Live data from Hacker News

Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

sfchronicle.com

361–370 of 683 posts

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#361
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next step, we all wear body cams and they identify people with inappropriate behavior. For every mistake you get a point and with enough point a punishment. Sounds familiar.

you conveniently left out the fact that anyone driving a car or truck is driving a dangerous vehicle that can trivially kill or maim others. Driving is supposed to be a privilege, not a right. That comes with responsibility. How you think this is the same as “being naughty while walking outside” is hilarious to me.

Mobility is a right, that includes driving.

And walking comes with responsibilities too, a ruthless walker also endangers others, it's just harder to kill somebody by bumping into them, until you bump them in front of a car or train or down the stairs.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#362
post #6

Genuine question: What is stopping some small percent of drivers from installing cameras and using ML to identify cars driving dangerously (e.g. speeding, running reds, changing multiple lanes at once, etc.), and when their license plate is identifiable, finding and informing their insurance company? If even a small subset of users did this, and insurers did something with this information, it would substantially dis…

[deleted]

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not the point, a surveillance state where the panopticon autonomously gives $250 tickets is the issue Rules aren’t meant to be cold hard algorithms to blindly punish people with; we wouldn’t automate a judge with an algorithm why is it somehow different to automate a police officer with one?

Why is that not the point? You violated a law and received a penalty. You're not disputing that you violated said law, but are instead trying to justify it with "barely didn't stop" and "it's 3am and there is no traffic". Isn't the point that you got punished for doing something you would have gotten away with had no one been watching?

because maybe the point is "The basic premise of democracy is that the citizens/ordinary people are trusted as the ultimate source of the law, and the law is to serve them, not them to serve the law."

Nice twist to the premise at the end, but no, the point is that the person got punished for using sound and reasonable judgement in a situation where the regulation (not law) was ill thought out.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#364
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m struggling to understand your point, or to imagine many examples which support it. I agree that brief minor parking infringements may occasionally make people’s lives more efficient; but I can’t think of any examples where traffic lights and speed limits need to be routinely disregarded?

It's sometimes safer to speed up 5mph over the limit to get through a yellow light, than to slam your brakes with someone behind you. It's frequently safer to speed to match people speeding around you then to match the stated speed limit (usually on freeways).

If you’re speeding up for yellow lights, you are a terrible driver and you should seek out some better skills and practices.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#365

I used to keep my Sentry mode on all the time. Then my car got broken into twice. The police didn’t bother to follow up despite having a video footage of what happened. Now I never turn it on. And now police wants to tow vehicles for the footage.

Is it legal to film anywhere? In Sweden filming in public places with fixed equipment (a car counts apparently) is illegal. But on the other hand any evidence is admitted in court, even material obtained while breaking a law. So there has been a few cases where police have caught the person vandalizing the car and also needed to consider whether to fine the owner.

In the US, it is legal to film anywhere public (out on the street, in a government building, etc). You can even film inside of private establishments (restaurants, stores) until you have been asked to stop.

This is part of the protection of free speech and press. You cannot use the footage gathered for commercial purposes without permission of people you filmed. Journalism for pay, and art for pay are not considered commercial purposes.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the 2020 US Census, about 80% live in an urban area. However, the definition is not exactly what people think of when you say “urban”. In 2020, the census lists 2,611 urban areas, including areas with a few thousand people. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g... Shouldn’t be too hard to break this down with a more colloquial definition (say, areas over 500k or 750k people). I’m j…

Calumet park is a village right next to Chicago with under 7000 people. Northfield village has under 6000 people and it's located within about 15 miles of Chicago. It wasn't until I was about 18 that I realized what I thought was Chicago were actually small towns/villages. There's a whole slew of small villages next to or "in" larger cities.

Yes; the ordinary thing to compare is MSAs, which take this into account; Calumet Park (and Blue Island and Oak Lawn) are all part of the Chicago MSA.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that not the point? You violated a law and received a penalty. You're not disputing that you violated said law, but are instead trying to justify it with "barely didn't stop" and "it's 3am and there is no traffic". Isn't the point that you got punished for doing something you would have gotten away with had no one been watching?

because maybe the point is "The basic premise of democracy is that the citizens/ordinary people are trusted as the ultimate source of the law, and the law is to serve them, not them to serve the law." Nice twist to the premise at the end, but no, the point is that the person got punished for using sound and reasonable judgement in a situation where the regulation (not law) was ill thought out.

"Sound and reasonable judgement" to save a couple seconds?

That still just seems like rationalization of bad behavior.

You're right that the basic premise of democracy is that citizens can be trusted as the source of the law, but it seems to me that this particular citizen can't actually be trusted? I mean, they're demonstrating a lack of integrity, are they not?

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#369
post #332
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about efficiency, it's also about quality of life. There is a reason that a cop has permission to use his judgement when deciding to write a ticket or not. Because life is better when we don't live under the oppression of draconian rule keepers all the time. Rules are meant to protect people, and as such are often specified in terms of the lowest common denominator, with the understanding that the syste…

Frankly I'd rather just get a ticket when I speed by a traffic camera than rely on the discretion of a random police officer who might just be looking for a pretense to search my vehicle or hassle me in some other way.

Jaywalking, to my ear, is a similarly universal & easy example for this not being universally desirable.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#370
post #306

As a somewhat regular user of Waymo, these types of conversations seem like they're going to be more and more in the (sorry!) rearview mirror because we won't own the car nor the cameras that are recording the world as we "drive" around. That's not to say that we should give up fighting for some level of privacy even when we don't own the cars, but seems more likely that legislation would be passed that forces the ve…

I think this plays out where it becomes a luxury to drive oneself. Over the next 10-15 years it looks like self driving will continue to advance and will likely become safer than the alternative. Once that happens insurance companies will start charging more for people that drive themselves compared to people that let the car drive. I can see some states outlawing that practice. Then it’s left to see who is still und…

Won't happen unless tradesmen, engineers, etc can use self-driving cars, which will e awkward when you need to park up onto a curb or something to inspect a downed power line.
Post reply on HN