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.
Traffic cams violate our constitutional right to face our accuser in court.
Wouldn’t you just need a police officer to go to court and say they are accusing you based on said evidence and then you still face the accuser
The huge invasions of privacy seem like a much bigger issue but I am also not a legal expert
An example of what people in positions of authority think is perfectly acceptable:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District
School authorities surreptitiously and remotely activated webcams embedded in school-issued laptops the students were using at home. After the suit was brought, the school district, of which the two high schools are part, revealed that it had secretly taken more than 66,000 images.
A lawsuit wasn’t enough, the administrators should be branded as sex offenders and the parents should have taken them out behind the school and beat the crap out of them.
Pictures of crime are valid evidence. Get off your fucking phone when you are driving.
Don’t care if you kill yourself with your dangerous driving but you are just as likely to kill someone who doesn’t deserve it too.
Glad somewhere is actually giving out proper fines for it. Here its a token fine, although they do eventually remove your license if caught multiple times.
She wasnt on her phone. It was on her seat, under her leg, face down, with her hands both on the steering wheel, and the camera simply spotted the top of the phone at an angle no human being could have possibly seen, nor would be able to claim she was operating it.
The pictures others have posted here show the phone clearly on her lap.
Since the article appears to be mostly a weird collection of badly referenced random cases, let me give you the primary source on the case in the headline:
https://www.tiktok.com/@kristakampz/video/7640403411845877012
Edit and also to save you having to go to tiktok, here’s a frame extracted from the video:
Note, this was in Alexandra Headland in Queensland in Australia. So no idea why the article cites Georgia law…
Also this is relevant: https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/road-safety/mobile-phones
Illegal mobile phone use while driving includes:
- holding it in your hand
- resting on any part of your body (eg. your lap or shoulder)
If you hold your phone or have it on your body, you will be fined even if you’re not operating the phone, or it’s turned off.
So no idea why the article cites Georgia law…
Because there was another case in Georgia in December that they were citing as well. In fact they cite several cases in different parts of the country. The article is making a case for a supreme court challenge to these Constitution violating cameras and fines. The Australian cases just a viral opener for the topic.
Can’t be that viral if the tiktok is already two months old. I think they are just too bad at journalism to check their sources.
Does a phone in the pocket count as resting on any part of the body?
Why is it illegal to have a phone in your lap? That doesn’t make sense. That’s bizarre.
Edit:
Really? This is a hot take? WTF!
Why is it illegal to have a phone in your lap?
Likely to make the law in any way practical to enforce. Many people will use their phone in the car by keeping it between their legs like a middle schooler hiding their phone use from their teacher. They can read messages or watch videos while keeping it out of their hands, but it’s still just as distracting.
You could just ban looking at a phone in your lap while driving, but then you have the nightmare of proving that someone who glanced down was actually looking at their phone, rather than just randomly glancing down for some other innocent reason. And they would have to glance down at their phone at the exact moment a camera or police officer saw them.
Phone use is actually very hard to enforce because of the nature of its use. People using their phone while driving don’t tend to continuously look at the phone the whole time they drive - they would be completely incapable of driving if they did so. Instead, they use it intermittently, such as while stopped at a traffic light or while cruising down the highway. That use is still enough to degrade their driving performance to the level of a drunk driver, but it’s not continuous. To make enforcement practical, you need to write the law so that it doesn’t require a lucky coincidence to enforce.
For an older comparable example, consider open container laws. You might reasonably ask, “wait, as long as I’m not drinking from it, why can’t I have an open beer in the car? Maybe I just want to take my half-finished beer home from the bar and finish it at home!” And while that would be a perfectly innocuous reason to have an open container of alcohol in the car, it would also make drunk driving laws much more difficult to enforce. You could only ticket someone for drinking in the car if they happen to take a sip right when you’re watching. Instead of trying to outlaw the infrequent action, you instead outlaw the necessary but continuous action. It’s not practical to only ban drinking in vehicles. Instead you ban having an open container, as “possessing an open container” is something a drunk driver will be doing for a protracted period of time.
It’s not a perfect approach to writing laws; you do end up criminalizing some innocuous behavior. But trade offs have to be made. Yes, it’s unfortunate that open container laws also make it so you can’t bring your half-finished drink home from the bar. And yes, it’s unfortunate that banning cell phone use while driving also requires banning just having a phone in your lap.
But if you’ve ever worked in a classroom, you’ll know that this is the only way to actually ban cell phone use while driving. Teachers learn very quickly they can’t just ban students from using their phones, they have to completely ban them from having them out at all. Relying on lucky coincidences to enforce laws is not a practical solution.
