I don't really like the parallel the title here draws between "big brother" and people filming with their own cameras. The difference between the city having cameras everywhere and citizens filming is that the city would be recording everything, where citizens with cameras will likely only furnish video of crimes. You aren't being watched all the time, but if you decide to do something like smash a bus window, you deserve to be turned in. It'd be the same as the cameraman serving as a witness, except that they have concrete evidence so they don't even need to appear in court.
When I composed this comment, the submission title was: "Little Brother is watching: San Francisco PD relying on citizens with cameras" (which doesn't match the current article title).
What I thought of was Cory Doctorow's book Little Brother, which posits the inverse of this situation (a "techno-geek rebellion") rather than draw a parallel: "Big Brother is watching us, but who's watching back?" or something like that.
I've often wondered if I could record traffic violations and upload them somewhere where the policen could act on them. I haven't done it because I'd be worried about retribution and because I doubt the police would act.
Examples, cars going 65-70 in a 50mph zone. The the San Francisco Bay area Between Oakland across the Bay Bridge all the way to Candlestick park is a 50-55mph zone but lots of cars drive 70 all the way. I don't know how hard it would be to compute their speed relative to mine from the video.
Easier examples, cars turning right from a left lane. Cars tailgating. Cars changing lanes without signaling. Cars changing lanes while crossing an intersection. Cars cutting people off. Cars passing on the right on a 1 lane street, essentially driving as though it's a two lane street.
I'm not trying to be a snitch. I'd just like the roads to be safer. People who break traffic laws are effectively risking your life. That's not cool.
He cites speeding as one of his examples, and I agree with you; but he presents other examples that are very valid, and I think his point stands.
Last night, I was driving with my girlfriend in SF, and we made a left turn onto the leftmost lane of a 3 lane street (19th Ave). Someone from the other side made a right turn onto the same street, but moved from the rightmost lane they were supposed to go in to the leftmost lane. (picture=1000 words: http://i.imgur.com/1cyok.jpg . We were the red arrow, they were the blue/gray arrow)
We came within centimeters of a collision for something really dumb because this guy wasn't paying attention/was a poor driver/etc.
This probably needs to be confirmed, but I don't think that's illegal in California.
After moving here 2 years ago, I had to study for the driver's license written test and I remember being shocked at reading "when turning at an intersection, if you are in the only turning lane, you may enter into any of the lanes during your turn".
So I'm imagining that if you both had green lights, since you were turning left, he had the right of way (not saying his actions weren't stupid by the way).
Maybe I'm remembering the rules of left turns? As long as there was only one left turning lane (and you had the left turn arrow), you could turn into any of the new lanes (not just the left most lane).
Combine that with people who turn right into other-than-the-right-most-lane, and you've got a recipe for disaster.
Ha, the more you know. I have an out-of-state license, and learned how to drive in Europe, where this would definitely not be legal. Guess I should move my butt to a local DMV and get a local license and learn the local quirks.
> learned how to drive in Europe, where this would definitely not be legal.
I'm not sure about that. In Poland there is definitely no law against turning right into the left lane. On the other hand most intersections where this would be possible have either road markings that prohibit this or traffic lights set up so that left turners and right turners never enter the lane at the same time. This is also the reason why it is forbidden to U-turn when the lights show the green left arrow - you could collide with a right turner.
I'm also about 75% certain there is no such law in Germany but my German is too rusty to dig through their traffic laws :)
I just changed my license from NC to CA and I was shocked by one of the questions on the test. It basically said "When is it legal to enter the bike lane?" There were three options, two of which were: "Within 200 ft of turning right" and "When there are no bikes present"
I put the answer "when there are no bikes present," which as a bicyclist makes a lot of sense. The correct answer was "within 200 ft of turning right," which is complete and utter bullshit because I got hit by a car less than two weeks prior that entered the bicycle lane to turn right without signaling.
If I could get cars ticketed by taking video of violations I would buy a GoPro camera tomorrow.
Did they honk at you because you were in their lane? :)
That's what I get in Scottsdale. You just have to assume here that every driver feels entitled and doesn't give a fuck. Whatever is the shortest or fastest path is their birthright.
I have no problem if they want to raise the speed limit. I have a big problem if people are passing me 15mph faster than the speed limit. That is not safe. I can speed up but it's against the law and I know people that have speeding tickets for going over 50 in the area in question. 1 ticket = $1000 ($100 for the ticket, $300 a year in increased insurance premiums for 3 years until the point disappears). 2 tickets = $3000. 3 tickets = $7000. 4 tickets = loss of license.
