of a handful of seconds, which seems like the most trivial of inconveniences, and wholly worth paying every time.
  - acdha 2y ago
    It’s hardly a surveillance state to say operators of heavy machinery should do so safely: there are many, many dead pedestrians and bicyclists who were hit by someone who _thought_ the road was empty, and American traffic laws are so lenient that it’s disturbing that people think they’re overbearing. It’s estimated that we are effectively subsidizing drivers by close to a trillion dollars annually by not requiring adequate insurance to cover the full cost to victims. Just pay your ticket and drive better before you make a mistake you’ll never recover from.
    - johnisgood 2y ago
      https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/road-deaths-us-eu/ https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/road-deaths-us-eu/ Seems to be more of an issue in the US.
      - acdha 2y ago
        Definitely: bigger vehicles, higher speeds, and because the alternatives to driving have been starved of funding or removed the entire system is loathe to punish bad drivers because taking away someone’s license largely removes their ability to function.
        johnisgood 2y ago
        Unfortunately the state of public transportation is awful in the US, for sure.
  - edmundsauto 2y ago
    America has tried to do this, famously, with the "3 strikes and you're out" laws of the past century.
- mauvehaus 2y ago
  At 3am? Bed presumably.
- lolinder 2y ago
  We're talking about a rolling right turn on red, not crossing the whole intersection on red. The turn is allowed but the camera took issue with how much of a stop came first. I don't know very many drivers who wouldn't recognize that camera behavior at 3:00 in the morning as unreasonable.
  - c22 2y ago
    Why not just come to a full stop? It's presumably dark out at 3am so you may have missed a pedestrian or a vehicle with no headlights. It only takes an extra second or two to stop and look around.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      At the majority of signal-controlled intersections with city limits there's plenty of visibility even (or dare I say especially) at 3am and the scanning can happen as you approach. (Also, the kind of rolling stop I'm talking about isn't a 5mph roll, it's a near-stop that feels like a stop to the driver but technically doesn't actually bring the tires to stationary. Odds are even you have done this kind of stop pretty regularly without realizing it, and even a cop wouldn't even notice it as incorrect unless they were actively looking for someone to ticket.)
      - c22 2y ago
        Odds are I haven't since I'm always careful to stop twice when turning right on red. (Once before the crosswalk, and again at the far side of the crosswalk to check for cross traffic before executing the turn.)
        stopsandgoes 2y ago
        Have you ever been rear-ended, stopping twice like that? I have.
        c22 2y ago
- gog 2y ago
  I believe the commenter is in US where you are allowed to make a right turn on a red light but you must stop and make sure it's safe to do so.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    There is old Woody Allen joke: The only advantage of LA over NYC is right turn on red light is allowed.
- monkeywork 2y ago
  That is a discussion that can be had between the offender and the police officer, also depending what you are driving (ie a motorcycle) often traffic lights may not detect you and you can be sitting there forever. Put it this way would you feel comfortable having your phone just passively watching you and anytime you break any law that is on the books it calls the cops on you? If you can see that as over reaching you can understand why others don't want automated enforcement done to them.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    > That is a discussion that can be had between the offender and the police officer Once you've been pulled over, a police officer is unlikely to change their course of action based on anything you say to them. Especially in this case, of not coming quite to a full stop at a red light before turning right. The cop knows it was safe to do so. They just want the ticket revenue or to fill up their quota for the month. Or they're just having a bad day and want to harass someone who can't fight back. Or, if I'm being charitable, they're an incessant rule-follower who doesn't understand how reality works.
- concordDance 2y ago
  Regardless of whether he can wait 30 seconds there is no good reason to impose that cost. Its just randomly making someone's life worse for literally no gain. Time is our most precious and finite commodity and should not be wasted.
LinuxBender 2y ago
