Well, they’ve just revealed a really excellent way to trolley people you don’t like, via custom t-shirts.
My mother once received a ticket in the mail about a traffic stop in a city she had never been to. Intended for a man. With a different name. (The driver had the same last name as my mother’s maiden name, which she hadn’t legally gone by in decades, and a different first name.) She called up, bemused, trying to figure out why this person had been conflated with her, to be met with the response, “Well, why do you think there’s an error?”
Um, we got there long ago. Hell, the US is more extreme than that, especially if one is part of a class of people who aren’t granted their rights in the US legal system. Look at all the people shot by the cops as they raided the wrong address or got some names mixed up. Look at all the people detained by the police and CIA over the years (especially post-9/11) because of a similar name to a wanted person. (E.g. Khaled El-Masri being confused with Khaled al-Masri - tortured for months before being dumped on the back roads of a random country when they realized their mistake. It’s a story too absurd and grotesque for fiction.) I remember the story of a mentally disabled Black guy who had a similar name to an escaped convict - he was mistakenly arrested, his court-appointed lawyer told him not to fight the case, and he was sent to prison for a significant length of time before the mistake was recognized.
(Also: why has that clip been dubbed with American accents?)
It’s an interesting example of an edge case that reveals why the automated surveillance creeping into our society is such a terrible idea. Now look at the number of false positives in facial recognition (particularly amongst non-white faces) and weep for the future.
Automated surveillance indeed is a terrible idea. If it must be done, it at least needs to go through levels of scrutiny before it impacts a person in any way. This snapped a photo, which is all that should happen in automation. The next level up should be actual human eyes on that photo. Then you can send a ticket. I understand the idea is to take work out of human hands, but maybe things that could negatively impact people can’t be handled without the involvement of people.
That’s the crux though, isn’t it. They are removing people from the system and installing these algorithmically controlled, implicitly biased black boxes and once you’re tagged in the system as committing an infraction you’re screwed and getting yourself off the blacklist is a totally Kafkaesque nightmare. I can’t believe that no human laid their eyes on this at some point in the chain and yet here we are. This is a somewhat amusing story but it’s the tip of the iceberg and gets so much worse.
If there wasn’t a significant risk of people unable to fight the tickets being disproportionately impacted, I would seriously consider setting up an eInk display in view of a traffic camera, which cycles constantly through all possible plates.
Yes. In Edmonton, Alberta they were busted setting up traffic cameras where they make money - instead of where the accidents keep happening. But some people think that you should still pay that fine because…?
Most of the time rules are there for a reason. Maybe this time no one was hurt, but you still did something stupid and should accept the consequences.
Then you are also wasting a lot of both your own and some government employees time by appealing. That costs tax money that could be used to help the poor instead.
Do you have the same opinion when you read about rich people finding some unintended but legal tax loophole?
In the UK, a car has it’s registered owner who is ultimately responsible for the vehicle. When you get a ticket like this, you either take responsibility yourself, or provide the details of the person who was driving at the time. (Or, as in this case, you can dispute the ticket. Usually if you pay up within a few weeks the fine is half what it would be otherwise, to encourage people to just accept and pay up).
So if you loan your car to a friend, who then gets a speeding ticket, you’re on the hook for the ticket unless your friend admits to it. So just don’t lend your car to untrustworthy people I guess?
In the UK all fines like this go straight to the national government, specifically so we don’t have the problem with predatory jurisdictions like the US.
That is not entirely true. Some classes of traffic violation fine in some places go to the govt but others do not. Your example of speeding fines may be ok but I suspect the one in the post about Bath went to the council.
What consequences? Why was it stupid? In fact, NOTHING AT ALL HAPPENED HERE. and if a cop isn’t paying enough attention to get the date right on your ticket, maybe he also wasn’t paying enough attention when he decided you violated some traffic rule.
Details matter.
Besides, maybe the law was stupid? Private companies have been busted for putting red light and speed cameras where they make money (because the speed limit is set too low, for example), rather than dangerous locations where they should be.
Maybe it wasn’t that stupid to break the law? Do you walk to the end of the block just to cross the street everytime? I live in the suburbs and that would be asinine, but It’s still ticketable if I should happen to upset a cop while jaywalking. (I call these as ‘nuisance laws.’ if you’re being a nuisance to a cop, a cop can give you a ticket.)
Maybe too many stupid laws and too many cops enforcing them is what’s taking up te government employee time and costs tax money? Ever think this all the way through? Or are you just that excited to live in a world of rules and financial punishments?
And if you think that taxes and financial punishment for bad behaviour are akin to each other (they’re not), then we’re going to need to have a longer conversation. But basically, we take care of each other with taxes. We punish each other with fines and imprisonment.
It’s helpful to think of taxes are a reward, not a punishment. It means you’re succeeding financially.