The only reason to have a phone in your lap while driving is if you intend to use said phone while driving.
That logic can be applied to anywhere in the car that the driver can reach. Is the Australian government suffering a collective stroke? Should we send help?
Or you are currently using it and trying to be sneaky about it
I honestly throw mine wherever without thinking about it. Def has been on lap or in crotch a few times.
Your phone fell off the dashboard phone stand, you caught it and set it in your lap.
If you write enough laws in a manner that makes it easy to violate them accidentally, then anyone can be prosecuted at any time and civil liberties can be removed via technicalities.
Vague / broad laws that allow anyone to be arrested or fined for anything are a distinguishing feature of police states, and solid basis for blanket opposition-to or at least skepticism-of laws in general (e.g. “illegal strike” are we slaves?).
I’m not opposed to law itself; however, I struggle to respect laws from non-democratic governments. Unfortunately, that’s all governments right now. I’m not aware of any electoral democracy at any level of government. Electoral Democracy has four required mechanism: Ranked Voting, Lottery Option, Recall Mechanism, Randomized Districting. That’s what it takes to acquire consent of the governed. That’s what it takes for legitimacy. Most governments are electoral oligarchies that function like weak police states for the lower classes.
This is a tragedy, but we can start installing the mechanisms required for electoral democracy at a local level and in private organizations to slowly entrench democracy and establish norms / standards before we slide farther into the oligachic police state we’re currently facing.
A law that specified you were actively using the phone would be hard to enforce. Simmiliar to how it is usually illegal to have open alcohol within reach of the driver. The officer doesn’t have to actually see you drinking it.
How would it be hard to enforce? You can see it next their head.
Ever since video playback is possible. You no longer need to put your phone on your head to use it.
These are cargo cult laws. They don’t understand what the original laws were about. They just know “use phone in car bad” but they don’t know why. Used to you had to hold the phone to your head and block half of your vision.
Article:
Georgia law (OCGA 17-4-23) generally requires a traffic offense occur in the presence of an officer for a citation to be valid — raising direct legal questions about mail-in AI camera tickets.
Washington State caps automated camera fines at $145 under RCW 46.63.220 — far below what you might be paying too much when the viral ticket hits $1,251.
Five Albany, Georgia officers were criminally charged for misusing Flock plate-reader data for personal reasons, according to USA Today.
This was in Australia though
Find a flock employee and place its favorite pet around its house.
This has nothing to do with Flock, these cameras catch people who are breaking a law and don’t store/index footage otherwise, Flock is purely survailance tech, even if you do nothing wrong the point of flock is to survail.
and don’t store/index footage otherwise
How do they manage that, with the current surveillance regime? Is all the image processing on device? What’s it sampling against? How does it send the tickets? One-way infrared flashes?
I could be wrong but pre-Flock and letting the tech-Bros actually build a survailance state, most traffic cameras were designed to only flash when they caught someone breaking the law and so only send data off the device when needed.
How do they manage that
For speed/red light cameras it’s trivial, for something like this it’s pretty easy to process on device to detect a phone in your hand/lap, but probably does need someone to check for false positives.
Is all the image processing on device?
It should be, this is simple to do on device (unless it’s outsourced to Palantir & frens)
How does it send the tickets
Obviously when it triggers it uploads data.
One I got a $125 ticket for driving 27 near a school on a Saturday in Washington, so no system is perfect…
Remember kids, blackout or reflective tint and anti alpr film for ya plates are your friends.
Or… you don’t need a plate on a bicycle.
Agreed, which I wish I could but this place is the antithesis of anything in proximity. Maybe e bike but it’d have to be stealth because they’ll stop you on that shit too.
Maybe don’t be a dick in traffic?
Got any recs for anti alpr film?
What about IR LED strips to flood the cameras with light?
Many youtubers have tried, It’s not reliable, doesn’t work in the day and newer cameras even in night vision are getting hard to swap.
The tint/reflective stuff has a decent chance of getting you an inspection ticket, most states don’t allow LP covers.
My best plan would be and LCD infused glass plate that you could blurr out with a button press like those electronic privacy windows. Thing is, even that’s illegal.
Holy based
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.
deleted by creator
Wouldn’t they have to prove it was a phone and not some black address book or something
Well, it looks to be plugged in and charging via a cable. Possibly connected to Android Auto / CarPlay. From the photo they could probably argue it’s a battery bank or something like that.
