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Traffic Camera Captures Woman Driving With Her Phone on Her Lap (Face Down), The State Mailed Her a $1251 'Public Safety' Ticket (www.gadgetreview.com)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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A woman drives with both hands on the wheel. Her phone sits face-down on her lap. No officer pulls her over. No lights flash. Weeks later, a $1,251 ticket arrives in the mail. The evidence: a single frame from a Camera surveillance app. The charge: phone use while driving.

Automated camera companies market their devices as automated license plate readers — tools for catching stolen cars, flagging warrants, and aiding serious investigations.

Sold as a Crime Tool. Used as a Fine Machine.

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[–] 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Hey, they could connect the car 'driver attention camera' thing, the OBD car speed stuff, and the in-car GPS to the municipality, the insurance company, and your credit card or bank account.

That way, the minute you look away, go a little over the speed limit, or check your phone message, they just gouge some cash out of your bank account. After three of these, your insurance rate goes up. After the tenth time, your health insurance and employer will be notified.

Fun times! 🎉

Edit: every damn step of this is now available via APIs or Agentic MCPs. There is zero technical barrier for this happening. Sleep tight y'all.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    People that get caught driving drunk get an alcohol lock on their car, let's at the very least install a speed check (hard limiter or the automatic fine thing) in repeat offenders' cars

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    I can see that working. Only repeat offenders need to be surveilled, and only for the intended purpose. And only by the State institution tasked with monitoring it.

    Now, how do they make that happen? Because the public institutions (police, DA, Motor vehicle, etc.) Don't develop software or hardware, they would contract with a tech company, or multiple tech companies. That means that having only the intended party monitor these would be impossible, due to the data and infrastructure being built and handled by private companies who's only purpose is revenue.

    I guess this just doesn't work. Oh well, we tried.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Public institutions also have in-house software roles, and if those are insufficient they can have a tender to make the software that belongs to the public institution afterward (to then be hosted government managed infra). This happens all the time.

    So its not right to dismiss this immediately.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    So glad that I choose to drive, I love having a depreciating asset that costs 25% of my income when it's running properly to drive nearly an hour to work every day (and almost get murdered several times).

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  • [–] -5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    You describe it as a nightmare, but on the other hand: People are operating multi-ton vehicles at high speeds in urban areas and are causing thousands of casualities doing that every year. A person operating a car should focus on the road and driving. If he/she is speeding, checking the phone, eating, smoking or fighting with their co-driver or kids, that's not safe and needs to be stopped.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    My issue with it is the complete lack of transparency in the spyware. It would be better if we were actually told about the spyware and the data it sends is accessible to us. But right now we have no idea what they're sending, how any of it affects our insurance rates, and have no way to dispute anything resulting from it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Because it's largely a boogie man OP invented, the network layer isn't magic, if anything OP is suggesting was being done secretly (unlike say teenagers getting better insurance rates if they put a telemetry box in their car), it would be pretty easy to detect.

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