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Citing Polluting Vehicles Using Roadside Sensors
Makarand writes "A regional southern Californian law will
soon allow installation of
roadside sensors to measure pollutants from tailpipes
as vehicles accelerate.
The sensors would then activate a camera to photograph the license plates of vehicles whose emissions are too high and the owner would be notified to bring his vehicle for a smog check.
This would ensure that if a vehicle has developed a problem and become a polluter, the owner cannot wait till the next smog check date to fix the problem. The plan is to have these sensors in place by year 2010. As of now, the state depends on the mandatory vehicle smog checks and the Highway Patrol and travelers to report smoking vehicles."
I for one welcome our new electronic gas sniffing overlords!
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
2010? By then won't we be in our hydrogen fuel celled hybrid solar hover cars?
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
Do they honestly think this will work? Honestly? I mean, given the inherently unpredictable effects wind patterns, temperature, barometric pressure, precipitation, and even sunlight have on the often wildly fluctuating pollutant emissions coming from the cars in question, the false positive and false negative rates will make lie detectors look valid by comparison. And of course there will be no compensation for the driver if the sensor is triggered inappropriately.
Thank God I don't live in southern California.
That peopel will idly sit by and let this happen-- hell they never even question the authority of government to do these things.... shows just how far this country has fallen into tyranny!
The government doesn't have the rigth to license cars or drivers, let alone put environmental restrictiosn on them.
Travel is a FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT.
But you guys keep rah-rahing for the taking away of rights of people you don't like, and eventually they'll get around to making sure you are so poor (cause you've paid all your savings into social security which pays out nothing in your old age ) that you die as well.
There are precious few people who respect the constitution in this country... and you all deserve what you get. Only you're too clueless to realize you asked for it!
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
And on a hot day? Is this going to take an average sample at any point? Keep in mind, on a hot day, the pavement itself is going to be giving off a fair ammount of pollutant. On a hot day, with heavy traffic, an average sampling of background pollutants is going to be significantly higher than on a cold day with minimal traffic.
And as for this:
Many cities have cameras with sensors at traffic lights, which have led to a slew of motorist complaints.
Apples and oranges. Issuing a moving violation requires an arrest to be made. The camera is technically the arresting officer. The driver isn't arrested, is not released on his own recognicence, so the ticket is essentially invalid. Most of these types of tickets get challenged, and since the camera can't show up in court to press it's case, most of these tickets get thrown out. To my knowlege, getting a notice for a smog check does not require an arrest to be made, so regardless of how incorrect these readings might be, the driver is pretty much SOL.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Thanks to Liberal governemnt we get even more poverty and persecution of those who already are poor.
Who's going to get caught by this? People driving clunkers, of course.
And what happens when you drive by a sensor 5 times a week and it sends you 5 citations at $50 or $100 a pop?
You can't afford to pay them.
And what happens when you can't afford to pay them? They sieze your car. OR you do pay them, selling your clunker to barely cover the $500.
Now you can't get to work.
So what happens? You are back in that hole that is very difficult to get out of.
Course the sensor cant tell one car from another so people will get charged constantly for the same car... actually 10 times a week, I forgot they'd be cited on the way home as well.
Gotta love that government-- persecution with a smile!
And you liberals fancy yourselves the benefactors of the poor! (Which is ironic because your policies have demonstrably increased poverty in this country) But yet another instance here you make poor people poorer and do NOTHING for the environment!
Here's a clue for the clueless-- the vast majority of environmental polution comes from the government--which operates without review-- not from individuals, and certainly not from cars.
But this isn't about the environement anyway-- this is about persecuting the poor. You just can't come right out and admit it. ITs bad enough you took away half their jobs iwth the minimum wage laws (which cuts unemployement and kills jobs) and unionization and your massive tax burden (which is regressive as all hell). No, then you had to go and waste the money that is collected by those taxes and bullshit programs like the drug war, and pouring money down the sinkhole that is public schools -- where its common to pay teachers for decades after they've died, as was recently discovered again in New Orleans.
No, much easier to claim its for the environemnt.
But you're not fooling anyone with a basic understanding of economics.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Is that cloud of diesel fumes from the dump truck in front of me going to affect it?
Phillip
And what happens when you drive by a sensor 5 times a week and it sends you 5 citations at $50 or $100 a pop?
You're either a lier or you didn't even bother to RTFA. The system isn't intended to be used to issue citations. It's meant to be used to identify possible violations and then bring those cars in for an accurate test.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Freedom is being allowed to do what you like, if it doesn't harm another.
So, using your own quote, bikes are more free then cars.
Pollution, from cars, harms me. Bikes don't pollute.
Roads are heavily subsidized. Bikes cause little damage to roads.
Cars are inherantly more dangerous then bikes. If everyone road bikes, we could get rid of most of our traffic safety rules.
Our gas habits require government intervention. We wouldn't be in Iraq right now if Iraq had no oil.
Bikes are libertarian, cars require that we sacrifice our freedom.
Sorry Bit geek you lose this argument. you mentioned nazis and thus lose by godwins law.
see ya sucker
Veramocor
Godwins law is for those who are too stupid to recognize that the Nazis really did exist. But its true. The Nazis are a historical fact. Therefore, accurate comparisons to them are logically valid.
You have conceded the argument because you are apparently too historically ignorant to make an actual counter argument.
The Nazis did exist. Godwins "law" is the resort of the ignorant and the racist who cannot handle making a counter argument.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
>Government is a disease masquarading as its own cure.
But you know something? I grew up, and learned things. And I realized that it's a lot more complicated than that, and attacking the problem with the mentality of a simpleton is part of how the problem got as bad as it is.
