A woman drives with both hands on the wheel. Her phone sits face-down on her lap. No officer pulls her over. No lights flash. Weeks later, a $1,251 ticket arrives in the mail. The evidence: a single frame from a Camera surveillance app. The charge: phone use while driving.
Automated camera companies market their devices as automated license plate readers — tools for catching stolen cars, flagging warrants, and aiding serious investigations.
Sold as a Crime Tool. Used as a Fine Machine.
Remember kids, blackout or reflective tint and anti alpr film for ya plates are your friends.
What about IR LED strips to flood the cameras with light?
Wouldn’t they have to prove it was a phone and not some black address book or something
They should take away her drivers license. A fine is not enough for so blatantly endangering everyone…
This is what I would say if she had actually looked down and not paid attention to traffic.
But this? This is just abusive use of technology
I mean, it would also be insane to take someone’s license away for actually using their phone at this point too. Newer cars have actual touchscreen tablet interfaces that requires the driver to look away from the road; sometimes even to see basic information like their current speed. Plus, there’s all these dickbags on the road in pickups or other light trucks (with or without those iPad screens) that are purposefully designed primarily to exude masculinity, not be safe vehicles to drive.
At this point, I don’t know how we argue that the phone thing is dangerous without the allowance of all that other shit contradicting that reasoning. Even worse, the existence of these infotainment systems in the cars themselves has probably resulted in charges laid against poorer people who drive older vehicles disproportionately while Keith is on his way to work at the landlord factory and watching Madagascar 3 on his speedometer.
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I’m an enemy of the panoptic surveillance state of course, but at least in this instance the all-seeing eyes of big brother found a worthy target this time. She, and a whole lot more people, shouldn’t be driving cars.
Did you read the title? She had the phone face down in her lap.
Why would it be in her lap while driving if she wasn’t using it shortly before they picture was taken?
That’s the law here. Phone has to be securely stowed. Driving with it on your lap gets you a distracted driving ticket. Even if you weren’t planning on looking at it. A sudden traffic move means its falling on the floor and driver is going to try to reach for it.
Yup. I’m not surprised at Americans being opposed to it, but here in Australia we have cameras that detect phone usage while driving. The fine itself is issued after a person verifies the photo. And I am fully supportive of it. Driving a motor vehicle is an insanely fucking dangerous task. If your full attention isn’t on it, you deserve to receive a fine. Keep the phone stowed securely in a holder, or away in your pocket.
The freedom of me to be able to make my trip on foot or bike—or even in my own car—without being killed by you far outweighs any idea of freedom you might have to be able to have your phone on your lap.
Australians and Canadians have some pretty bad entitlement when it comes to driving. But neither of us are anywhere near as entitled as Americans. Discussions like the one in this thread make that very clear. !fuckcars@lemmy.world
I am not a fan of the all-seeing panopticon, personally. That said, I personally feel much more entitled to good public transit and walkable neighborhoods than to a car.
I have heard bad things about how Flock works in particular with respect to tracking people, abuse of police powers, etc. But it was not involved in the event in this article, and it is not the only way of doing mobile phone detection.
My state uses a company called Acusensus, which only captures images for long enough to run the AI over them and then deletes all those without even being seen by a human if no offence is detected, among other privacy safeguards. The humans who do review the ones that AI detects as an offence don’t even get to see where or when the alleged offence took place.
Americans don’t love freedom, they love being special. If we apply the law evenly, we can’t selectively apply it againsts Blacks, Minorities and Poors. The law is there to keep me comfortable and them in line. If we start applying the laws like I’m not special, it’ll just be anarchy.
Why do you think SovCit nonsense got so big there? Gotta be special, I learned the secret Naval codes that unlock free travel.
Americans don’t love freedom, they love being special.
Yeah, we love our own freedom, not freedom for other people.
Idk apparently we really the need the freedom to drive recklessly fuck this dogshit country lmao
I’m not surprised at Americans being opposed to it, but here in Australia we have cameras that detect phone usage while driving.
They’re also against all their movements being recorded, ID requirements for websites, etc. Crazy people, who would ever want to not be tracked every second of their waking lives?
Sure, and I’ll agree with them on those points.
But Americans tend to be the most likely to take things a step too far. Opposing speeding cameras, red light cameras, and phone use cameras is not the same as those things. These are all dangerous but normalised behaviours that should be cracked down on for genuine public safety.
I’m not American myself, but phone use cameras can’t work without being constantly on. Speeding cameras flash when speeding is detected, red light cameras too. Phone detection requires AI so it’s gonna be a constant video stream. Everyone’s going to be recorded 24/7 and it doesn’t matter if you’re driving, cycling or walking. Who says how long the data is being kept and where it’s going?
I tend to think that having speeding cameras in crucial spots is necessary (in some places they straight up exist to collect funds though) and a busy or dangerous intersection absolutely merits a red light camera… But I don’t want phone detection cameras purely because of how invasive it is.
Who says how long the data is being kept and where it’s going?
The government says. They’re the ones operating the cameras. Absolutely, they should not be used for any other purpose than their stated one. No video saved, only still frames kept long enough for the AI to make a determination, and kept longer if that determination is that there was a phone detected, so the photo can be used as evidence.
But in that situation, where the government is operating it in accordance with security and privacy best practice, the safety benefits far outweigh any theoretical downsides. This is not some theoretical. Over 1000 people die every year in Australia on our roads. Approximately 16% of serious car crashes are linked to mobile phone use.
