Walk around in a downtown area and it’s blatantly visible how many drivers use their phones while driving , often performing illegal maneuvers due to their distraction.
Uber/Lyft are the worst for this. Drivers are staring at their (mounted) phone screen trying to find their passenger, ducking in and out of the bike lane or shoulder, completely oblivious to pedestrians and bikers.
It's gotten to the point where I actively avoid any car that has an Uber sticker or Lyft light.
The issue is that only 15 states ban using/holding your phone while 48 ban texting for all drivers. [1] This means that unless you would need a very high resolution image with litle blur to determine that they were 'texting' (or you investigate after an accident). A lot of people still have to interact with the phone itself for maps & media so the US is very handicaped at enforcing these laws.
> you would need a very high resolution image with litle blur to determine that they were 'texting'
Bigger reason: This amounts to "set up cameras that record exactly what's on the screen of every phone that goes by", which is an utter nightmare in terms of privacy.
Hmm, if you're in a jurisdiction where it's illegal to be using your phone, I'm not sure how upset we should be about the police invading your privacy to prove you're breaking the law? I suppose you could argue that such a camera would also potentially capture the screens of passengers, though.
> I suppose you could argue that such a camera would also potentially capture the screens of passengers, though.
That is exactly the main argument that I would make:) It also amounts to a permanent warrantless recording of a space that most people would expect to be semi-private, which is worrying even if you assume that it will only affect the guilty.
I'd be more upset about the idea of being snooped on by cameras everywhere I go. That _really_ doesn't sit right with me, and there are certainly concerns around privacy, security, and a government that probably shouldn't be trusted with such info.
Big difference between living in a jurisdiction where its outright illegal to use your phone and living in a jurisdiction where the act of driving while holding/using the phone is illegal, and they are two very different things. Many people live in a place where the latter is the case. Its fair to not want people to be distracted drivers while also wanting privacy. Is there no room for a middle ground?
There is an eternal balance between freedom and privacy for the sake of security. The US has usually remained on the freedom side but rights are being eroded constantly.
There are better ways to increase driver and road safety than setting up an ever-present surveillance network in every city. I'm surprised by how many HN users argue against surveillance (for example some fuzzy ad tracking) and yet are fine with having recordings of every physical movement.
That's an awfully dystopian viewpoint. Ever-present surveillance is a cancer on society, and we shouldn't be increasing the amount of surveillance that happens.
With all the discussion on HN about "technical debt" I wonder why the same sort of strategies to avoid technical debt aren't applied outside the domain of software engineering.
Sure, it's effort now to do the smarter-but-harder thing, but the payoff will be huge in a few decades. Sure beats having a police state that is precipitated by goody-two-shoes demanding video surveillance of nearly all public roads in the USA.
Well, in the US, that means jobs, and we've got the money. Done right, it makes us worth more and won't even have a meaningful impact on the overall value of currency.
Well New York City is the epitome of a "walkable city" and also has "decent public transportation." Yet there's no shortage of either cars and drivers behind the wheel texting.
Serious question - why? Car related deaths are at the lowest they’ve been per capita in 80 years [1]. Seems to me like we don’t really need to do anything. Hardly seems justified to bring in draconian AI.
Especially when a officer on the street corner will do the job (and prevent a ton of other petty law violations) just as well without being Orwellian about it.
Edit : Do the down-voters care to explain how a networked camera system is somehow better or less orwellian than a human cop?
1. A camera can't shoot you--seeing as this thread is about cameras in US cities, and police brutality is an issue here, I don't want a bunch of power-hungry cops with a license to murder on every corner of every US city. That sounds both insanely wasteful and also dangerous.
2. I really don't understand how having a cop on the street corner is any better than the "Orwellian" camera. In both cases, you're being watched, but one case comes with the added benefit that the watcher has a loaded gun.
3. The power imbalance is worse with a cop than a camera. With footage, you might be able to subpoena the footage. With a cop testifying against you, it's their word against yours and cops are almost always trusted more than the people they arrest/accuse.
