Slashdot Mirror
DoNotPay Bot Has Beaten 160,000 Traffic Tickets -- and Counting (venturebeat.com)
Khari Johnson, writing for VentureBeat:A bot made to challenge traffic tickets has been used more than 9,000 times by New Yorkers, according to DoNotPay maker Joshua Browder. The bot was made available to New Yorkers in March. In recent years and decades, residents of The Big Apple have seen a persistent increase in traffic fines. A record $1.9 billion in traffic fines was issued by the City of New York in 2015. Since the first version of the bot was released in London last fall, 160,000 of 250,000 tickets have been successfully challenged with DoNotPay, Browder said. "I think the people getting parking tickets are the most vulnerable in society," said Browder. "These people aren't looking to break the law. I think they're being exploited as a revenue source by the local government." Browder, who's 19, hopes to extend DoNotPay to Seattle this fall.
What's higher than first-world problems?
my bro got nailed by a red light camera in Fremont, CA. the actual fine was two franklins plus change. Other "assorted fees" cause the entire bill to balloon to just under six franklins.
I get a note saying "parking fine".
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Right, using technology to get the upper hand in civil matters as bad bad bad. Unless the government is doing to make money off of citizens, in that case, it
ay-oh-kay!
BACK IN LINE CITIZEN! You will pay whatever fine we choose to levy against you.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Sorry to ruin your tirade but not all parking tickets are because somebody broke a traffic law. I've gotten one in my life. I parked in the spot where a cop normally parked when he was going to visit the woman he was having an affair with. I parked my legal vehicle on a street which street parking was permitted. My crime was I made him park across the street. It was in front of my own house for christ sake. Still had to go fight it all because I dared to slightly inconvenience a cop.
NYC meter maids would never, ever, EVER write bogus tickets. The only reason the NYPD started using the handheld ticket machine was to try to cut down on the number of tickets that were thrown out because they were questionable or obviously bogus. It was an attempt to keep them honest (so the city would get more money). When I moved to NYC my truck was ticketed so often for being a "commercial" vehicle (despite not meeting any of the requirements) that I ended up selling it because fighting every single ticket wasn't worth the hassle. Most of the city employees are good, hard working people but there are enough corrupt ones to screw with a lot of people.
The bot helps a person decide if the reasons they have are "legitimate", and it gives some pointers on what evidence to bring if you decide to challenge. I don't understand why you think that's useless.
Ok, I read TFA, sue me. Sounds like the bot is just looking for technicalities that will void the ticket. Fair enough.Have you ever heard of a corporation that avoided some tax based on a technicality? I could think of a few.
Better yet. Ever have a cop give you a ticket based on a technicality? I have.
Technicalities are not reserved for use by only one side. They are fair game to all. Seems to me that this one is just making these technicalities available to all. Fair enough.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
You know how I know you didn't RTFA?