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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.
and has nothing to do with making a bunch of money
How do they target poor and minority? It's a robot, it scans, you owe. That's it. Driving is a privilege not a right. Do illegal stuff, get a ticket. Pay like the rest of us, if not.... we'll boot your shit.
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!
Driving is sort of a right in that the government owns all the roads, so it has a duty to make sure roads are accessible and to not make it an undue burden. WE maintain the fiction that its a privilege, but it does butt up agasint the freedom of movement clause. If push came to shove, driving is more a right than not.
Good-bye
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'
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.
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.
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.
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.
Finland isn't the only such country. Switzerland does it too; this forum post explains the system pretty well.
https://www.englishforum.ch/tr...
But in any case, I laugh at your paltry 100k fine. Try 1 million dollars on for size: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/d...
"100 miles a day on a bike is nothing. about three hours cycling."
I call bullshit. Have you actually ever peddled a bike more than a couple miles? Doing any sort of extended exertion requires pacing. Sure, Olympic sprint cyclists can hit 45 mph in a velodrome for very SHORT distances, but they wouldn't dream of doing that for even a few short miles.
The Olympic men's individual road race, which is 152.5 miles, was won in a time of 6 hours, 23 minutes and 49 seconds in 2008 (let's round up to 6 hours and 24 minutes). That means he had an average speed of 23.83 mph. If the winning Olympic bike rider rode your hypothetical 100 mile trek at his best competitive speed, it would take him approximately 4 hours and 12 minutes. How long do you think it would take your average Joe or Jane to complete the same hundred mile journey? With water breaks and rest stops, I'd wager 6 to 7 hours.
The US is set up by and large under the assumption that everyone has a car. It is not impossible to live without one, but you'll spend a YUGE portion of your time walking or arranging transportation, even if you live in a city. It is a huge contrast to Stockholm, where I don't even own a car, and having one would in fact be an unnecessary expenditure.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.