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Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

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Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#81

Post by sodality2 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #7
joecool1029 wrote: post #5

The county lists are wrong, at least they are for my state of New Jersey. We have 21 counties, not 27. Is it picking up the bordering counties that might have overlapping contracts or something?

One of those counties is Rockland, which is in NY. I wonder if it's counting bordering counties for states, since the assumption may be that the closest essential services for some Rockland residents may be in New Jersey.

Ah! This looks like a bug with cross-border calculations. Ideally it would not show a Rockland County, NJ - it might cross state borders to perform calculations but they should all have a 'home state' that matches to the right county. Thanks for the example case, I'll work on a fix

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#82

Post by thatcat »

genewitch wrote: post #75
chaps wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it's also bad when you see people speeding around schools, rolling through stop signs, and running red lights. This is not what Flock seeks to curb.

so what do they seek to curb? freedom of movement?

It's an opportunistic solution to a budget problem.

Local governments have extra money from property price bubble increasing tax revenues.

At the same time there are great open source image analysis models for companies to put on a pole using cheap android hw and a solar panel and make bold claims about solving all crime, then they can sell that data again to 3rd parties like insurance. Also can start buying access to more video feeds from ring cameras etc and resell that. They'll hire someone to make a ux to integrate it into PDs later, for a premium of course.

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#83

Post by sgc »

yannyu wrote: post #12

I've thought about this a lot as I see more and more reckless driving in the areas I live in. Surveillance is generally a net negative, but it's also bad when you see people speeding around schools, rolling through stop signs, and running red lights. We seem to have a worst of all situations where traffic is getting increasingly difficult to enforce, driving is getting more dangerous year by year, and we're terrified…

Your examples don't seem to represent the leading causes of fatalities from traffic accidents in the US, which remain distracted driving (phones and crappy touchscreen controls, etc) and drunk driving. People rolling through a stop sign / performing a 'California' stop are nowhere near the massive security concern to authorize the ideal surveillance state. To deal with the bigger issues you would have to film peoples actions in their cars and run it all through ai to accuse them of driving while drowsy. That would be an incredible and lazy failure. Also, fatalities per mile had a massive surge in 2020-2021, but they have been steadily dropping since then (2024 in wikipedia estimated a 1.27 per 1m miles, about the same as 2008). If the trend continues, in a year or two we will be back to the early 2010s lows without draconian measures.

The solution, as always, is better infrastructure and support at multiple levels, not beating everybody with a stick.

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#84

Post by toss1 »

dylan604 wrote: post #66
asdff wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The driver blithely keeping with the flow of traffic is not the one I am worried about. It is the one who is aggressively trying to cut through the flow of traffic while putting everyone and themselves in danger that I worry about.

I love when cities time their lights so that aggressive drivers just get hit with waiting at a red light while driving the speed limit means hitting greens for long stretches.

Yes, and about twice I've seen this done really right, wherein they post signs of the synchronization speed (e.g., "Lights Timed for 35mph"). I just get in sync with one light and adjust speed and it feels almost magic to go a few miles hitting every green light (it kind of is the macic of math).

It'd be cool if more roads were implemented that way.

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#85

Post by mikem170 »

dylan604 wrote: post #63
mikem170 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people would be fine with that. Drivers are impaired while on the phone, even hands-free. Not to mention texting while driving! I kind of picture the cellular telcos doing this. Maybe buses and trains come with wifi hotspots allowed to connect. Otherwise auto passengers could use their devices offline, maybe read an ebook or something. Not the end of the world.

Lots of cars now come with a WiFi hot spot as part of their offerings. There's no way to prevent the driver from also connecting to it and circumventing whatever ill conceived notion this is

I mentioned buses and trains, and was thinking that only those mobile wifi hotspots would be permitted, whitelisted for 5g service. Hotspots in (human driven) cars would not. That might encourage some people to take the bus?

I agree with the other poster about this being more workable in a fictional society with different shared values.

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#86

Post by crapple8430 »

autoexec wrote: post #64
nerdsniper wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Automatically shutting off/disabling or limiting the use of cell phones (all of which come with sensors that can detect when you are going at speeds you'd expect while in cars) might help. I can’t think of a way to implement this that wouldn’t ban passengers from using their phone while riding in a vehicle. Which could be even a bus or limousine.

Not entirely. The phones can defect if there are other phones nearby, so a single phone in a car on a highway going 75mph could be assumed to be a driver, but that is still just an assumption.

And the driver will just carry two phones, and be even more distracted than before. Cool

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#87

Post by dylan604 »

loeg wrote: post #76
dylan604 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We cracked down on driving under the influence with changes from DWI to DUI. In the 10-15 years you mention, the prevalence of distracted driving from mobile devices has gotten out of hand. There's no field sobriety test that can prove one was distracted by a device. That makes this much more difficult to crack down on.

Sure, though it is very easy to visually identify drivers looking at their phones. (Unless they have illegal tint.)

Only if you're driving next to the car. Speeding obviously can be detected from a distance. Driving under the influence also can be seen from a distance.

I could see having a cop and a camera stationed in a place working as a spotter that then radios to other cops up ahead to pull over in an old school speed trap set up. However, that would take a lot of man power and coordination that I doubt most departments would care to do. We've seen plenty of YT videos of people trying to make a point of catching distracted drivers. The cops just need to give a shit, and want to do something about it.

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#88

Post by dylan604 »

toss1 wrote: post #84
dylan604 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love when cities time their lights so that aggressive drivers just get hit with waiting at a red light while driving the speed limit means hitting greens for long stretches.

Yes, and about twice I've seen this done really right, wherein they post signs of the synchronization speed (e.g., "Lights Timed for 35mph"). I just get in sync with one light and adjust speed and it feels almost magic to go a few miles hitting every green light (it kind of is the macic of math). It'd be cool if more roads were implemented that way.

There's a part of downtown here that is known for being set up like this. However, it's been a bust while there's been a lot of construction blocking lanes so nothing moves at speed.

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#89

Post by Fnoord »

cons0le wrote: post #70
MisterTea wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in NYC. People used to be afraid of double parking. Like you I regularly see the same bat-shit driving and no one seems to care to say or do anything. It's bonkers.

NYC should have been the model to follow. Instead of flock cameras, cities should have bounty systems: record a video of a speed violation with a plate, and get 10% of the ticket revenue. Enforcement would explode. We could of had a system where we used the technology we already had in our hands to democratize speed enforcement, instead of corporatizing it

Interesting. 'But your honor, it is AI enhanced. I wasn't speeding.'

'Weird, I got this footage here from another angle and it shows you did. We also got the data from your car. You were speeding son.'

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#90

Post by loeg »

dylan604 wrote: post #87
loeg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, though it is very easy to visually identify drivers looking at their phones. (Unless they have illegal tint.)

Only if you're driving next to the car. Speeding obviously can be detected from a distance. Driving under the influence also can be seen from a distance. I could see having a cop and a camera stationed in a place working as a spotter that then radios to other cops up ahead to pull over in an old school speed trap set up. However, that would take a lot of man power and coordination that I doubt most departments would…

It doesn’t take a targeted trap or driving next to. It’s like 1 in 6 drivers at any time; it’s super easy to spot if you’re looking. One cop could pick off drivers no problem without any coordination.
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