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Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI

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Re: Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI

#221

Post by EasyMark »

rafram wrote: post #89
gametorch wrote: post #82

Genuinely curious, why aren't people allowed to say this is dystopian without getting flagged? What rule, specifically, does that violate? I think this is dystopian. Paying people to rat out their fellow citizens. Nightmarish. What if this idea was applied to the laws ICE is trying to enforce? Would you think that's dystopian?

This program specifically fines businesses with fleets of commercial vehicles (delivery trucks, buses, et cetera) for illegal idling, and escalates the fines for repeat offenders. You can't report random individuals, nor would I really want to build an app for that. The point is to get businesses to stop polluting.

it normalizes the process and app though, and reinforces reporting your neighbors to the government. Not something I like to see. It's one thing to report domestic abuse or a crack house; another to report someone double-parked for a couple of seconds or an idling truck via "a simple click on your phone, thank you citizen"

Re: Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI

#222

Post by tomhow »

gametorch wrote: post #186
octernion wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you have like 50 comments in this thread whining about the law and desperately wanting businesses (not private individuals!) to idle their trucks next to schools. maybe take a break man. not healthy.

[flagged]

Please don't try to game HN like this. We can easily turn off the flamewar detector when the topic warrants it, and users who post excessive numbers of low-quality comments can have rate-limiting turned on.

There seems to be a whole lot of drama about this project and from what I can see there are reasonable arguments for and against.

How about just respecting the merits of open debate about a topic and let other readers decide for themselves, rather than going to war on the project and on HN to try and swing things in favour of your own argument?

Re: Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI

#224

Post by kennywinker »

serf wrote: post #215
kennywinker wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the sentiment, but if you accept the premise that idling vehicles harm everyone, which they probably do - via air quality, foreign wars to keep oil flowing, and climate change - then why should we not fine the heck out of anybody who harms us all? Don’t like getting reported by randos with apps? Don’t idle. My only beef with the law itself, is that the fines need to be income-linked - otherwise it’s only…

>Don’t like getting reported by randos with apps? Don’t idle. a lot of friction is removed from society when we sequester surveillance/reporting/judgement/apprehension to one side of society, the criminal justice system. a lot of friction is added to society when we bump surveillance and reporting back into the domain of the pedestrian. Social interaction becomes reduced between nodes, new cultural standards emerge,…

Hol’ up just a minute. You can disagree with me, but you leave dolly alone! ;)

I see what you’re saying, but I also somewhat disagree. We offload enforcement to police, which reduces friction for most but intensifies enforcement onto people deemed “suspicious” by social norms. Immigrants, black and brown people, young people, etc.

On the other side, yes if we universalize this to all laws we’d have a police state where everyone we interact with could profit off turning us in. But one of the main problems with that situation is that a ton of laws are BAD and we only are able to ignore them because for most of us they’re minimally enforced. Limit this bounty hunting business to parking enforcement and we’ve stopped the slippery slope from sliding

Re: Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI

#225

Post by kennywinker »

ghostpepper wrote: post #213
kennywinker wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the sentiment, but if you accept the premise that idling vehicles harm everyone, which they probably do - via air quality, foreign wars to keep oil flowing, and climate change - then why should we not fine the heck out of anybody who harms us all? Don’t like getting reported by randos with apps? Don’t idle. My only beef with the law itself, is that the fines need to be income-linked - otherwise it’s only…

Try mentally substituting a law that you don't agree with, once the app is widely used.

I get what you’re saying, but:

1. the issues lies in the bounty hunting laws not the app. Change the law, the app goes away.

2. I’d rather bad laws get struck from the books, rather than lurking mostly un-enforced in the toolbox of police to weaponize. E.g. jaywalking. A crime made up by car companies to shift the blame from cars+drivers to pedestrians, mostly un-enforced except when cops want an excuse to id/frisk/hassle a young person or visible minority.

Re: Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI

#226

Post by orthoxerox »

samtho wrote: post #219
georgeburdell wrote: post #87

Wish my California city had this attitude that you can report people via an app. So many offenses “run with the driver”, i.e. they will not prosecute unless a cop sees it happening and positively identifies the driver. They won’t even prosecute red light running from a video with the license plate clearly visible.

A motor vehicle cannot receive a citation. If law enforcement cannot ID the driver as a particular individual when the infraction or crime occurred, a citation should not be issued.

Why not issue it to the owner of the vehicle?

Re: Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI

#227

Post by mstaoru »

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #175
mstaoru wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in China for many many years and this is not a good example. Parking, and driving in general, is chaotic and unregulated. Yes, you have cameras everywhere that detect running on red or taking a wrong lane, but that's about makes it. Speeding, haphazard parking, everything is allowed. Scooters go anywhere. Bikes go anywhere. People go anywhere. Red, green, anything in between, it's a free for all. Like a polic…

I’ll never understand how people believe bike and pedestrian “infractions” to be the same as that of motor vehicles. Members of this “get off my sidewalk!” group often fail to realize this: Did you study to become a pedestrian? Did you go to a bicycle driving school to acquire a permit to operate one? Was an exam at all given in order to use public foot or bike paths? If the answer is no, then you aren’t held to the…

I'm a bicycle "driver" myself. I cannot even drive a car, and don't intend to learn. But you should come to China and see how bikes behave.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3X9BGMPM8Us (electric scooters are classified same as bicycles there)

Re: Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI

#228

Post by carlosjobim »

kennywinker wrote: post #157
userbinator wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orwell was right.

You mean when he said “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it.” or something else?

He famously wrote a book about a totalitarian society, where people were encouraged to spy on their neighbors and report them.

Re: Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI

#229

Post by overfeed »

mhuffman wrote: post #155
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #6

This is a phenomenal application of how fine-based bounties can be used to rapidly improve compliance with the law. Incredible work. I would absolutely use this if I lived in NYC; I'll recommend it to my friends there.

>This is a phenomenal application of how fine-based bounties can be used to rapidly improve compliance with the law. This type of thing can get out of hand quickly. Without me giving controversial examples, just imagine for yourself the types of things that different states can make a crime, add a fine, then offer to give other citizens part or all of that fine if they turn in others. After that, think of how unscrup…

> just imagine for yourself the types of things that different states can make a crime, add a fine, then offer to give other citizens part or all of that fine if they turn in others

You mean if a red state (like Texas) potentially handing out bounties for snitching on abortions? Texas already passed that law in 2022[1]. We are already way down the slippery slope you alluded.

1. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1107741175/texas-abortion-bou...

Re: Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI

#230

Post by kennywinker »

carlosjobim wrote: post #228
kennywinker wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean when he said “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it.” or something else?

He famously wrote a book about a totalitarian society, where people were encouraged to spy on their neighbors and report them.

Noticing a car is idling on a public street isn’t really spying, is it?
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