We need to stop treating driving like a sacred right, and start treating it like what it is: an incredibly dangerous activity in need of heavy regulation.
They alreayd have all that information, you’re just saying you want people to be able to drive while on the phone
“They already have all that information” should not be the same as “I’m OK with them constantly surveilling me”. That kind of thinking is exactly why they can continue to double down on all the crazy surveillance and privacy invasion. You’re normalizing not having any privacy.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
Just think how safe the world would be if everyone was monitored 24 hours per day, for their safety of course.
Hey, they could connect the car ‘driver attention camera’ thing, the OBD car speed stuff, and the in-car GPS to the municipality, the insurance company, and your credit card or bank account.
That way, the minute you look away, go a little over the speed limit, or check your phone message, they just gouge some cash out of your bank account. After three of these, your insurance rate goes up. After the tenth time, your health insurance and employer will be notified.
Fun times! 🎉
Edit: every damn step of this is now available via APIs or Agentic MCPs. There is zero technical barrier for this happening. Sleep tight y’all.
So glad that I choose to drive, I love having a depreciating asset that costs 25% of my income when it’s running properly to drive nearly an hour to work every day (and almost get murdered several times).
You describe it as a nightmare, but on the other hand: People are operating multi-ton vehicles at high speeds in urban areas and are causing thousands of casualities doing that every year. A person operating a car should focus on the road and driving. If he/she is speeding, checking the phone, eating, smoking or fighting with their co-driver or kids, that’s not safe and needs to be stopped.
Unhinged surveillance and loss of privacy are not the solution to this. They are not the solution to anything except monetizing all the users and controlling the population.
My issue with it is the complete lack of transparency in the spyware. It would be better if we were actually told about the spyware and the data it sends is accessible to us. But right now we have no idea what they’re sending, how any of it affects our insurance rates, and have no way to dispute anything resulting from it.
There is zero technical barrier for this happening.
I guess we’ll have to make a disincentivization barrier instead.
People that get caught driving drunk get an alcohol lock on their car, let’s at the very least install a speed check (hard limiter or the automatic fine thing) in repeat offenders’ cars
I can see that working. Only repeat offenders need to be surveilled, and only for the intended purpose. And only by the State institution tasked with monitoring it.
Now, how do they make that happen? Because the public institutions (police, DA, Motor vehicle, etc.) Don’t develop software or hardware, they would contract with a tech company, or multiple tech companies. That means that having only the intended party monitor these would be impossible, due to the data and infrastructure being built and handled by private companies who’s only purpose is revenue.
I guess this just doesn’t work. Oh well, we tried.
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Loser. Pay up! Put your phone away.
Not allowed to keep her phone on her lap when driving. Let’s be honest, she used it, and put it down quickly
Here in Australia a cop busted me using my phone once (not defendable, but I was at a red light).
I have no problem with that. I also have no problem with mobile phone detection either still despite getting pulled over
If you don’t want to follow the traffic laws don’t drive or change country (but don’t complain if you get hit by a oncoming car)
Yes she probably used it, that’s when she can be ticketed, she shouldn’t be fined on a presumption.
Edit: Reading the note the charge is using phone while driving, not carrying the phone in unsafe manner.
Also I despise people using their phone while driving, the point here is that they must charge people for a valid reason and with proof of the infraction.
The only problem I have is with the camera doing the police work. Like getting a speeding ticket for 26 in a 25 from a speed trap camera – a cop may or may not pull you over in that instance, because a cop can look at the whole scenario/variables and decide if that extra one mile really was a danger to others.
Yeah, this moron was probably using the phone. And every asshole using their phone at a red light means fewer cars get through that red light because they’re too busy looking at their phone to notice that the light has changed or the car in front of them has moved. But let’s have a person making this decision to issue a ticket – a phone at a red light at 3am is much different than a phone at a red light at 515pm.
Police have better shit to do than mobile phone enforcement
And, in what circumstance should they be speeding? That makes no sense. If there was a valid reason, you can contest the ticket anyway
There sure as fuck is no valid reason for them whatsoever to have their mobile on their lap
Fuck that everyine should instantly have a ticket assesed for going one mph over the speed limit but we’re all a bunch of fucking savages who like having vehicular homicide legalized
obviously LLM-generated article from an odd outlet that publishes five articles every hour
the news is real because it just regurgitates 404media
The summary OP posted is LLM slop as well
Couldn’t find it on 404 (ironic) but it was on Yahoo news
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/flock-camera-captures-woman-driving-101504525.html
A danger to herself and others. Well fined.
Let’s be sure to name and shame, for anyone who missed it: Georgia and Florida.
Company is - you guessed it -
Flock.(Mention of Flock in the article has been removed.)Flock is shit, but apparently not the one who did this. Ig they could be lying?
Flock Safety reached out to us to clarify that our information was wrong. Flock cameras were not involved with the woman driving with her phone story. Alexandra Parade, where the incident took place, is a well traveled coastal highway with systems operated by state revenue programs. We have corrected that and removed any mention of Flock being involved with that story.
When I first heard of the amputee story (a bodycam video/audio of the initial encounter) it sounded to me like this was good old-fashioned police work, followed up with a typical harassment citation to send the citizen they didn’t like’s attitude to court if they wanted a chance to prove that they weren’t holding a phone in their amputated hand.
I think people are rightfully referring to mass surveillance system cameras as Flock cameras.
Even if the company folds, the cameras will still be operated. It doesnt matter what the brand is that makes em.
It matters people know what they are.
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