Or the cases when you are on a motorcycle at 3am and the road sensors don't sense you so at the advise of a police officer, you carefully and safely run the red light. I think we know what's going to happen. I've come to the conclusion that most of the dystopian movies about robots and automation are just [spoilers]. Either way I moved to a very rural and remote location. One of my many hopes is that it will buy enough time for urban and suburban areas to duke it out in courts for a couple decades before I have to deal with the fallout.
- LoganDark 2y ago
  I've had to do this with an electric scooter before. Sometimes the road sensors aren't tuned for very small things... probably because most cars aren't that small.
- TomK32 2y ago
  Just to be safe, you could push the bike, at least with bicycles you're a pedestrian as soon as you don't ride but push it.
  - LinuxBender 2y ago
    Pushing a 500 pound motorcycle through an intersection in a time there may be drunk drivers sounds extra risky to me. I think a solution would be to first implement this AI in a tech-only city. Tech billionaires were planning on building a tech city in California. That seems like a good test-bed to fail fast and fail often. The AI need first be installed around all the billionaires homes and the system must have full transparency. Or the system accidentally leak some interesting stats including to show if anyone was made exempt. The fines won't affect them but if their personal drivers get enough moving violations and lose their license it may affect their vendors or make them late for meetings. If they are confident in AI then they would agree to the concept of shared pain. If that tech city falls through then it should be implemented in San Fransisco for five years.
kelnos 2y ago
Hell, I've been pulled over (and given a ticket) in nearly that exact situation you describe (I think it was more like 1am for me). Reasonable human discretion didn't help me that time. > if an officer isn’t willing to be in the field to issue the ticket and show up in court to defend it then there shouldn’t be a ticket in the first place I'm torn on this in general. The idealist in me really really really wants to agree with your statement, but the sheer number of cars on the roads means that cops see a teeny tiny fraction of things that happen. Driving-related injuries and deaths are disgustingly high, and I expect most of them are related to speeding, and running red lights and stop signs. That is, stuff cops are supposed to be policing. No human-powered enforcement mechanism can watch for all of those. Yes, the usual deterrent factor applies: even if you are a butthole who doesn't care about safety, you might follow the rules because of the (relatively small) possibility that there just might be a cop nearby that sees you doing something bad. But clearly it's not really working all that well; car-related injury and death statistics are still (IMO) unacceptably bad. I feel like this is sort of unique. Like, for other illegal behaviors, you can usually reduce them through other things. Like, have a healthy economy, low unemployment, under-control inflation, and housing that's affordable enough for everyone who wants to live in a place, and you have an environment where it's rare that people feel the need to commit property crimes. But drivers who speed are gonna speed. Drivers who run red lights and stop signs are gonna run red lights and stop signs. Maybe -- like for many things -- better enforcement isn't the answer. Better road/traffic engineering, stiffer penalties for when people do get caught doing unsafe things... I dunno, maybe that will get us there. Perhaps we'll have some sort of a transit renaissance, and so many fewer people will opt to drive, and that will naturally make things better. Or maybe self-driving will get good enough (and be used pervasively enough, or perhaps even mandated) that riding in a car will become a lot safer, on par with train or even air travel. Who knows. Regardless, though, I think my personal level of comfort is somewhere in the middle. I certainly don't want dystopian 100% panopicon-style enforcement of every single thing, where everyone is recorded everywhere they go to make sure they aren't breaking the law. But I think a light sprinkling of automated enforcement here and there is probably not harmful privacy/freedom-wise, but can indeed be a societal good. But I don't exactly trust law enforcement to stay within the lines of their mandate when it comes to these sorts of things. And I don't trust elected officials and judges to actually do something when law enforcement gets out of control.
TomK32 2y ago
In my city (200k pop) a lot of traffic lights are turned off, or rather blinking orange during the night. The few exceptions keep operating normal for good reasons. We don't have a smart traffic control system in our city so I assume it's the bare minimum and if the light you talk about was red at 3am, then there's a good reason for it.