I’m 50/50 on if they really don’t have a place to rest their phone vs they were previously using the phone and just put it down between messages. This fine seems a little excessive, but it’s consistent with the law there, so /shrug
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.
My uncle once wrapped his car around a telephone pole because an orange fell off the seat and he was trying to pick it up.
I feel like there’s a clever fruit/apple/iphone joke in there somewhere but I can’t find it and I give up.
A coworker hit a parked car that way. Turning a RH corner he hooked his arm through the steering wheel to get to the passenger side, then popped up to see himself rear ending a car
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
here in Australia we have cameras that detect phone usage while driving. The fine itself is issued after a person verifies the photo.
The case in the headline was actually in Queensland, but gadgetreview.com seems to be a terrible site that doesn’t give a shit what it’s even reporting on.
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.
Especially nowadays, there’s no reason to have your phone out. Bluetooth connection to infotainment system. Blue tooth add on to old soundsystem. Retro fit systems, or a single one touch ear bud etc.
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.
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.
If we have to have cameras on every corner for “public safety” we’ve gone wrong somewhere our set up of society. Do I think people should be on their phone while driving? No – I don’t even think people should be talking or listening to music while driving. The question is where do we draw the line? Do I get to decide where the line is drawn? Do you get to? Let’s not pretend things were decided democratically or for the public good when they obviously weren’t – because there are no democracies (yet) and cops wouldn’t need to lobby or propagandize so hard if it were actually for the public good. The world is setting up surveillance states and eventually those states will make laws that go too far. It’s a lot more sensible to leave people alone until they interfere with someone else.
Fees and surveillance like this isn’t even a preventative measure. If you actually want to prevent harm, use public information campaigns. Or decrease the need for cars in the first place with public transport…
Or decrease the need for cars in the first place with public transport
And road diets, and modal filters, and bike infrastructure that is wide, separated, given priority at intersections, and ubiquitous. All great ideas I fully support. But even given immense political will those will take decades to fully deliver.
Meanwhile in a country a 10th the population of America 100s of people die every year because of drivers on phones. For a measure to be effective as a preventative, people need to believe there’s a high chance they will actually get caught. That’s the most effective predictor. These should not be secretly installed, but accompanied with a public campaign making it clear that they are being installed and that being caught is very likely.
And people who are caught, more than just a fine, need to face a real chance of losing their licence. Not to be punitive, but because that is what they have demonstrated is necessary for genuine public safety because they are dangerous if they’re allowed to drive.
Well, I don’t think you have to threaten people to make them behave. I think most people are decent and responsible, and can be convinced if they understand the dangers. I’m not convinced threatening the ones who couldn’t be convinced will actually be helpful. I am fairly hostile to anyone threatening me even to agreeable ends. Regardless of whether I’m right about all that, it kinda misses the point: the means are unacceptable. These systems will creep and overstep while empowering stalkers and tyrants at multiple level of government. They will antagonize both people who’ve done nothing wrong and those who have but would prefer to quietly reform.
It doesn’t really matter how just your ends are when your means enable horrific outcomes.
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.
Uh why do you think that the private companies running the service are just going to do what they’re told? For that matter, what makes you think the government itself wants a privacy-first solution? It’s better to keep data indefinitely in case you need it in the future.
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.
Idk apparently we really the need the freedom to drive recklessly fuck this dogshit country lmao
I think this is common everywhere, but especially in the US there is the belief that there are “bad drivers” and “good. drivers” and so when speed cameras or anti-phone device catching someone that looks like them, it’s obvious “collateral damage”.
In my experience there are no good drivers, everyone gets distracted sometimes, and the myth of some uniquely “bad drivers” out there allows people to self justify their distracted driving because they aren’t one of the out-group.
Exactly, everyone tailgates everyone handles their turns like shit, everyone speeds. The only good drivers are the ones sticking to the speed limit in the right lane everyone else drives like they want to die in a fiery crash. Oh but everyone slows down to rubber neck someone on the shoulder.
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.
Jesus. Who is actually up voting this?
The name of the charge in some countries is use of the phone when driving… and that includes carrying it on your lap. It’s possible despite the description it’s just the description they use
There’s a fucking photo of her with it on their lap. That’s proof
This is just some wanker playing victim. And, I guarantee they play victim constantly. Can we not act like babies about this and try to protect the weasels?
It’s 2026 and most people have Android Auto or car play at this time. It’s not like there is any excuse.
It’s fair for the one that turned out wrong, but in this case, seems it’s correct.
