Note that these speed camera “tickets” are different than normal tickets. No cop is pulling them over and issuing a citation to the driver directly. It’s the car that is cited, and usually the registered owner ends up having to pay the fine. But since they can’t prove who is driving it, they can’t issue the same type of conventional ticket. (And that’s also why the fine is so low – make it much higher and people will flood the courts trying to get out of it by saying they weren’t driving it at the time).
And that’s why they can’t just suspend someone’s license instead. Because they can’t tell who is driving in the picture, and even if someone gets their license suspended, they might just keep driving as long as they don’t get pulled over.
I generally don’t like technical solutions to social problems. Our cars are getting too smart for their own good anyway. The car companies are putting all this telemetry in there, and some have been recently caught selling your driving history to insurance companies. I definitely don’t want the government punishing people based on cameras they can’t see. We could decide “hey, why not let the government install nannys into the cars of people who speed”. But then there’s not much of a stretch between that and having the government give everyone a nanny.
We already have such Nannies for repeat drunk drivers so how is this different? It even fits with the narrative that we don’t know who is driving- we know the car is being driven dangerously so should prevent that regardless of driver
You realized you just proved my point. “We already have nannies for X, why not for Y” leads quickly to “Why not have nannies in all cars”, and then to “We have nannies in all the cars why can’t we turn off cars with criminals in them?”.
Can you imagine how much worse things could be if Trump’s gestapo could disable cars remotely?
And yet they’re talking about a nanny as a local device temporarily attached to a car and that does not necessarily “phone home”. Not everything is a “slippery slope”
And yes, speed governors were all too common after the 1970s fuel crisis. As far as I know they still are on trucks, like rental moving trucks. This is not a new thing, except to allow a court to mandate it for repeat egregious offenders
TL;DR: The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act requires all new cars sold after September 2027 to include technology that monitors whether you’re impaired or distracted—and can prevent you from driving. Infrared cameras will track your eyes, breath sensors will measure alcohol, and your car can refuse to start or limit its speed. Privacy advocates warn this biometric data could be shared with insurance companies, law enforcement, or sold to data brokers.
They’re building to a place where they could do this remotely and that’s ripe for abuses of power. The AI will see that your social karma is low and use parallel construction to develop a reason for suspending your driving privileges effective immediately. Appealing it will probably involve talking to an endless string of clankers on the phone. Ultimately there will be no humans in the chain to accept any kind of responsibility.
Note that these speed camera “tickets” are different than normal tickets. No cop is pulling them over and issuing a citation to the driver directly. It’s the car that is cited, and usually the registered owner ends up having to pay the fine. But since they can’t prove who is driving it, they can’t issue the same type of conventional ticket. (And that’s also why the fine is so low – make it much higher and people will flood the courts trying to get out of it by saying they weren’t driving it at the time).
And that’s why they can’t just suspend someone’s license instead. Because they can’t tell who is driving in the picture, and even if someone gets their license suspended, they might just keep driving as long as they don’t get pulled over.
I generally don’t like technical solutions to social problems. Our cars are getting too smart for their own good anyway. The car companies are putting all this telemetry in there, and some have been recently caught selling your driving history to insurance companies. I definitely don’t want the government punishing people based on cameras they can’t see. We could decide “hey, why not let the government install nannys into the cars of people who speed”. But then there’s not much of a stretch between that and having the government give everyone a nanny.
Here in austrlaia, the fine goes to the owner unless they make a declaration as to who was actually driving.
You get penalty points on your licence for speeding and other offences. Get enough points in a period and you lose your licence.
At high risk times, like public holiday weekends, where lots of people travel, there are double points.
Yeah, but we’re talking about the USA, where everything is stupid.
We already have such Nannies for repeat drunk drivers so how is this different? It even fits with the narrative that we don’t know who is driving- we know the car is being driven dangerously so should prevent that regardless of driver
You realized you just proved my point. “We already have nannies for X, why not for Y” leads quickly to “Why not have nannies in all cars”, and then to “We have nannies in all the cars why can’t we turn off cars with criminals in them?”.
Can you imagine how much worse things could be if Trump’s gestapo could disable cars remotely?
And yet they’re talking about a nanny as a local device temporarily attached to a car and that does not necessarily “phone home”. Not everything is a “slippery slope”
And yes, speed governors were all too common after the 1970s fuel crisis. As far as I know they still are on trucks, like rental moving trucks. This is not a new thing, except to allow a court to mandate it for repeat egregious offenders
Oh, my sweet summer child. You don’t actually believe that, do you? Read up on the stuff coming to new cars in the US next year …
For those unfamiliar:
Or they change the law so that it doesn’t matter who was driving. Unless it was stolen, the owner could still be held responsible. Stop the nonsense
They’re building to a place where they could do this remotely and that’s ripe for abuses of power. The AI will see that your social karma is low and use parallel construction to develop a reason for suspending your driving privileges effective immediately. Appealing it will probably involve talking to an endless string of clankers on the phone. Ultimately there will be no humans in the chain to accept any kind of responsibility.