Slashdot Mirror
Indian Police Using Facebook to Catch Scofflaw Drivers
New Delhi police have a new weapon in the battle against bad drivers, Facebook. Two months ago the police created a Facebook page that allowed people to inform on others breaking traffic laws, and upload pictures of the violations. The page has more than 17,000 fans, and 3,000 pictures currently. From the article: "The online rap sheet was impressive. There are photos of people on motorcycles without helmets, cars stopped in crosswalks, drivers on cellphones, drivers in the middle of illegal turns and improperly parked vehicles.
Using the pictures, the Delhi Traffic Police have issued 665 tickets, using the license plate numbers shown in the photos to track vehicle owners, said the city’s joint commissioner of traffic, Satyendra Garg."
Just make a copy of a government officials plate put it on your car and runs some red lights while a friend takes pictures to post.
There are photos of people on motorcycles without helmets, cars stopped in crosswalks, drivers on cellphones, drivers in the middle of illegal turns and improperly parked vehicles.
I can't even imagine seeing all that!
Whale
What about pictures of drivers using their cellphones to take pictures of drivers using their cellphones to get first post on Slashdot?
They opensourced policing!
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
So India is a communist block country now?
And in case you have not heard, people of been reporting their neighbors forever in the US.
I imagine this is going to stop working so well when they turn off everyone's Blackberries next month.
is how the ideal society works
it means people are invested in and care about their societies to make sure nobody violates it
you are thinking of east germany, where the state, not average citizens, maintained a network of neighborhood agents to exert control. this is top down control, not bottom up control
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Stasi_operations
remember when rodney king's beating was videotaped in la in the early '90s? this is "little brother": citizens reporting on injustice, whether done by fellow citizens, or even by the state itself, to maintain their society. it's the ideal. no, it's not "mob rule". the state still exists, and mob justice is not tolerated
perhaps you would prefer the sort of "stop snitching" mentality that goes on in neighborhoods rife with crime. a combination of people not caring about their own communities (and therefore not fighting crime that goes on around them, becoming collaborators in their own misery, out of distrust of the police, deserved or not), and criminals ruling by intimidation and fear to bully witnesses of crimes, results in a hellhole that in my mind, is even worse than east german stasi
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The facebook page of the Delhi police where pictures are being posted and challans issued.
All this hullabaloo is due to the Common Wealth Games that are fast approaching. Once that's done, this facebook fiasco will die a slow death.
Sent from my desktop computer
Who gives a shit what others where doing? Where you speeding or not? If yes, you are guilty of speeding, if no, then why the hell do you care what other people are doing? A ticket doesn't say you where the only one breaking the law, it says you where caught. Grow a pair and pay the ticket. If you still have that chip on your shoulder, then by all means, call in the police who break the law. You are still entitled to being an ass. Just don't blame others for the you own actions.
Also, Tu quoque. I linked it so you could get an edumacation. This is why the judge would laugh at your log book as a defense.
This makes me think of an old Robin Williams' bit. To paraphrase, the idea was that every driver on the road is issued a gun that will shoot a flag that says "Asshole." When you see someone do something stupid, you fire the gun at the car and they end up with a little flag that says "Asshole" on their car.
One advantage of this is you'd be able to tell who the idiot drivers are and give them a wide berth. Kind of like a few years ago back in Florida when all the rental-car license plates started with 'Y'--if you saw a car with a 'Y' license plate, there was a good chance they didn't know where they were going and might change lanes at any moment.
Also, it would make it easier for the police to eventually catch these people. Heck, just make a law that says if you have more than 5 "Asshole" flags on your car, you get a ticket for being an asshole.
(Obviously this wouldn't really work--it's a comedy bit. But one can dream...)