askvictor 2y ago

Were you in that much of a hurry to not be able to wait 30 seconds for the traffic light?

repeekad 2y ago
That’s not the point, a surveillance state where the panopticon autonomously gives $250 tickets is the issue Rules aren’t meant to be cold hard algorithms to blindly punish people with; we wouldn’t automate a judge with an algorithm why is it somehow different to automate a police officer with one?
- froggit 2y ago
  > Rules aren’t meant to be cold hard algorithms to blindly punish people with; we wouldn’t automate a judge with an algorithm why is it somehow different to automate a police officer with one? The role of enforcing certain laws can be easily fulfilled with simple algorithms as the logic required is on early grade school level. In this case it's something like: if "stoplight is red" and "car doesn't stop", then "driver gets ticket." That's all the algorithm has to do, super easy to automate. Automation allows for enforcement where it would otherwise not be cost effective, like when it's 3am and no one else is around. The judiciary, however, has to interpret all kinds of crazy edge cases that people come up with to try and get out of tickets for rolling stops or whatever legal case, for all laws, because every now and then someone has a valid case. That's a bit harder to do with a couple lines of code and some low cost hardware.
- try_the_bass 2y ago
  Why is that not the point? You violated a law and received a penalty. You're not disputing that you violated said law, but are instead trying to justify it with "barely didn't stop" and "it's 3am and there is no traffic". Isn't the point that you got punished for doing something you would have gotten away with had no one been watching?
  - tway_GdBRwW 2y ago
    because maybe the point is "The basic premise of democracy is that the citizens/ordinary people are trusted as the ultimate source of the law, and the law is to serve them, not them to serve the law." Nice twist to the premise at the end, but no, the point is that the person got punished for using sound and reasonable judgement in a situation where the regulation (not law) was ill thought out.
    - try_the_bass 2y ago
      "Sound and reasonable judgement" to save a couple seconds? That still just seems like rationalization of bad behavior. You're right that the basic premise of democracy is that citizens can be trusted as the source of the law, but it seems to me that this particular citizen can't actually be trusted? I mean, they're demonstrating a lack of integrity, are they not?
      - deergomoo 2y ago
        You're talking about someone who, from their description, slowed down to something like 0.1mph instead of absolute zero. At 3am, in an empty road. How is that bad behaviour, lack of integrity, and a sign someone can't be trusted?
        try_the_bass 2y ago
        Integrity is commonly defined as "doing the right thing, even if no one is watching", is it not? I highly doubt this person would have rolled through the light if a cop were sitting at the intersection watching them, and they knew they were being observed. To several other posters' points, the specific regulation in question exists for safety reasons. Those safety reasons don't go away just because you don't think they apply in the moment. I'm sure every person who has hit (or been hit by) another person when rolling through a right turn like that thought their judgement in the moment was reasonable, too. I'm also sure not every one of those would have been prevented by coming to a complete stop and looking at the turn, but certainly some of them would have, which is a net positive for everyone. This comes at a cost of a handful of seconds, which seems like the most trivial of inconveniences, and wholly worth paying every time.
- acdha 2y ago
  It’s hardly a surveillance state to say operators of heavy machinery should do so safely: there are many, many dead pedestrians and bicyclists who were hit by someone who _thought_ the road was empty, and American traffic laws are so lenient that it’s disturbing that people think they’re overbearing. It’s estimated that we are effectively subsidizing drivers by close to a trillion dollars annually by not requiring adequate insurance to cover the full cost to victims. Just pay your ticket and drive better before you make a mistake you’ll never recover from.
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/road-deaths-us-eu/ https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/road-deaths-us-eu/ Seems to be more of an issue in the US.
    - acdha 2y ago
      Definitely: bigger vehicles, higher speeds, and because the alternatives to driving have been starved of funding or removed the entire system is loathe to punish bad drivers because taking away someone’s license largely removes their ability to function.
      - johnisgood 2y ago
        Unfortunately the state of public transportation is awful in the US, for sure.
- edmundsauto 2y ago
  America has tried to do this, famously, with the "3 strikes and you're out" laws of the past century.
mauvehaus 2y ago
At 3am? Bed presumably.
lolinder 2y ago
We're talking about a rolling right turn on red, not crossing the whole intersection on red. The turn is allowed but the camera took issue with how much of a stop came first. I don't know very many drivers who wouldn't recognize that camera behavior at 3:00 in the morning as unreasonable.
- c22 2y ago
  Why not just come to a full stop? It's presumably dark out at 3am so you may have missed a pedestrian or a vehicle with no headlights. It only takes an extra second or two to stop and look around.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    At the majority of signal-controlled intersections with city limits there's plenty of visibility even (or dare I say especially) at 3am and the scanning can happen as you approach. (Also, the kind of rolling stop I'm talking about isn't a 5mph roll, it's a near-stop that feels like a stop to the driver but technically doesn't actually bring the tires to stationary. Odds are even you have done this kind of stop pretty regularly without realizing it, and even a cop wouldn't even notice it as incorrect unless they were actively looking for someone to ticket.)
    - c22 2y ago
      Odds are I haven't since I'm always careful to stop twice when turning right on red. (Once before the crosswalk, and again at the far side of the crosswalk to check for cross traffic before executing the turn.)
      - stopsandgoes 2y ago
        Have you ever been rear-ended, stopping twice like that? I have.
        c22 2y ago
gog 2y ago
I believe the commenter is in US where you are allowed to make a right turn on a red light but you must stop and make sure it's safe to do so.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  There is old Woody Allen joke: The only advantage of LA over NYC is right turn on red light is allowed.
monkeywork 2y ago
That is a discussion that can be had between the offender and the police officer, also depending what you are driving (ie a motorcycle) often traffic lights may not detect you and you can be sitting there forever. Put it this way would you feel comfortable having your phone just passively watching you and anytime you break any law that is on the books it calls the cops on you? If you can see that as over reaching you can understand why others don't want automated enforcement done to them.
- kelnos 2y ago
  > That is a discussion that can be had between the offender and the police officer Once you've been pulled over, a police officer is unlikely to change their course of action based on anything you say to them. Especially in this case, of not coming quite to a full stop at a red light before turning right. The cop knows it was safe to do so. They just want the ticket revenue or to fill up their quota for the month. Or they're just having a bad day and want to harass someone who can't fight back. Or, if I'm being charitable, they're an incessant rule-follower who doesn't understand how reality works.
concordDance 2y ago
Regardless of whether he can wait 30 seconds there is no good reason to impose that cost. Its just randomly making someone's life worse for literally no gain. Time is our most precious and finite commodity and should not be wasted.