So if you want to go faster lobby for faster speed limits. In the mean slow the F down!
It's funny, but I most often feel the urge to do this when I see police doing similar things. Because that's even less cool, but also more noticeable. I know others who feel a similar sense of outrage.
Maybe someone can correct me or give a little more details, but I'm under the impression many communities have tried to make recording police officers illegal.
Communities aren't doing this. Police departments are using warped interpretations of wiretapping laws or just outright lying to go after people who film them. The will of the public is not considered.
Thats just the thing we need to keep the roads safe. Police looking through cell phone video of people going 15mph over the speed limit in modern vehicles that can easily safely go much faster. Ohhhh hackernews.
According to your link, 34% of freeway fatalities are speeding related[0]. I wonder how that compares to non-fatal crashes and drivers in general. For example, if 34% of all drivers are speeding, and speeding is mostly uncorrelated to fatal crashes, then it would make sense for 34% of fatalities to involve speeding.
[0] "Speeding was defined to include crashes in which the driver was issued a traffic citation for speeding or in which driver-related factors coded indicated speed as a factor (driving too fast for conditions, racing, or exceeding the posted speed limit)."
For example, if 34% of all drivers are speeding, and speeding is mostly uncorrelated to fatal crashes, then it would make sense for 34% of fatalities to involve speeding.
That's indeed a problem with the statistics, as is their conflation of exceeding a posted limit with driving too fast for conditions. These kinds of games are played all the time -- for instance, consider how an "alcohol related accident" is considered by some authorities to be one in which anyone including passengers in any involved vehicle were over the BAC limit.
The resulting biased statistics make it hard to get the straight story on what factors genuinely affect traffic safety and what factors are overhyped for other purposes.
In this case, it's probably worth keeping in mind how profitable insurance surcharges for speeding tickets are for the companies that sponsor the IIHS.
A lot of this sounds like typical congested city problems, and I don't know how much reporting it would do. I would hope the cops have better things to do than watch videos of people tailgating or changing lanes without signalling, frankly (as much as these may annoy me).
That said, you could get a dashcam and send whatever particularly egregious incidents you run across to the cops by mail, probably.
>I would hope the cops have better things to do than watch videos of people tailgating or changing lanes without signalling, frankly (as much as these may annoy me).
Agreed, but I'd imagine you could hire people who had that as their primary job, and then make serious bank on the resulting fines.
I can't imagine a single driver who hasn't seen some twit driving like a maniac and thinking "where's a cop when you need one"?
I think this is a good trend. The more criminals understand that they will be caught, the sooner they will be off the street and/or learn to behave.
I see this trend going even further though. A lot of people have suspicions about crime before it even takes place. A person standing in front of a car and looking around to see who's watching, for example.
What if they could report suspicion and have that alert property owners and police before a crime occurs?
Such suspicion should not be used to hassle people. That person waiting by the car may be meeting the owner and looking for his approach. But knowing that people have suspicions can allow property owners to turn on lights and do other things to communicate that the chances of being caught are not low.
Cops could also use suspicion data to decide where cops should be when there is no crime. Better to hang out on a block where suspicions are high than where there is no crime.
Over time, I can see them discerning between suspicion that precedes actual crime and false suspicion and get even better at predicting where they should be.
> I see this trend going even further though. A lot of people have suspicions about crime before it even takes place. A person standing in front of a car and looking around to see who's watching, for example.
> What if they could report suspicion and have that alert property owners and police before a crime occurs?
Anytime someone starts carrying a gun around and acting like a cop while being trained and uniformed as a cop, there's going to be problems, if you film them.
Have you been to San Francisco? Nobody's getting arrested for that here. No double standard, some laws are enforced more than others. This is about property/violent crimes, not snitching on victimless crimes.
Pot smoking in Cali gets you a citation at best. It's not obvious where she was, and SF's not going track down alleged pot smokers. All the actions mentioned in the article were violent acts and felonies.
I don't see why they use civilians to look and screen videos. Hope they have a watchmen for watchmen and informed officers who know about taping police on work.
When I composed this comment, the submission title was: "Little Brother is watching: San Francisco PD relying on citizens with cameras" (which doesn't match the current article title).