Slashdot Mirror
UK to Put Monitors in Every Car?
wackoman2112 writes "The Sun is reporting that the UK government has plans to put a computerised spy in every car. This "spy" will record every single time a motorist goes slightly over the speed limit, into a bus lane, or stops on a yellow line! It will report this information to roadside sensors and you will soon receive a fine in the mail."
It seems to me that people *need* a certain amount of flexibility in the law.. Something this rigid is bound to fail...it simply goes too far against human nature.
Do you have any fucking idea what "The Sun" is?
Implied: why bother linking to any of their crap?
I want to see people get irate like Snipes in the phone booth in Demolition Man. Maybe slashbots can start a movement to bring back cryogenically frozen nerds to combat our evil oppressors.
No way... Are people's liberties going to be trampled that bad? Would we have to explain every single infraction? "The truck was on my arse so I had to speed up" or "I swerved into the bus lane to miss the dog". The possibilities are endless. And that's just for having legitimate excuses for every time you "break the law". What's scarier is that this is even a possibility. This just paves the way to have video cameras mounted in every car "to ensure your personal safety" or whatever. Kinda frightening if you ask me.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Cool! All you need to do is swipe a sensor from the side of the road, reverse engineer the signals in your garage, and sniff your neighbor's/enemies' signature, and you can bankrupt them with traffic tickets!
There's a reason human beings do this in the US- one because it's always open to interpretation, and two- we have to have a job like traffic cop for the jerks in our society.
A Dutch minister has suggested the idea to install a cruse control (with speed limit) in every car. Aside from this there have been experiments here in the Netherlands with such a cruse control that would limit the speed based on GPS data and a database.
The Sun is a tabloid rag, concerned only with tittle-tattle, gossip, celebrity "revelations" and salacious pictures. It is not a newspaper and I wouldn't ever think of using it as the basis for a sensible discussion on any issue. Someone find a reference to this "story" in a real newspaper and we can talk about it.
Rob.
Overreaction, as usual, by the Sun. I'm not even going to finish reading this diatribe, I don't buy it, not even for the UK. All of this is easier accomplished by roadside cameras, and has the same basic flaw - it wont hold up in court.
At any rate, you have the right to a day in court, and to face your accuser. Unless this tattler box can show up to testify against you, your case will be thrown out.
So once again some loudmouth says something stupid or sarcastic, and the Sun jumps all over it like its the next big story. Those guys are almost as bad as slashdot when it comes to fact checking.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
It's a terrible, terrible newspaper with a reputation for making up half of what they print and not checking the rest.
They also have severe disagreements with the government and are not above lying to score political points.
This might be true, but a second and more reputable source would be better.
...I am here to take your daughter for dance.
Sure Son, here, Take my car.
Keep in mind that this is a British tabloid that is doing the reporting. The genre is notorious for fluff, demagoguery, and "sports dailies" that are basically half sports, half softcore porn. I'd hope to see something a bit more solid verifying this story before I worried too much about it.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Here's a wacky idea -- how about you stop burning red lights?
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
It would take approximately 2 hours after this passes for an entrapenuer to board and airplane and set up shop in Mexico.
This shop would produce circumvention kits, which would be banned from import, yet be strangely available via flea markets, and some "grey-area" mail order catalogs.
It would eventually require the continual inspection of automobiles to verify that the devices haven't been circumvented. And in the US, a car has become so much part of the identity of "being American", that people would consider even inspecting the system an attack on their civil liberties.
But then again, should the US Gov. indicate that it is necessary because suspected terrorists could be using vechiles (aka cars) to plan their next grocery store outing, I'd fully expect it to pass with full approval.
Cynical? No! Not me! hahahahaha....
"what exactly is wrong with this proposal?"
They'd spend billions before realising that it won't work as a concept, car thieves routinely circumvent it and the law hasn't caught up to the idea of RFID tagging as evidence. FWIW, quite a large number of traffic lights in this country are already equipped with cameras, and we have several hundred 'GATSO' cameras by the roadside. Unfortunately they don't provide identification of the driver, just the car and by inference the owner, but they can't prove the driver. A small loophole.
