Ford Develops a Way To Monitor Police Driving 151
cartechboy writes Sometimes you wonder, "Who's watching the police?" Well, now it appears everyone can as Ford has developed a way to track how the police drive. The automaker has announced a new telematics system for police cars that will keep tabs on the cops while they are driving, tracking their behavior in real time. The system will be able to tell what speed the police offers are traveling, whether they're wearing their seat belts, and where they're driving. The idea behind this system is to improve fleet management with a side benefit of creating a degree of transparency to improve public trust.
Ought to bring down ... (Score:2)
... insurance rates, as well.
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If you have driven safely, they give you a discount.
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A very limited number of companies offer this, to a limited number of customers. It's not very widespread in the US.
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That would take all the fun out of driving...
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Next thing you know, they'll be requiring people to prove their competence to operate such machines, and to re-prove it at regular intervals.
Re:Ought to bring down ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm sorry, $5 a month (the Progressive Snapshot thing) discount on what is typically a $100+ monthly payment is not worth them tracking my driving habits.
$100 a month?
Typical?
I thought it was just health insurers who bent you over the barrel in the US.
I drive a high risk car (Nissan Silvia S15) and I only pay $900 p/a (its cheaper to pay yearly in Australia). If I drove a more expensive but sensible car like a Camry, that would be around $600 and I'm still not even at the highest No Claim Bonus (insurance rating).
It is nice to know there's something the US has to pay more for... Talk to us Aussies about car prices, a base model BMW 320 is A$70,00
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I doubt that you've got the overhead of legal payouts we have. On two occasions, I've had insurance payouts from fender benders that included $5,000+ medical payoffs when nobody was actually injured. The insurance industry does this in order to get the individual to sign off and not take them to court where the costs would be much higher.
Just a side note on the fender benders. The first one was clearly a set up...the woman slammed on the brakes in front of me for no clear reason. She had a child in the
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I doubt that you've got the overhead of legal payouts we have. On two occasions, I've had insurance payouts from fender benders that included $5,000+ medical payoffs when nobody was actually injured. The insurance industry does this in order to get the individual to sign off and not take them to court where the costs would be much higher.
In Australia a low speed collision can easily get into the 5K category on repairs alone (deform the bumper, that requires a new bumper with paint matching). I mentioned cars are expensive here... Repairs are just as bad.
Just a side note on the fender benders. The first one was clearly a set up...the woman slammed on the brakes in front of me for no clear reason. She had a child in the back seat with stitches in his head from another recent "accident". The collision occurred under 5mph. Police and Fire came by, and no injuries were recorded. She filed a medical claim, and was bought off.
I always maintain a safe distance (at least 2 seconds) because its incredibly hard to prove they braked maliciously, even then it's still my fault for not maintaining a safe distance (the difference is the other party gets criminal charges for driving dangerously).
I also have a dash cam f
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Talk to us Aussies about car prices, a base model BMW 320 is A$70,000.
I just looked up a BMW 320 at http://www.bmw.dk/dk/da/newveh... [www.bmw.dk] (Denmark)
320i - A$91,178.28
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You mean the OBD-2 device that measures how hard you brake and your daily commute distance? My commute right now, this might make sense, since it is only a couple miles. My previous job took me on roads where I often had to go from 60-0 posthaste due to university students and their poor judgement in gauging speeds when merging or changing lanes. So, because I drive down IH-35 in Austin from south to north, I get greatly penalized, while the same distance in San Antonio would mean far less of a ding on h
Re:Ought to bring down ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Today it's a discount. In 5 years no one will offer you insurance without it. (And the WAN connection to stay in touch...)
Re:Ought to bring down ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Good, just in time for my Kickstarter ODB-II/CAN datalink "test simulator for TESTING PURPOSES ONLY". Everyone will plug them together and toss them in the trunk.
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Good, just in time for my Kickstarter ODB-II/CAN datalink "test simulator for TESTING PURPOSES ONLY". Everyone will plug them together and toss them in the trunk.
As long as you're fooling the GPS as well as the accelerometers, you can just leave it in in a drawer in the shed.
And yep, this is what most people will be doing.
Re:Ought to bring down ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It won't bring down insurance rates because the police unions will never allow it to be implemented. It's not like there was a technical hurdle to gathering this data before and Ford just 'solved' the problem, the issue is that the public employees that are supposed to enforce the law increasingly see themselves as above the law.
Re:Ought to bring down ... (Score:4, Interesting)
it would be awesome if it automatically deducted money from their pay every time they violated the laws.
"I'm sorry officer, you've exceeded the speed limit. I'm deducting $150 dollars from your next pay check and assigning two points to your license. Thank you for using Johnny Law, he he!"
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You would need to line up the black box with dispatcher logs. Police often (read always) speed when there's no emergency.
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There is always an emergency somewhere.
Still remember when a local radio station [630CHED here in Edmonton] had a morning talk show that had a call-in segment for about a month, where callers would be asked if they thought there would be one or more police officers in some random donut shop. EVERYONE said yes [at least, every time I heard the segment]. And they were always right. Evidently, the police helpfully reminded the station manager that the segment put the police service in a negative light and m
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Knowing where speed traps are would make them 100% effective. The point is to reduce speeding and no one will speed if they know there is a trap on the road, no one gets a ticket and the road becomes safer. The only way in which the trap is ineffective is that it doesn't generate any cash for the department.
Re:Ought to bring down ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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I suppose the police unions were in favor of the dash cameras?
Typo Alert (Score:2, Informative)
Police 'offers' should probably be 'officers' instead.
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You think they'll let you track the police officers?