>>I really don't understand how having a cop on the street corner is any better than the "Orwellian" camera. In both cases, you're being watched
Hmm; that feels a dishonest argument - I would expect HN audience to understand the differences between the two without being prompted. One of them will record the observation, store it potentially indefinitely, and enable unfathomable correlations for unfathomable purposes.
If it's really not clear, I would venture most people being OK with cop but not OK with a camera, feel that an honest cop may notice a particular law being broken right now, but a network of cameras may notice all kinds of things that are not illegal, as such, but may still be used against you.
(not to say that I disagree with your premise of US Cops being more dangerous than cameras; just that it shouldn't take much effort to have a basic understanding about other perspectives)
> I would expect HN audience to understand the differences between the two without being prompted.
I would expect you to not be so condescending. The comment I replied to didn't make any sort of actual argument; it's just a statement. Therefore, I don't understand how they reached their conclusion.
> One of them will record the observation, store it potentially indefinitely, and enable unfathomable correlations for unfathomable purposes.
Right, and the other will not record the observation, potentially beat you or shoot you, and if you take it to court, have their word trusted against yours almost universally by a jury, leaving you absolutely no recourse when you lose the case because the police officer may or may not have lied in their report.
> just that it shouldn't take much effort to have a basic understanding about other perspectives
Apologies if it sounded condescending; it was the "I really don't understand how..." part of the post that, in turn, sounded to me as condescending - as if there's no plausible way anybody would prefer a cop over a camera, to the point you can't even understand why somebody would think so. It sounded dishonest because I feel, and perhaps I'm wrong, that with some effort to understand another person's perspective, most HN audience would be able to understand why somebody might prefer a cop over a camera.
I am still not certain - were you literally unable to understand why somebody would prefer a cop, or were you unwilling to make the effort, or - something else? :|
I literally don't understand why somebody would prefer a cop over a camera on every street corner of the US.
And just to be double clear, I understand the downsides of having everything on video; in this hypothetical situation, it's my opinion that having a cop on every street corner of the US is the greater evil, while having a camera in their place is a lesser evil. Both evils, both absurd hypothetical scenarios. Both fun to think about because I like dystopian societies.
Well, then, I suppose I was / am condescending, with a dose of pity and sadness:
- If your message is "I vehemently disagree, with every bone in my body, with the idea of having cops instead of cameras" - sure, that's a valid viewpoint we can have a lot of fun productively discussing, even if we never in the end agree.
- If your message is, as you repeatedly indicate, "I literally don't understand [the other point of view]", there is no discussion to be had. From where I'm standing, you are either unwilling, or incapable, of making the effort. A physical/sociopathic lack of empathy, or inability or willingness to process and examine different perspectives, or incredible amount of stubbornness, whatever it may be. If details of other side are presented to you, and you still "literally don't understand" it, then... I don't know, discussion is done one way or another? We are failing on point one of the pyramid of productive/honest discussions and arguments [1].
[note in this framework, understanding, and agreeing, are entirely separate considerations]
I'd be fine with that if we first can have a conversation on speed limits. It seems on the road network places put in interval cameras and drop the speed limit by 10+mph. On motorways we get a de facto 80mph road going down to 50, regardless of conditions and traffic flow. That seems way to extreme a limitation IMO.
Though if the trains were cheaper it wouldn't bother me!
Yeah, I mean the contraption that identifies you at two points of a straight segment of a road and fines you if your average speed between the points exceeded the limit.
Sure, we should have a conversation on speed limits. I know some places use them as revenue sources, and this would have to disappear. But speed limits are sometimes (usually?) set for safety reasons too. And we can't move forward on getting the speed limits set to safety-optimal values while almost all drivers completely disregard them. This is one case when I'm supportive of metaphorically beating the drivers into submission, so that they start following the law, and traffic engineering can be done under assumption that people follow the law.
Walk around in a downtown area and it’s blatantly visible how many drivers use their phones while driving , often performing illegal maneuvers due to their distraction.