The other problem is that in 2000, they granted the police wide ranging powers to request information of telecommunications providers...we're still waiting for the rules governing the requests to actually be written.
The current labour government has a track record of trying to lever itself into the position of being a data nexus...the largest personal identification database is run by Envision for TV licensing, but it's not actually registered with the Data Protection registrar. As a result, I don't trust the UK government to actually get stuff right.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
WTF is an 'MOT'?
I *think* the initials are "Ministry of Transport", but that's not directly relevant.
In the UK, if your car is over three years old, you must get a certificate of roadworthiness, issued by a certified test centre, once a year. The certificate is an "MOT Certificate" and the test is an "MOT Test".
Driving without an MOT or insurance is illegal, and you have to present both your MOT and your insurance certificate in order to get a tax disk, without which you're bound to get stopped and fined (or worse) eventually.
The article is suggesting that adding the necessary tech would be mandatory in order to pass the test.
Anyone interested in issues surrounding driving in the UK, esp. the anti car madness which is around at the moment, should have a look at SafeSpeed. Lots of interesting information regarding cameras, police targets, why driving fast isn't necessarily dangerous, etc.
SpamNet - a spam blocker that really works
We've already got this on the way in the USA. OBD-III (on-board diagnostics 3) is a scheme proposed by the EPA and various other government agencies to "protect the environment." Right now, every new car has OBD-II, which constantly monitors your vehicle for emissions compliance. Wonderful, huh? Well OBD-III will incorporate a satellite transmitter in every car...if your car goes out of spec, the government will know who you are...and have the authority to revoke your registration until you get it fixed. They will also have the ability to stop your car from starting, or stop it entirely if you are determined to be a criminal or environmental outlaw. Plans are already afoot to interface the system with "smart signs"...so you could be issued a ticket directly from a "SPEED LIMIT 55" sign...for going 56. The future is here! Limitless revenue for the government!
just so that big brother can a.) fine me for going a little over the speed limit ...
b.) can years hence accurately tell where I am right now or where I was on a certain date at certain time.
You know, Bob, I usually don't fuck up bad on the road but hey...
The fact that something like this has been reported in "The Sun" really isn't a justifiable reason to believe that it is at all likely to happen. I used to read quite a lot of UK newspapers (I live there) and I have seen this or a very similar story published before, and nothing has ever happened about it. I fully expect the same thing to happen this time.
I am actually in favour of cracking down on people who recklessly break the law, but I think monitoring people's speed this way is not the way to go. For example, I know many people who would not think twice before doing speeds in excess of 50mph in a 30mph limit zone, these people could do with receiving punishment for such a thing. But IMO there is nothing wrong with doing 80/90mph along a country lane in the dark (the safest time - you can see traffic a long way off - and there is much less of it) providing, you, the car and the road can all handle that sort of speed. I would never consider doing speeds in excess of the limit in heavily populated areas. [for those of you who are not aware the speed limit on such roads is 60mph].
If this kind of technology is going to be introduced into vehicles in this country, then fair enough, thats the way its going to be, I think it would certainly take away some of the fun of driving, but in some ways I would rather know that I am being 'watched' constantly rather than having to keep looking to see where the speed camera is hidden.
BTW, WTF!!! is this colour scheme, its kind of maroon and puke yellow. its making me feel quite ill!!!!!
FYI I didn't RTFA - its the sun, there's nothing to read in the sun.
.sigs are for losers
Hahaha for those of you who don't live in the UK - "The Sun" newspaper is a fithy rag of a tabloid.
They frequently lie and make up stupid stories.
Don't believe a word of it.
