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Strikes me (no pun intended) as being a very good way to get the general public to think about the consequences of the creeping use of drones. "Think its just
by alan_cx 13y ago
Strikes me (no pun intended) as being a very good way to get the general public to think about the consequences of the creeping use of drones.
"Think its just terrorists targeted? Well, it could now be you".
OK, terrorists get a missile, and drivers get a ticket, but do people want an army of drones monitoring them for motoring offences, and more?
- psutor 13y agoOr it could be a good way of desensitizing the public...
- rayiner 13y agoI'd much rather the drone monitor things and just give me a ticket in the mail than a potentially power tripping cop.
- cobrausn 13y agoThis is the worst (although power tripping cops are also pretty bad). Imagine you are driving 5~10 mph over the limit for a long time, distracted by life and generally unaware. How many tickets do you think you would get? You were never stopped and corrected, how were you supposed to know? Given the tendency of some courts in the SF area to make you pay the ticket before you can contest it (read this somewhere, not sure 100% on truthfulness of it), this sounds like a nightmare shakedown scenario.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- dman 13y agoWhere theres spy theres always counter spy. If ticket giving drones get more widespread it will make economic sense to launch a drone service to monitor the ticket giving drones.
- georgemcbay 13y agoIt is cute that you think there's any chance in hell that such a service would be granted permission to fly drone-spotting drones by the FAA. In any case, a single 1.8 gigapixel ARGUS-IS can cover a huge amount of surveillance area and within a few years that technology could be commonplace, so the answer could easily always be "yes, of course there is a drone watching your car right now", making that information basically useless.
- oijaf888 13y agoThe FAA would prohibit amateur RC planes where drones are operational?
- georgemcbay 13y agoNo, the FAA wouldn't prohibit amateur RC planes, but how exactly do you implement a drone-spotting operation using amateur RC planes? Even ignoring the complexity of coordinating such a thing, the short range such planes have and the need for constantly re-powering the planes, what sensor do you mount on amateur RC sized planes that is capable of spotting a drone flying at up to 30,000 feet?
- devingoldfish 13y ago> ...some courts in the SF area to make you pay the ticket before you can contest it (read this somewhere, not sure 100% on truthfulness of it) Yea, that's false.
- Domenic_S 13y agoNot really. You have to pay the bail amount up front. Options are: -Go to court and plead not guilty: send the bail amount, wait for your court date. If found not guilty, you get some $$ back. If guilty, pay the fine amount (less bail). -Plead guilty/no contest via mail: send them the bail amount, they keep the $$ (bail forfeiture).
- dotBen 13y agoIn some jurisdictions there is a discount if you pay before a certain date - but if you wish to contest then the time it takes to do that will expire the discount period. It's cleverly and obviously intentional practice that plays on people's time to defend themselves being worth more than the discounted price.
- finnw 13y agoAnd in some of these jurisdictions, the clock restarts when you are informed that your appeal was unsuccessful (even if the collecting agency likes to pretend otherwise.) So check the rules first.
- throwmeaway33 13y agoIf this became an issue then the laws would have to be changed to accommodate the new technology. We shouldn't reject new technology because our current laws aren't suited for it.
- rhizome 13y agoA drone won't shoot your dog.
- jjsz 13y agoRight. 4 shots. A man will never do that. He would have kicked the dog slightly and tell the owner to put him back in the car...but 4 shots. The governments security are merciless.
- noarchy 13y agoIf we're talking about the same incident, the owner was handcuffed, and watched helplessly as things unfolded.
- georgemcbay 13y agoThis would be trading one set of problems for another. I routinely drive around 80 mph (15 over the speed limit) on the freeway here in San Diego, just like virtually everyone else (when there isn't traffic). Cops here don't even blink when it comes to this sort of speed on the freeways. But drones would, presumably, issue tickets at any technical infraction regardless of the "situation on the ground". To be honest, I'm not sure which situation I'd dislike worse, the occasionally arbitrary power-tripping cop or the completely clinical and technical rule following of the drone, both are pretty bad, IMO.
- philwebster 13y agoI'm not saying this is a good thing, but what if the drone gave out more warnings than tickets (ignoring the issue of delayed feedback) and based infractions on average speeds. If the tickets were reserved for seriously reckless offenders, I'm guessing the public backlash would be reduced.