LinuxBender 2y ago

Or the cases when you are on a motorcycle at 3am and the road sensors don't sense you so at the advise of a police officer, you carefully and safely run the red light. I think we know what's going to happen. I've come to the conclusion that most of the dystopian movies about robots and automation are just [spoilers]. Either way I moved to a very rural and remote location. One of my many hopes is that it will buy enough time for urban and suburban areas to duke it out in courts for a couple decades before I have to deal with the fallout.

LoganDark 2y ago
I've had to do this with an electric scooter before. Sometimes the road sensors aren't tuned for very small things... probably because most cars aren't that small.
TomK32 2y ago
Just to be safe, you could push the bike, at least with bicycles you're a pedestrian as soon as you don't ride but push it.
- LinuxBender 2y ago
  Pushing a 500 pound motorcycle through an intersection in a time there may be drunk drivers sounds extra risky to me. I think a solution would be to first implement this AI in a tech-only city. Tech billionaires were planning on building a tech city in California. That seems like a good test-bed to fail fast and fail often. The AI need first be installed around all the billionaires homes and the system must have full transparency. Or the system accidentally leak some interesting stats including to show if anyone was made exempt. The fines won't affect them but if their personal drivers get enough moving violations and lose their license it may affect their vendors or make them late for meetings. If they are confident in AI then they would agree to the concept of shared pain. If that tech city falls through then it should be implemented in San Fransisco for five years.

kelnos 2y ago

Hell, I've been pulled over (and given a ticket) in nearly that exact situation you describe (I think it was more like 1am for me). Reasonable human discretion didn't help me that time. > if an officer isn’t willing to be in the field to issue the ticket and show up in court to defend it then there shouldn’t be a ticket in the first place I'm torn on this in general. The idealist in me really really really wants to agree with your statement, but the sheer number of cars on the roads means that cops see a teeny tiny fraction of things that happen. Driving-related injuries and deaths are disgustingly high, and I expect most of them are related to speeding, and running red lights and stop signs. That is, stuff cops are supposed to be policing. No human-powered enforcement mechanism can watch for all of those. Yes, the usual deterrent factor applies: even if you are a butthole who doesn't care about safety, you might follow the rules because of the (relatively small) possibility that there just might be a cop nearby that sees you doing something bad. But clearly it's not really working all that well; car-related injury and death statistics are still (IMO) unacceptably bad. I feel like this is sort of unique. Like, for other illegal behaviors, you can usually reduce them through other things. Like, have a healthy economy, low unemployment, under-control inflation, and housing that's affordable enough for everyone who wants to live in a place, and you have an environment where it's rare that people feel the need to commit property crimes. But drivers who speed are gonna speed. Drivers who run red lights and stop signs are gonna run red lights and stop signs. Maybe -- like for many things -- better enforcement isn't the answer. Better road/traffic engineering, stiffer penalties for when people do get caught doing unsafe things... I dunno, maybe that will get us there. Perhaps we'll have some sort of a transit renaissance, and so many fewer people will opt to drive, and that will naturally make things better. Or maybe self-driving will get good enough (and be used pervasively enough, or perhaps even mandated) that riding in a car will become a lot safer, on par with train or even air travel. Who knows. Regardless, though, I think my personal level of comfort is somewhere in the middle. I certainly don't want dystopian 100% panopicon-style enforcement of every single thing, where everyone is recorded everywhere they go to make sure they aren't breaking the law. But I think a light sprinkling of automated enforcement here and there is probably not harmful privacy/freedom-wise, but can indeed be a societal good. But I don't exactly trust law enforcement to stay within the lines of their mandate when it comes to these sorts of things. And I don't trust elected officials and judges to actually do something when law enforcement gets out of control.

TomK32 2y ago

In my city (200k pop) a lot of traffic lights are turned off, or rather blinking orange during the night. The few exceptions keep operating normal for good reasons. We don't have a smart traffic control system in our city so I assume it's the bare minimum and if the light you talk about was red at 3am, then there's a good reason for it.