Also, it’s some shitty random website, so I guarantee the info is partially wrong too. There is already one correction that it wasn’t flock
If it was the police who pulled these people over, they’d be arguing with them too
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
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.
Edit: all of you who have downvoted me and castigated my words are fools and animals who do not understand or deserve the rights you enjoy. Better men than you gifted you with liberties in the vein hope that you would use them to become more enlightened than themselves, now you will allow the cabal of pedophiles to take everything from the rest of us, so that you might sleep more soundly in the knowledge that when you are slighted by a criminal, they will be found. Of course, such a criminal state would not bother to find your criminal, as its masters are all too busy using the Palantir to spy on your children as they shower.
deserve the rights
Reminder that driving is not a right, it is a privilege. It is often first taught in driving schools.
Did you not read what I wrote? Did no one? You quoted it, but you missed the part where I said she doesn’t deserve to drive.
I’m not talking about the right to drive cars, I’m talking about the right to privacy, and the freedom of speech and assembly - there can be no freedom of expression in an open society of the government in power can see and hear and track and record every moment of your life and everyone else’s. There is no room for dissent when your every step is followed by an invisible thug of the state.
I think reading comprehension mihht be a prerequisite for being an “enemy of the panoptic surveillance state”. You should look into that.
Copying this from another reply, because it fits both:
I’m saying that it’s good that she was ticketed. I still don’t like having cameras everywhere watching and tracking your every move and every word. This was an instance of a bad system producing a good outcome, just as brutal American police officers who rape and pillage sometimes arrest murderers as well.
You people, fools, sheeps and dogs, do not have the reading comprehension to it understand my sentiment, yet you falsely accuse me of failing to read.
Calm down, Pol Pot. Before dehumizing everyone else and declaring yourself the guardian of all truth, consider this: admitting you made a basic mistake instead of going on an infantile tyrade about how people don’t deserve rights will go a long way for you personally. Do it for yourself, not for something or someone else.
Thank me later. Or don’t. Just as long as you try. There is no shame in making a mistake. Even less so in admitting it and apologising (quite the opposite actually). But there is a lot of shame in knowingly doubling down. It’s clear what happened. Just own up to it. With time, you will discover it’s almost like a super power. Your anxiety levels are also bound to go down.
Now go have a cold one and try and contemplate on the message without spewing vitriol toward the messengers.
I’ll admit to a mistake when one is made, but because I was right I will only admit to that. In not some guardian of truth, I just have a good opinion, which you and everyone else didn’t seem to understand or agree with, either because you’re illiterate or like the surveillance state.
It is no more radical a thing to suggest today than it would be two or three hundred years ago, because it was a common sentiment among the early Liberal radicals.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” - Ben Franklin.
Yet I recognized that, in this specific instance, the evil and corrupt government run by apocalypticist genocidal pedophiles did manage to catch someone doing a bad thing, which was good in that particular instance.
I thank you for nothing but wasting my time.
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?
Yes, let’s just make the worst possible assumptions about every person in every situation ever. I mean, what could possibly be wrong with that?!
You might as well be saying “PLEASE SIR, TAKE MY RIGHTS AWAY, I’M TOO STUPID TO EXERCISE THEM ANYWAY”
What assumption are you making then? Why was her phone out of she wasn’t using it? Your lap is not a storage location that makes any sense when driving. You don’t have a right to drive a car, there are a lot of rules that must be followed. Do you want someone to run you over because they aren’t paying attention?
Here’s my assumption: fuck you prove it. That should be the assumption of everyone accused of a crime. Especially accused by a bunch of cameras installed by the Epstein class to spy on us all day. I keep my phone on my lap so I can listen to podcasts and thats where I can hear it best.
So maybe stop simping for billionaire pedophiles and remember you are supposed to be someone living in a free society and protected by the rule of law instead of licking fascist boots.
The fuck is wrong with you? You think I’m simping for billionaires because i don’t think you should be able to drive while using your phone? And back to the original question, what good reason could she have to have her phone out? I can’t think of one.
You need to go back and read the article because you obviously don’t understand what actually happened.
I mean, holy hell batman, people are actually losing their ability to read and comprehend what they just read and then go on weird tyrades while totally misrepresenting the substance of the article because they were too lazy to read more than every 50th word.
This is fucking scary guys. Get a fucking grip. It’s not that long and the language used is not that complex. Adults should be able to read and comprehend this short basic article, for fucks sake.
We are SO doomed as a species.
First of all I just gave you a reason, so I’m going to agree with the other guy in that you’re extremely bad at reading comprehension.
