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AI cameras catch 297 drivers in three days in Cornwall

bbc.co.uk

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Re: AI cameras catch 297 drivers in three days in Cornwall

#71

Post by obelos »

elil17 wrote: post #32

I do understand the privacy arguments, but there are thousands of people are being killed by drivers every day (many of whom aren't even in cars, they're walking or biking). Enforcing traffic laws is one of the only tools for fixing this that can be implemented quickly (as opposed to better urban design and public transit, which are better solutions in many other ways). I feel like their should be room to advocate fo…

It's puzzling to me why police need to be involved at all, save for possibly some sort of statutory restriction that ought to be removed. What is it about police's training that makes them uniquely qualified to process these images to determine that there's cause for a citation to be issued? This and other automated street safety tools are very valuable for public safety. But there's no reason these programs couldn't be operated by the transportation department or some such, reducing a lot of the privacy concerns rightfully stoked by involving the police.

Re: AI cameras catch 297 drivers in three days in Cornwall

#72

Post by Verdex »

xnx wrote: post #36

Big fan of automated enforcement with human review: red light running, speeding, distracted driving, tailgating, etc. More please!

> red light running

This is actually one of the interesting cases.

Some studies indicate that while red light cameras reduce the number of red light running, it also increases the amount of rear end collisions. Because people are afraid of getting a ticket they slam on their brakes.

Similarly, (iirc) there was some controversy about certain areas with red light cameras adjusting the length of yellow lights not to maximize safety, but to maximize ticket revenue. At the very least the wiki link includes:

> There is also concern that the international standard formula used for setting the length of the yellow phase ignores the laws of physics, which may cause drivers to inadvertently run the red phase.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_light_camera

I don't think running red lights or otherwise driving recklessly is somehow our right or a good thing. However, there are side effects to these things and they don't necessarily make things universally better.

Re: AI cameras catch 297 drivers in three days in Cornwall

#73

Post by psd1 »

yabones wrote: post #25

This is a complex one. On one hand, cracking down on distracted driving is absolutely a good thing. Thousands of people are killed by negligent drivers every year, and every single one is an unnecessary tragedy. But, there need to be some guardrails on this program. The UK police have a habit of keeping massive amounts of data around for years, and storing it inappropriately. I have no doubt all of the images this sy…

I don't think the privacy angle is strong, because it's on a public road.

In general, the idea of being tracked in public makes my skin crawl, but what sets me off is recent cars with GPS units. At least with a smartphone, I can leave it at home.

Re: AI cameras catch 297 drivers in three days in Cornwall

#74

Post by matthewfelgate »

Good. It's time we took car violence seriously. Too many people driving around dangerously causing traffic jams from crashes, injuries and death and getting away with it.

To those who call it dystopian or authoritarian: go drive on your own private land. The roads are created by and shared by us as a society. If you don't like it you can always walk.

Re: AI cameras catch 297 drivers in three days in Cornwall

#75

Post by AnimalMuppet »

kevinventullo wrote: post #33
Verdex wrote: post #8

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ― C. S.…

This is one of those quotes that sounds deep but is obviously untrue if you think about it for a bit. I suspect he would prefer “moral busybodies” to, I dunno, 1930’s Germany.

If I recall the essay, Lewis definitely believes that this applies to things like Nazi Germany or the USSR. The true believers in Arianism and communism thought they were doing good - they were creating this golden future for their people and/or the workers! So destroying everyone who was in the way was morally right (in their view).

It's fair to say that Lewis would prefer moral busybodies in Cornwall with speed cameras to either the KGB or the Gestapo. But he considers the Gestapo (specifically mentioned in the essay) to be the end state of what he's talking about when he made the quote.

The source is, IIRC, the essay "A Reply To Professor Haldane", which I found in the book "Of Other Worlds".

Re: AI cameras catch 297 drivers in three days in Cornwall

#76

Post by carapace »

You can't avoid the ubiquitous surveillance, it's here and it's only going to increase. (Your phone and your car both already know if you're driving and using them at the same time, and they both tell other people everything they know about you 24/7. This is already the case today.)

So the question isn't whether or not we have ubiquitous surveillance (we have it), it's how do we want to set and enforce policy?

This leads me to the oxymoronical-sounding idea of "humane tyranny". Since we cannot escape techno-tyranny we must make it humane.

Re: AI cameras catch 297 drivers in three days in Cornwall

#77

Post by matthewfelgate »

Verdex wrote: post #8

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ― C. S.…

Oh grow up.

Wearing a seatbelt isn't oppression you muppet.

Re: AI cameras catch 297 drivers in three days in Cornwall

#78

Post by krisoft »

rootusrootus wrote: post #55
contravariant wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not too worried about this kind of surveillance. What we're seeing here is surveillance of a public area, used for a clear goal, which is proportional (because texting while driving is insane) and is reviewed by humans, and has clear avenues for escalation when it makes a mistake. The scary parts are the parts that such a system is capable of, but which are not made public. For one the article doesn't mention whe…

> texting while driving is insane I'm inclined to agree, but I would also love to see more detailed analysis. It is easy for everyone to jump on this particular bandwagon (I have found very few people willing to say that texting while driving is no big deal), but at the same time I see a lot of texting while driving happening every day. And while we do know it contributes to accidents, driving remains a relatively sa…

> we use such justifications for massively increasing surveillance

Is it massively increasing surveillance? UK is full of speed cameras[1] and automatic number plate recognition cameras[2].

"Vehicle movements on UK roads are recorded by a network of 11,000 cameras that read around 60 million number plates daily."

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_speed_limit_enforcement_i...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recogni...

Re: AI cameras catch 297 drivers in three days in Cornwall

#79

Post by matthewfelgate »

jfindley wrote: post #43
elil17 wrote: post #32

I do understand the privacy arguments, but there are thousands of people are being killed by drivers every day (many of whom aren't even in cars, they're walking or biking). Enforcing traffic laws is one of the only tools for fixing this that can be implemented quickly (as opposed to better urban design and public transit, which are better solutions in many other ways). I feel like their should be room to advocate fo…

In the UK, where this is happening, that's simply not true. There were 1695 road fatalities in 2022 total. That's very different from "thousands a day". I do not believe it is desirable (or practically possible) to eliminate all risk of death or injury from life, and increasingly orwellian surveillance measures to clamp down on every misdeed and ill advised risk does not, I think, make for a happier or freer society.

>Last year there were 48 road deaths and 738 serious injuries on roads in the two counties.

Please let me know which of these deaths you are happy with.

Re: AI cameras catch 297 drivers in three days in Cornwall

#80

Post by carapace »

hashstring wrote: post #52
barbazoo wrote: post #29

I am looking to set up something like this in my neighborhood. I have a pretty good angle frpmy house. We live on a narrow street with parks on either side, a crosswalk, daycares, really a place where you want to pay attention and drive slowly. Yet every day I see people on their phones. I just don't get it. All it takes is one kid making a mistake and running on the road at the wrong moment. Happened couple of weeks…

There is an important issue to be fixed here, yes. It’s heartbreaking when this happens and I fully agree that there should be more checks in place to prevent this. However, I am very glad that I live in a country where you are not allowed to record and process this because it’s a violation of my privacy. I do not think that this is the solution.

What privacy? It's a public road?
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