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

sfchronicle.com

221–230 of 683 posts

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

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it'd tell them any more than they already know. These drivers tend to have been given citations already. The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine. NYC already has something like this for people who catch too-long idling trucks and photograph/video record it.

> The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine. I don't know where you live, but around me, the police are so disinterested in traffic safety that roads have turned into a Mad Max free-for-all. Red light running, stop sign running, lack of signaling, weaving in and out of lanes, and general belligerence on the road. That and…

In my area, this is one their most intense efforts - fines are very profitable to the municipality.

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

#222
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems like if it’s technically possible, it will happen, and we can’t stop technological progress. ‘The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread p…

Speak for yourself. My ancestors pre-industrial revolution were half starved tenant farmers making a subsistence living on too small plots of farmland in colonized Ireland, subject to random slaughter when the English changed their plans. Now, our extended family is prosperous in the US, Australia and Ireland. We’re taller, healthier and mostly in professional or skilled trade jobs. The past is often seen through a s…

>too small plots of farmland

Small plots are _still_ a problem for most people . 'We' sort off worked around the small plots problem by having the industrial revolution come along and then made jobs available for those who had only small plots.

Hypothetically, if every human had an equal part of earth, relatively fewer would have been in the pathetic state that you mentioned in the per-industrial era, and even less so in the post-industrialization era.

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

#223
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search warrants have existed forever, and allowed police to compel production of certain evidence. This includes breaking into residences or offices. I don't see how towing a car is any different. Unless you think search warrants themselves are "completely unacceptable", I don't see how towing teslas should be singled out.

There is a huge gap between a search warrant (in which you are generally the suspect of the investigation) and "this guy's car might have evidence, let's tow it". The proper analogue to a search warrant here is the police getting a warrant to get the data off Tesla's servers, not towing the car away.

>There is a huge gap between a search warrant (in which you are generally the suspect of the investigation) and "this guy's car might have evidence, let's tow it".

The cops had a warrant. Moreover, search warrants are granted if there's probable cause. Whether someone is a suspect is irrelevant.

>The proper analogue to a search warrant here is the police getting a warrant to get the data off Tesla's servers, not towing the car away.

Is it even on tesla's servers? According to the article it's stored on a USB drive in the car.

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

#224
post #122

Creepy stuff. Maybe we ought not to constantly record everything happening around us all the time.

This is a hardone for me. In the family we have - 2016 Tacoma, 2015 Rav4, 2016 Mini, 2019 Sprinter RV. None have driver assist, backup cameras only, etc. I've been thinking about dashcams, but only ones where I know what will be published where (IE, not the cloud), so I have a personal record for instance if the kid has an issue in the Mini.

No plans to upgrade or get new vehicles unless a dire need. For instance if Sprinter or Tacoma die, drive the not-dead one. (Sprinter is technially an RV, but used for business).

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

#225
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems like if it’s technically possible, it will happen, and we can’t stop technological progress. ‘The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread p…

Sounds like a unabomber quote?

Indeed:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/national...

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

#227
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won’t work as you expect. Most of these drivers don’t have insurance. Second, you might make things worse, as now you have other Karen-like drivers who will eventually start threatening other people to report them, and that will escalate a situation from flipping a bird to a more dangerous situation. I sometimes watch dashcam rage videos on YouTube, and these drivers won’t care or even become more aggressive once…

It's not clear to me how you can claim most of these drivers don't have insurance. Also. Nothing is stopping Karen's from reporting things right now. So what if they do? If you've done nothing wrong then the reviewer would just trash it. And probably put Karen's reports in the "immediately discard" pile in the future if she sends in frivolous claims all the time.

> If you've done nothing wrong then the reviewer would just trash it.

Or, more likely, they'll just see it as a report and raise your rates, because you've been reported by someone. Because they can; all they need is a reason.

Plus, I don't like the idea that someone I don't like could editorially create a video of it looking like I was driving irresponsibly, and then my rates go up. Then they do it again and again.

Example: When I leave in the morning, I take my daughter to the bus stop. I then wait for her bus to get there, she gets on, and I wait to turn left onto the road. The bus driver waves me on, to take my left before they let the other traffic go, so I don't have to wait for 20+ cars. I turn left and off I go. I expect it wouldn't be hard to edit a video of that to make it look like I pulled up to a bus picking up children and then drove through the bus stop signal illegally.

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

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren’t getting warrants to tow the vehicles. They have no right to seize private property, especially the private property of someone not even involved with the crime in question. And what if the Tesla owner, as is their right or at least should be, refuses to release the video footage? How long do the police keep the illegally seized vehicle while the owner sorts out the seizure before the courts and at what pe…

> They aren't getting warrants to tow the vehicles. Um, FTA: > “Based on this information,” Godchaux wrote, “I respectfully request that a warrant is authorized to seize this vehicle from the La Quinta Inn parking lot so this vehicle’s surveillance footage may be searched via an additional search warrant at a secure location.”

I misspoke. They should no right to tow the private property of uninvolved individuals, warrant or no warrant. It is police overreach.

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

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment you’re responding to is postulating enforcement via higher insurance costs. If insurance gets ~20 reports of someone running a red light, maybe they’ll double the cost to insure that person.

But that's the catch, using ML to scan a plate doesn't confirm who was driving.

It doesn't matter, right? It's the vehicle that is insured

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

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear to me how you can claim most of these drivers don't have insurance. Also. Nothing is stopping Karen's from reporting things right now. So what if they do? If you've done nothing wrong then the reviewer would just trash it. And probably put Karen's reports in the "immediately discard" pile in the future if she sends in frivolous claims all the time.

Around 10-30% of drivers in the United States don't have car insurance depending on the state. It really depends on the state on how strict they are with car insurance. My state is very lax and they don't even really check at the DMV. The fine for not having car insurance is also only ~300 bucks and a 90 day license suspension and it only goes up slightly until like the 4-5 time you get caught. It just honestly doesn…

> Insurance in general is a whole racket. Its literally only works due to the fact people on average pay more than they receive. "Oh but what if a bad thing happens" way to live your life, disregarding economics and averages.

That's literally the _entire_ point of insurance. You pay a little more than the average you're expected to actually need so that, in the event of a catastrophic event, your not on the hook for an amount that would destroy you financially. The fact that any sane person would think that you should expect to collect, on average, more from insurance than you pay into it... is baffling to me. Just plain math would show that's impossible.

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