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State Legislators Want Surveillance Cameras To Catch Uninsured Drivers (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica:
A Rhode Island legislative committee has approved a bill that would greatly expand the surveillance state through the deployment of license plate readers. For the first time in the US, these devices would be attached along Rhode Island highways and roads for the stated purpose of catching uninsured motorists from any state... The legislation spells out that the contractor for the project would get 50 percent of the fines paid by uninsured motorists ensnared under the program. The state and the contractor would each earn an estimated $15 million annually. Fines are as high as $120.
Many police departments nationwide are using surveillance cameras tacked onto traffic poles and police vehicles to catch traffic violators and criminal suspects. The proceeds from traffic fines usually are divvied up with contractors. But according to the Rhode Island lawmaker sponsoring this legislation, it's time to put surveillance cameras to a new purpose -- fining uninsured motorists.
Many police departments nationwide are using surveillance cameras tacked onto traffic poles and police vehicles to catch traffic violators and criminal suspects. The proceeds from traffic fines usually are divvied up with contractors. But according to the Rhode Island lawmaker sponsoring this legislation, it's time to put surveillance cameras to a new purpose -- fining uninsured motorists.
since it puts too big of a burden on illegals. We tried something like this here in CA, but it was racist in effect so the people running it should have been put in prison.
and has nothing to do with making a bunch of money
The financial incentive for contractors has to end. If the state is fining uninsured drivers, I have far less of a problem with it. But when law enforcement becomes a corporate profit center, it gives corporations power they shouldn't have. The same goes for for-profit prisons. If any state wants to put someone in jail, the taxpayers should have to shoulder that entire burden.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Here in the UK, traffic cameras are a common means of detecting road traffic offences, be it speeding or uninsured or untaxed vehicles - the registered keeper gets a notice of intent to prosecute sent to them and they have three options:
1. admit the offence, accept the points and fine (or any offered alternative)
2. respond with the drivers details if someone else was driving, and the offence was either speeding or uninsured vehicle
3. contest the offence, which means going to court
Its a decent system and it works - the DVLA knows if a vehicle is taxed, the Motor Insurance Database knows if a vehicle is insured (there are exceptions to this - you can get policies which cover you as a driver on any vehicle, which means the vehicle would be covered and you just respond to the notice of prosecution with proof). Of course drivers don't like the system, but it does work :)
I do find it amusing how riled up Americans get whenever someone considers a similar system in the US - I just don't get what it is about punishing illegal drivers that pisses people off!
A significant part of the horrified reaction comes from the part about 'the contractor gets 50%" of revenue generated. In the US there are -at least formally- limits to what an agency of the state can get away with, (appearances must be maintained) such limits are not perceived to apply to private contractors.
apropos: $CAPTCHA=='slowdown'
One of the biggest problems we in the U.S. have with systems like this is that it pushes the burden of proof onto the accused. That is unacceptable here.
I do find it amusing how riled up Americans get whenever someone considers a similar system in the US - I just don't get what it is about punishing illegal drivers that pisses people off!
It's not the punishing illegal acts but the intrusion of government. Americans tend to dislike government monitoring them, something that goes back to a time when some guy named George kept trying to keep tabs on them. That instilled a mistrust of government, amongst other things, that still runs deep in the American mindset.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The contractor is being paid 50% of the revenue because there is no money to paid them a fix amount upfront.
Because the people won't vote to authorize the government to finance such systems through a bond measure or property assessment or any of the other myriad ways revenue is raised for infrastructure projects. So, government does it anyway by doing an end-run around the will of the constituents. Because those "government by the people, for the people" and "by the consent of the governed" tropes have been mostly lip-service concerning anything that really matters for decades.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.