- nobodysfool 13y agoThe issue is, speeding fines are in place so that cops can stop you and make the motorway safer. A drone or a camera has no way to stop you and thus does not fulfill the duty of making the motorway safer. In any case, I don't think there would be a way to monitor your speed to any kind of accuracy from a moving object. Not to mention, it would be much cheaper and easier to just setup a camera on a pole somewhere.
- enraged_camel 13y ago>>The issue is, speeding fines are in place so that cops can stop you and make the motorway safer. Not really. They exist as a revenue source for the police department. This is why people routinely drive 10-15 mph over the speed limit and yet don't get pulled over - except when the police need additional revenue. >>In any case, I don't think there would be a way to monitor your speed to any kind of accuracy from a moving object. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate. There's a certain margin after which the small inaccuracy that results from measuring speed of moving object A from moving object B becomes inconsequential. If the police vehicle is driving at 65mph (the limit) and you're 10mph faster, that means you're over the speed limit.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoThe whole idea of measuring the speed of moving object in any given moment is not an optimal solution. It is much better (and easier) in many cases to measure the time in which it took a car to travel some distance. You just set up ALPR cameras every few kilometers and record travel time. If the limit is 60km/h and you managed to drive 20km in 15 minutes, you were clearly over the limit at some point, and therefore you should be fined. I think France uses this system. Also there was a huge uproar on the news of potential introduction of it in Poland. Mostly because it's so effective. EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECS_%28speed_camera%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECS_%28speed_camera%29
- freejack 13y agoWhat's the difference between using a manned aircraft and an unmanned aircraft to do speed enforcement?
- confluence 13y agoScale and cost. You can't have hundreds of thousands of manned aircraft watching everything - it's too expensive. You can have drones do it though. Especially if their cameras work like the recent ARGUS demonstration (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5273000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5273000).
- freejack 13y agoModern unmanned aerial vehicles like the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 and the General Atomics MQ-1 cost in the millions. Cessna and helicopters do not. Granted there are cheaper UAV out there, and generally its unlikely they could carry a payload sufficient for the level of surveillance necessary for traffic enforcement. BTW - my intention isn't to advocate for drones, just to question the rationale of making a distinction between manned and unmanned surveillance, when in fact it might make more sense worrying about being aerial surveillance more generally.
- confluence 13y agoYou could jury rig as Cessna in an afternoon. The high costs of defense UAVs are almost wholly due to defense contracting rent seeking and a severe lack of competition. Drones do not cost what you think they cost. People are expensive. Robots aren't.
- speedyrev 13y agoLocal law enforcement doesn't need million dollar drones or a sizable payload. There are already many small cheap drones available for local use. All that is really needed is a functioning camera.
- freejack 13y ago
- MrFoof 13y ago>OK, terrorists get a missile, and drivers get a ticket, but do people want an army of drones monitoring them for motoring offences, and more? Depends... Could the hybrid drivers cruising 20mph under the speed limit in the left-most lane also get a missile? Because if that were the case, that might bring me over to the pro-drone camp.
- lallysingh 13y agoThe only time I've ever been pulled over in NJ was for driving too slowly in the left lane.
- freehunter 13y agoI seriously wish this happened more often. I don't care how fast you're going, if there's no one to the right of you and you're not exiting to the left within the next mile or two, you need to get over. Not only is it disruptive for faster drivers to be dodging slower traffic left and right, but passing on the right is much more dangerous than passing on the left (since the blind spot is so much bigger). Too often I see cops pass on the right when what they really should be doing is ticketing the driver in the left lane.
- gambiting 13y agoYup. Everywhere should be like Germany where you can actually lose your licence for passing on the right(because it actually is really dangerous) and get a multi-thousand euro fine for driving slowly in the left lane. Every time I drive through Germany somehow people know how to use right-most lanes properly.....
- russellsprouts 13y agoIn Washington state, the law says you must stay right except to pass.
- mahmud 13y agoThis attempt at humor distracts from the discussion.
- JumpCrisscross 13y agoGiven that this concerns behaviour on public roads and driver-less cars are around the corner, I'm not too concerned about being dump-trucked by the California Highway Patrol. More worrying is the ability to retro-actively mine mobility, social interaction, and private actions on private property. More reason why the NSA's behaviour needs to be properly scoped today before the issue metastasises.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- chrischen 13y agoThere's an easier way to solve the problem of drivers getting tickets. Lift the speed-limit laws.