As for the rest? Yeah you were 100% simping for the Epstein class. Anyone who supports the police surveillance state is doing the work of pedophile billionaires. That’s who you’re in bed with. So either get the fuck out of that bed or keep licking I guess. Ain’t going to help you though.
Yes, and I’m saying that it’s good that she was ticketed. I still don’t like having cameras everywhere watching and tracking your every move and every word. This was an instance of a bad system producing a good outcome, just as brutal American police officers who rape and pillage sometimes arrest murderers as well.
You people, fools, sheeps and dogs, do not have the reading comprehension to it understand my sentiment, yet you falsely accuse me of failing to read.
I have come to the conclusion that nobody read my post before downvoting. Do you people think I’m pro car? Do you think I’m pro-surveillance? I said she shouldn’t be driving, I said I hate the surveillance state, what’s wrong with you people? Why are you arguing against those positions that I didon’t not advocate for, which I attacked myself? It’s genuinely distressing, I’m reading over and over my words and trying to figure out if I misspelled something, but no, I think not a single person read it, it’s incredible.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
I think this is fair. It’s reasonable to require a stowed phone, and we don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy while driving our cars. No essential liberty is being violated.
Spoken like a true fascist. Government mass surveillance and AI consolidation is tyranny.
Just think how safe the world would be if everyone was monitored 24 hours per day, for their safety of course.
They sure should if they are using a killing machine.
You know what doesn’t need monitoring like this? Bikes
Funny, isn’t liberty an inalienable right granted by The Creator?
Ben Franklin was an atheist
Are you sure? He definitely said and wrote things to the contrary, including the Declaration of Independence.
I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that He made the world, and governed it by His providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter.
I have no dog in this race, being neither American nor religious, but it seems like an important historical detail.
I assume they were thinking of Jefferson, but he would have been more of an agnostic (maybe). He just thought the virgin birth was bullshit, Jesus was some guy, and the point was to believe in caring for others basically. Apparently he just took all the miracles out and said, people should treat people better.
Which honestly sounds like a much less toxic version of beliefs. (But I’m sure that’s been white washed or rose tinted or what not over the years)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
Not every religious person feels the need to forcibly convert others.
I think we can agree he was a critic of organized religion, and that it’s pretty enlightened to not have the state impose religion on anyone.
That said I still think he (at least for a large chunk of his life) believed in the existence of a god, the god of Abraham/Christianity in particular.
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 with a correction.)Queensland, Australia.
Two states?
Washington is mentioned, but not with enough context to determine that Washington uses the cameras.
Which is weird, and other comments mention the whole article may be AI slop, rehashed from somewhere else. :(
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.
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.
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.
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What country is this? Isn’t this kinda… normal?? The fine seems excessive though (depending on currency)
From the way the image is described, there is no obvious reason to think the driver was distracted or otherwise impaired while driving. Moreover, the decision as to whether the driver was distracted by a phone wasn’t made by a law enforcement official. We most definitely don’t want to make this out to be “normal”.
Did you even read the article? Even the title gives some of this away…
It depends a lot on what the law says I’d say. Just like having an open container of alcohol in your car is illegal in many places, it’s not a bad thing per se if having a phone on one’s lap is treated the same way as if it’s being used.
Unlike what the article says, phone use in a car is not seen as a minor traffic violation in many places. In the US literally hundreds of people die each year due to phone use while driving specifically.
I’ll tell you what I told the other guy because you clearly didn’t read the article carefully, as is obvious from your comment.
Actually, I’ll word it a bit differently: based on the description of the image, show me beyond a reasonable doubt that there was ongoing “phone use”, as you just claimed. Those are your words, its what you just claimed, so you should have absolutely no issue explaining to me. Right?
Well, that is unless you go back and reread the article and realize that you won’t be able to. Not in a reasonable, legally sound manner anyway.
I’ve read the article already and I’m well aware. And like I said, it depends on what the law says on phone use. It’s not as simple as ‘oh she wasn’t holding her phone so she wasn’t using it’. It depends on case law, how phone use is defined and whether the law is using a kind of prophylactic rule.
You can get fined for texting and driving while you’re standing still. It’s not something that you’d be able to say makes sense based on an article like this, but looking at case law and how the law was written, it does make sense.
Personally I think it makes a lot of sense to have prophylactic rules in place for what constitutes phone use. There is generally no reason why a phone should be laying in one’s lap while driving except to be used illegally whilst driving, so such a rule could help enforcement and save lives.
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