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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.
In the old days, the Old White Men in charge would literally sit around and look at things used by minorities, then make them illegal. Sure, the law against Marijuana affects all people the same, but at the time it was passed, it was believed, by those who passed it, to be a Black drug.
Just because a law applies the same to a white person as a Black person doesn't mean the law is necessarily non-racist.
Learn to love Alaska
So we should enforce these laws differently depending on the color of the perpetrator's skin?
That isn't the only option. In Finland, traffic fines are based on income. One rich guy got a $103,000 speeding ticket.
Well let's see. . . .
To walk to work would be a 25 mile round trip. ( and that's a short walk. I used to drive 100 miles a day round trip )
Nearest grocery store is ~4 miles or so.
Temps here in the summer are easily 100f @ 65% humidity or better.
So not quite the lazy American as it is the uninformed foreigner who apparently thinks everyone lives within 1/2 mile of anything and everything.