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
too bad that speedometers aren't 100% exact. They simply display a sorta average of your speed. If it showed your exact speed while driving, the needle would jump around much quicker. (not quite as quick as the Tach, but it wouldn't be as smooth as it is now). This means that people who honestly believe they are going the speed limit may inadvertantly go a mile or two over (esp if they are accelerating quickly, then ease off right at the limit)
if you have GPS that can calculate speed, check it against your speedometer and you will see what I mean. (I didn't believe this either, till one of my friends used his GPS to prove it. Also, it would likely depend on how fine a resolution and how quickly your GPS refreshes... however, I am not a GPS expert by any means, esp since googling produces various opinions. some say that it's the error in the speedometer, some say it's intentional error in the GPS)
Monitoring people, in my opinion, seems a very untrusting way to do business. It automatically assumes that the observed need to be closely watched, creating a rather suspect environment. (I won't start screaming big brother, don't worry. You can argue this without invoking Orwell)
I don't know how the UK relys on speeding tickets as sources of income, but I am reminded of a story from florida. AAA near a florida town put up signs 6 miles outside the city that warned motorists of the 'speed trap' ahead in order to keep the speeding down. The local cops said that the signs were not allowed. Their reason? Revenues due to speeders were going down. In short, people were slowing down. You would think the cops would have been happy, right? No, they were upset because they claimed that they received 40% of the town budget and 105% of the police budget through fines. So, basically, they publically stated that they wanted people to speed. yea, yea, I know that's obvious, but I never dreamed in a million years that they would actually admit it. And what baffled me further was that hardly anyone cared! Their attitude was, "Of course that's why they don't want the signs there" instead of "isn't it outrageous that the cops actually admitted that!!"
My point of relating this story is, if the UK is simply doing this to generate new revenue, it's a very very shady deal. I think it reeks of greed and a dash of corruption, the privacy issues set aside. Also, what about those times when you *have* to speed? perhaps a car comes barralling down the road behind you and you need a quick burst of speed to avoid a collision? What about passing (overtaking). yea, I know you aren't supposed to go over the speed limit when you do that, but if you don't, passing is rather tough. I myself don't pass much, but when I do, I try to limit myself to 5mph over the speed limit.
-John
"The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and hoping for different results"
Jim Hacker: "Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers:
- The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country;
- The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country;
- The Times is read by people who actually do run the country;
- The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country;
- The Financial Times is read by people who own the country;
- The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country;
- And the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is."
Sir Humphrey: "Prime Minister, what about the people who read the Sun?"
Bernard Woolley: "Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits."
Let's start by putting one in every car driven my a Government minister, Member of Parliament and policeman, and by their families. If that works, we'll extend it to media people and sports stars.
If they approve after that, we can extend it to the peons.
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
GPS fears are paranoia. If you're really afraid that the government is out to get you, you'd better avoid cell-phones entirely. You're walking around with a fairly powerful radio transmitter. There are companies which sell software that triangulate the position of a cell-phone based on the surrounding cell towers. GPS doesn't add any new capability in terms of tracking that they didn't have before.
Piss him off!
1. Steal his car one night
2. Drive around like a madman for 30 minutes
3. Park it back in his driveway
4. Watch the hijinks ensue when the police cart him away.
Be sure to wear gloves and leave no DNA. He'll never be able to prove it wasn't him.
Just to bring it to peoples' attention, something in excess of 3,000 people are KILLED every year by cars and trucks in the UK... and yet the UK is considered to have a "good" road safety record. That figure is in the region of a hundred times worse per passenger mile than the rail or bus system, the equivalent of a fully-loaded 767 going down every single month.
/.-friendly note, this type of infrastructure is PERFECT to pave the way for robot-driven self-navigating cars and autonomous road vehicles.
Hence, I'm in favour of virtually ANY regulation of motorists. Nobody has a god-given right to carry themselves about in two tons of steel - especially in a small and crowded country like the UK with an adequate public transport infrastructure.
As to "driving at 35 when the limit is 30"... in any case, either of those speeds is too fast on urban UK roads. We have a much higher level of pedestrian (and cyclist) activity than the US, especially in towns. There's also a massive problem with illegaly-owned, uninsured cars and people driving them without the proper license.
Anyways, to finish on a more