51–60 of 83 posts
If you don't want to take the risk destroying or spray painting the lense or solar panels of these devices, a picket sign installed right in front of it works pretty well while probably not getting you sent to jail. You may even be able to get away with ziptying a trashbag over it without too much fuss.
Probably why they are mounted 4 meters high
Here in Belgium the contract for these cameras on highways was given to a family run business who charged nothing at all for the hardware and installation in exchange for a decent cut of every fine that's issues with them. They're financially very healthy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably why they are mounted 4 meters high
I have this 35 Watt laser I scored off aliexpress, it runs off 24V. I wonder...
The biggest use of these cameras in the UK is in car parks so that predatory parking companies can fine you £60 for going a nano-second over the time you paid for.
Huh... I live in a small town a ways out of the downtown area, so I thought "they're probably only on the highway where I've seen cameras"... Nope, basically every intersection with a stoplight near me is listed as having four nodes. Much more densely than nearby larger cities on the map even... I don't like that one bit.
> Much more densely than nearby larger cities on the map even I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that your town is way richer than these nearby cities and has a way higher ratio of police to the kind of crime police want to solve hence the "scraping the bottom of the barrel" behavior. So much of the policing problem is a result of towns with no real problems hiring a bunch of cops to go after little problems and then…
I live in a medium sized residential development about 15 minutes outside Austin. A few years ago we started getting multiple incidents per month of attempted car theft where the thieves would go driveway to driveway checking for unlocked doors. Sometimes the resident footage revealed the thieves were armed while doing so. In a couple of cases they did actually steal a car.
The sheriffs couldn’t really do much about it because a) it was happening to most of the neighborhoods around us, b) the timing was unpredictable, and c) the manpower required to camp out to attempt to catch these in progress would be pretty high.
Our neighborhood installed Flock cameras at the sole entrance in response to growing resident concerns. We also put in a strict policy around access control by non law enforcement. In the ~two years since they were installed, we’ve had two or three incidents total whereas immediately prior it was at least as many each month. And in those cases the sheriffs could easily figure out which vehicles had entered or left during that time. I continue to see stories of attempted car thefts from adjacent neighborhoods several times per month.
I totally get the privacy concerns around this and am inherently suspicious of any new surveillance. I also get the reflexive dismissal of their value. In this case it has been a clear win for our community through the obvious deterrent factor and the much higher likelihood of having evidence if anything does happen.
Our Flock cameras do not show on the map here, btw.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
ANPRs are very popular and common in the EU. More so than in the US, even.
The linked new articles talk about some private company selling camera access to law enforcement. I don't think that's a popular setup in the EU, EU law enforcement/traffic authorities seems more likely to run the cameras themselves.
Skimming the map, I see many listed are in parking lots for Home Depot and Lowe's. I assume that's because of high dollar items and common theft issues? I'm wondering if those cameras are specifically operated by this Flock company, or others as well.
Surely I have some roses colored glasses from my youth but it felt like growing up and in my 20s you would see cops writing tickets. Lots of street racing during the day on busy streets and just general chaos. Without a doubt education and parenting is a root problem for most of these issues.
The idea of people able to simple track cars is elegant and can be a huge multiplier of effectiveness for police. I am generally not opposed to it. The problem as we know is there really is not good safety guards on it. Too many law enforcement have used it improperly. The root there is this idea that the thin blue line exists, police are under educated, trained and paid.
It’s a very mixed feeling for myself.
Skimming the map, I see many listed are in parking lots for Home Depot and Lowe's. I assume that's because of high dollar items and common theft issues? I'm wondering if those cameras are specifically operated by this Flock company, or others as well.