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New York is using cameras with microphones to ticket loud cars

roadandtrack.com

191–200 of 483 posts

Re: New York is using cameras with microphones to ticket loud cars

#191
post #2

Good. I look forward to this enforcement in my city. I currently live against a major road. During the night, the traffic noise isn’t disturbing, except for about one vehicle in a thousand. And that motorcycle wakes me at 3am. For weeks on end. My neighbor’s kid’s motorcycle. On his way to work at 3am, has to gun it when turning out of the neighborhood, waking everyone. These are neighbors who had shot their next doo…

> As much as I don’t want to step on anyone’s “freedoms”, noise sucks.

I definitely want to step on anyone's "freedoms" if those freedoms egregiously infringe on other people's freedoms.

Re: New York is using cameras with microphones to ticket loud cars

#192
post #136
post #39

Tangent: We should outlaw leaf blowers in cities while at it. It's february and freezing out and for some reason the idiotic management in the apartment across the street has contracted some crew to do daily leaf blowers on nearly completely clean sidewalks disturbing probably hundreds of people WFH. Not to even mention how particularly awful leaf blowers are for the environment.

James Fallows, a pretty influential journalist, did just that in the District of Columbia. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/james-f...

Oh wow, thanks for the article. I'm right across the river -- perhaps Arlington will follow suit!

Re: New York is using cameras with microphones to ticket loud cars

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 13 unarmed black men were shot by police in 2019 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/23/fac...

Well as long as only 13 innocent unarmed people were unloaded on by law enforcement everything is fine

1. unarmed does not mean they were not a threat or innocent

2. No human endeavor is perfect. I am willing to accept some tragic mistakes in exchange for the prevention of crimes and the dissuasion of criminals.

Re: New York is using cameras with microphones to ticket loud cars

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no ability to question your accuser, because your accuser is a machine. The source code is proprietary. The data chain is secret. You have no ability to meaningfully audit it to see if it actually works or is making a lot of false positives.

What shitty red light cameras are these where the data is all secret? In my city, tickets from red light cameras include a video of the incident, which clearly shows the car and traffic light. Is that really how it works elsewhere, they just send you a ticket saying "we caught you running a red light, please pay fine"? What happens if you show up to court to contest, can't you just point out they have literally no ev…

I'm not aware of governments just asking one to pay a fine. The thing that really bothers me is that it allows the state to perform legal action at scale. If a city, let's say Chicago, just started sending people ticket how many would just pay it? From what I've seen [0], my guess would be a lot.

[0] https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/07/29/chicago-speed-camera...

Re: New York is using cameras with microphones to ticket loud cars

#195
post #4

One egregiously loud motorcycle rolling through manhattan can be a nuisance to literally millions of people. This is unreasonable and a ticketing system like this makes a ton of sense. Police enforcement could probably solve the issue just as effectively. Cops ignore loud honking and loud cars when its right in front of them. If they would just stop ignoring such things the frequency would surely go down as well.

I really don't get why motorcycles are legal at all - loud, terrible emissions, used for crimes, huge fatality rate, usually driven by a psychopath who loves revving his toy at 5AM at a residential neighbourhood.

Re: New York is using cameras with microphones to ticket loud cars

#196
post #4

One egregiously loud motorcycle rolling through manhattan can be a nuisance to literally millions of people. This is unreasonable and a ticketing system like this makes a ton of sense. Police enforcement could probably solve the issue just as effectively. Cops ignore loud honking and loud cars when its right in front of them. If they would just stop ignoring such things the frequency would surely go down as well.

On the other hand, a purely technological solution isn't so much open to accusations of bias, whether justified or otherwise, as are officers using their judgment to decide who to stop and ticket for excess noise.

Re: New York is using cameras with microphones to ticket loud cars

#197
post #2

Good. I look forward to this enforcement in my city. I currently live against a major road. During the night, the traffic noise isn’t disturbing, except for about one vehicle in a thousand. And that motorcycle wakes me at 3am. For weeks on end. My neighbor’s kid’s motorcycle. On his way to work at 3am, has to gun it when turning out of the neighborhood, waking everyone. These are neighbors who had shot their next doo…

Do you drive??

I find it hypocritical for someone to drive and complain about noise from a major road.

And it's why people choose not to live near major roads.

Re: New York is using cameras with microphones to ticket loud cars

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever spent a day landscaping?

Like most people in the suburbs the OP could probably answer in the affirmative. My brother does this professionally and he gets by just fine without any such machines. It’s kind of a selling point for people who don’t want fumes, dust and chemicals in their gardens.

How are you getting "fumes" in your garden, which is outdoors?

This just seems like such an obvious class divide thing to me. Those guys out there with the leaf blowers are working their ass off, sorry it's loud for a few minutes per day.

Re: New York is using cameras with microphones to ticket loud cars

#199
post #62

YES THANK YOU The vast majority of motorcyles in America are illegally modified to be louder than they should [0]. This crime is basically impossuble to police because you need an offer with a reliable sound meter device in the right place at the right time. I am glad NY is going to automate this. I used to live on a street (Guerrero St in SF) that had loud motorcycles ripping down in the middle of the night on a dai…

If the DMV enforced smog checks for motorcycles this problem would disappear within the year - the aftermarket exhausts delete the catalytic system and mean that the output of oxides is actually higher than most cars. It's trivial to swap an exhaust but most riders won't bother to keep around an extra muffler just to swap it on every few years.

Even factory stock NOx emissions from motorcycles are ~1000x higher under California rules compared to light-duty cars and trucks.

Re: New York is using cameras with microphones to ticket loud cars

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, this system does kinda work and allows for police to charge antisocial assholes with a crime while letting normal, reasonable people who made a simple mistake off with a warning.

The problem is that to a cop, "normal" and "reasonable" is code for anyone with a police placard [1]. And if you give them discretion, "antisocial assholes" will end up largely meaning Black people. Why not have the automated system issue a warning instead of a citation for the first offense? [1] Check out this Twitter account, which documents NYPD traffic lawbreaking https://twitter.com/placardabuse . It's often rea…

placardabuse really shows you how many of the most egregious traffic violations are done by unrepentant, repeat offenders. I think there was a story recently about an SUV who ran the curb and killed an 18-month old in Manhattan -- the driver had thousands of dollars of unpaid fines for blowing red lights, speeding, double-parking etc.

I think people should be at a much higher risk of losing their license or driving privileges permanently for this stuff, not to mention offenses like repeat DUIs.

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