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Florida Man Faces $48k Fine For Jamming Drivers' Cellphones
An anonymous reader writes with this news from The Independent: An American driver is facing a $48,000 fine after using a mobile signal jammer in his car to block motorists around him from using their phones on the road. Jason Humphreys reportedly used the jammer from the back seat of his Toyota Highlander for around two years before being caught by Florida police. The 60-year-old said that he used the jammer – which transmits radio signals that interfere with mobile phones – because he was 'fed up' with watching others use their phones on the road.
A story from late April (before the fine was levied) gives more detail: The case along I-4 started on April 29, 2013, when the cellular company Metro PCS contacted the Federal Communications Commission because a transmission tower along I-4 would suffer in the morning and evening. A week later, agents from the FCC's enforcement division in Tampa staked out the freeway on May 7, 8, and 9 and pinpointed a “strong wideband emission” in the cellphone wireless range “emanating from a blue Toyota Highlander sport utility vehicle,” with Florida license plates, according to a complaint issued by the FCC on Tuesday. Another clue: When Hillsborough County Sheriffs deputies stopped the SUV, their own two-way radios were jammed."
timothy's best posts are dupes. It's the original stuff that you need to watch out for.
I can't say I disagree with why he did it, but it's kind of hard to argue that he didn't break the law.
From what I can tell, at any given time a huge fraction of drivers are either texting, or holding onto their phone and talking.
If where I lived introduced one of those bounties where you get money if you can get a picture of a face and a license plate using the phone while driving ... well, I could go a few blocks from my house to an intersection, and pay off my house in a few weeks.
Almost weekly I find myself behind someone who is driving a little erratic because they're holding their phone with one hand, gesturing with the other, and not paying attention to what's going on around them.
I feel bad for this guy, but I fear he's probably screwed, since he broke the law in doing this. If someone had needed to call 911 near him that wouldn't have worked out well.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Seems contrary to what he is trying to accomplish. I assume he wants people to put their phones down and pay more attention to driving. I think the results will be more people looking at their phones in confusion, trying to redial, etc. i.e. the exact opposite of paying more attention to their driving.
And if he drove past an accident and interrupted a 911 call? Man fuck you.
But he could could have bought one of those russian style dash cams. Mounted it on near the roof line, looking sideways and downwards. May be two such cams on either side of the vehicle. Record it continuously and report the actual distracted drivers, along with the video footage to police. Or without even going to police upload them into some kind of YouTube channel and shame them into compliance. When they see how seriously long, their "momentary" glance at the texts, the distance covered when they were distracted, most sane people will feel compelled to comply. After all, 99.9% of the people do come to full stop at stop signs even when there is no other vehicle is in sight, without any one policing it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Wrong.
By jamming their phones, drivers are more likely to look down at their phones wondering why the hell their calls isn't going through, making them MORE likely to cause an accident.
Captcha = reckless
This is a follow-up, not a duplicate.