So grow up, and learn a few things. Especially stop swallowing all the big-L Libertarian and Randroid dogma that you're substituting for a thought process.
Given California's pollution problems, finding ways to remove the gross polluters (the low-hanging fruit) means a huge savings because you can avoid having to eke out the fractional-percent in the remaining available improvements in other things. This is what cost-efficiency is about.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
And a troll. I hope you get a few troll mods, you deserve them.
- that the utopia will be achieved when people will just go to court to recover damages for any act which hurts them, and
- that this system will get rid of bans, regulations or taxes.
The hidden assumption with regard to clean air regulations is that emissions of particulates, oxides of sulfur, oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, VOCs and the like are harmless. It's easy to prove that this assumption is false (ask anyone who lived through the "killer fog" in London, public health researchers looking at Mexico City, or just read the research on particulates and mortality rates); from this it follows that the advocates of positions which rely on it are deluded, lying, or victims of disinformation. Enough of them.Given that the harm exists, the anarchist would go to court to obtain damages, perhaps with an injunction against future transgressions. The court would of course allow everyone affected to sue as a class, and recover damages or obtain an injunction as a group.
The immediate result would be to have a judicially-imposed pollution tax, pollution regulatory regime, or both. Rather than allow such important matters to be decided by judges, people would quickly get together and agree how much harm was acceptable and either mete out allowances for producing it or tax the emissions with the proceeds used to compensate the victims. This would immediately re-create the very government that the anarchists claim is inimical to human rights and progress... except that people would have (re)created it for the specific purpose of securing human rights and creating progress.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Regarding other pollutants, on-road vehicles account for a shade under a third of all nitrogen oxide emissions too (albeit a large fraction of that comes from diesels), and so far as VOCs are concerned road vehicles are just about equal to all processes involving solvents (each being a bit under a third of the total) with most of that coming from cars and light trucks.
It amuses me to see someone whose favorite epithet is best applied to the face that greets them in the mirror in the morning.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
We tried this several years ago in Arizona. They had vans they rolled out with equipment on the entrances to the freeway system. As you rolled over a wire, a sensor would take a sniff and snap your photo. I think that the policy was to only issue a demand for inspection after 12 of these tests were failed. I haven't seen the vans around in some time (the last couple of years). If I had to guess why, I'd say it was probably because they weren't very effective or accurate.
Tried to post this earlier, so sorry for the possible redundancy... I agree with your qualifications: placing the sensors on entrance ramps helps eliminate the multiple car problem, and continuously sensoring helps determine differential pollution levels.
I still think it stinks as policy. Consider the difference between this scheme and red-light cameras. When a car goes through a red-light camera, the camera takes a picture of the car as it is going through the red light. The car has been "caught in the act" of a clear violation of the law. Hence, the citation and the fine.
By contrast, CHiP's pollution scheme has no way to definitively connect the car with the crime. Yes, the sensor shows a crime has been committed. And yes, the camera has caught the car unfortunate enough to be at the scene of the crime.
But no proof is ever offered that the car in the picture is in fact the one responsible for the crime.
The state knows this. Therefore, they do not levy a fine as a penalty for getting caught, because they know that a conviction would never hold up in court. So instead, they have a weaselly way of getting around reasonable doubt: as a penalty for getting caught, you have to come in and prove your innocence!
What happens if my car turns out to be clean? Will the government reimburse me for my time? Never! For the cost of the inspection? Unlikely.
It turns out that these automated enforcement plans are money-makers. Here in Maryland and DC, red-light cameras have become a scam (placed at lucrative, rather than dangerous, intersections, etc.). This scheme is no different.
I hope it dies, because it seems like nothing more than an end-run around due process.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
As to modes of transportation, at various times I walk, drive, bicycle, and take the bus. Mr./Ms. Bicyclist, do you yield to pedestrians? I can't count the number of times on foot that I have almost been smashed into by dudes on bikes running red lights against the walk light I have patiently waited for across a busy campus intersection. Oh, and since I don't bicycle that much, I am probably much heavier than you are, and if you ever hit me on your bike you may not knock me down, and you will probably get me really mad at you and since I weigh more I will get the idea that I can take you on.
I wonder about how long these things will work without maintenance before they clog up. I mean, nice summer day, clean roads, it will be fine. But throw in some dirt+rain=mud, or even snow, and they aren't going to last long. The article is sitting on "Loading" still so I guess that I won't be able to check up on the article, but I'd it a somewhat safe assumption that the devices have to be somewhat near ground-level in order to pick up significant readings.
Assume the sensors work. Great, so you catch a pollutor... what next? They get a citation or recommendation in the mail. Is there a recourse or punishment for non-compliance, or do they just collect citations until their required emissions test?
Further, what about vehicles that are exempt from current emmisions tests, like Mack trucks. Semis and other large vehicles produce a lot more emmisions than smaller cars, and they're often exempt from emmisions tests (I'm not sure about California).
There are also diesel-fueled vehicles. They produce less emissions pound-wise, but the types of chemicals they produce are worse for the environment. Different grading scheme?
Wouldn't the money spent on researching the sensors be better spent on improving current fuel usage?
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -- Albert Einstein
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/NoTreason/NoTre ason.html
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Check your premises.
What's the point of trying to argue against an argument based on false premises? There is none.
Course your audience, who never checks premises, confuses a logical conclusion from false premises to be "truth". I guess that's what you're counting on.
Just once I'd like to see a argument against libertarianism from someone who actually understood it.
The hidden assumption is not even an assumption at all, let alone hidden. It is a statement too broad to be true or false, as sometimes it is true and sometimes it is false.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23