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About damned time. (Score:3, Funny)
Every cop are know is a great, honest person. Let's keep honest people honest and maybe snag some bad apples while we're at it.
Re:About damned time. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's greatly tempting, when replying to slashdot comments, to find something to be contrary about, and argue forever.
Like that there are more shitty cops than we collectively like to acknowledge, or that, systemically, these kinds of measures just cause bad apples to be sneakier.
But the reality is that you're right. Transparency measures don't have to fix everything to be a good idea. There don't need to be a strong super-majority of flawless police to appreciate that most are just people doing their best. This is the only attitude that has any hope of working to a future where no one distrusts cops.
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...queue the contrary bit ;)
I agree. I just yearn for a world where the majority of the police hold the opinion that "there doesn't need to be a strong super-majority of flawless citizens to appreciate that most are just people doing their best."
Most police I know are great citizens, but do their job through the lens of viewing everyone as a potential perp. I suppose it helps them recognize the actual perps, but it does hinder their relationship with everyone else while on-duty.
Re:About damned time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Years and years ago while working 3rd shift in college I stepped out for a smoke. Two cops, no lights/sirens, lined up at a stop light in the deserted 4-lane manufacturing district street. Both of them waited for the light to turn green, and buried the pedal. At the next stop light, both cops hit their red and blue lights and did a high speed U-turn. They raced all the way up to the original stop light and then drove off at more acceptable speeds.
I ask the other smokers what the heck that was and their response was, "They do that every night."
-Rick
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...Two cops, no lights/sirens, lined up at a stop light in the deserted 4-lane manufacturing district street. Both of them waited for the light to turn green, and buried the pedal. At the next stop light, both cops hit their red and blue lights and did a high speed U-turn. They raced all the way up to the original stop light and then drove off at more acceptable speeds....
Sounds like practice / keeping their skills sharp to me.
Re:About damned time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, either that or reckless driving.
Police generally have a track or other private area to train on. Public roads aren't it.
Transparency - Sure (Score:2, Interesting)
Any bets on whether the public will ever see a single byte of this data?
Re:Transparency - Sure (Score:4, Insightful)
The system will "malfunction" and fail to record data when it matters, so who cares.
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Any bets on whether the public will ever see a single byte of this data?
I'm guessing that if the information were to ever get out, terrorists would somehow use it to their advantage. Give me a few more pints and I'll work out a rationalization.
Re:Transparency - Sure (Score:4, Interesting)
The media eventually got this data on Tim Murray's car after he had a crash. He was the Lt. Governor of Massachusetts. He was driving way too fast on public roads and tried to lie about it. It's obscene how much effort the media had to put in to get the data, but they got it.
I just got a message from the future! (Score:5, Insightful)
I just got a message from the future!
It read: ...and the police have been using this system for several years without a problem. Why not apply it to the general public for the sake of safety...
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Not to directly contradict you(yet), but can you cite any laws that followed this path in US history?
If you're not from the US, you may substitute your own country for the sake of argument.
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As an ex boy-scout, they make non-mandatory merit badges for any hobby a scout youth has demonstrated extraordinary competence in. Individual troops can even order custom ones for local oddities. Considering how hiding is an almost typical outdoorsman skill(particularly for hunters), I am not as staggered by your revelation as you were intending.
Re:I just got a message from the future! (Score:5, Interesting)
The differences between applying this to the police and to the general public are that the police are public servants (they work for the public) and they are endowed with special powers above and beyond a "normal citizen" (arrest, ability to use force in some cases, etc). They do a valuable service, but this power can also lead to abuses. Making police activities more transparent helps assure the public that their powers aren't being abused. This justification wouldn't apply to your average citizen. (This isn't to say that the police wouldn't love to apply it to everyone. Just that any reasoning to that end would be flawed.)
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The differences between applying this to the police and to the general public
Is that the police would be subject to it, while at work, in their work provided vehicle. Same as any of us who drive a vehicle that's part of a corporate fleet that is tracked.
It wouldn't apply to the police's personal vehicle.
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I just got a message from the future! (Score:2)
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I just got a message from the present. This will never be allowed because I will definitely put a monitoring device in my vehicle showing where all of the cops are as soon as the data is publicly available.
They never said it would be made public. In fact, you can rest assured that should there be an "incident" the data would be promptly lost in a routine software update by mistake much like Dashcam and security videos are often lost today.
Re:I just got a message from the future! (Score:5, Insightful)
Trucking companies also have that right - and guess what, they already monitor their drivers using a system exactly like this.
So no one but your boss can require you to use this and then only if you drive as part of your job.
The fact that we currently require truck drivers to do this, but no one is also even asking the general population do it is fairly solid proof that your slippery slope argument is ridiculous. Basically, people are no where near as naive as you think they are. We can tell the difference between something that is good at small levels, but bad at large levels.
Re:I just got a message from the future! (Score:4, Interesting)
Welcome to the real world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V... [wikipedia.org]
Specifically:
In April 2014 it was reported that U.S. regulators were close to approving V2V standards for the U.S. market, and that officials were planning for the technology to become mandatory by 2017
That combined with new mandatory CAN Buss in every car. A cop will be able to roll by you and know you've had a taillight out for 3 weeks without fixing it. You'll get a ticket on our cellphone. That's progress for you :-)
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Hopefully prior to that, you would have gotten a weekly (if not daily) warning on your cell phone that your taillight is out. That would remove ignorance of the issue as an excuse, and it would help people like me who legitimately don't notice shit like that 90% of the time. The only time I'd notice a taillight out is if I was reversing in near-darkness for some reason.
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Hopefully prior to that, you would have gotten a weekly (if not daily) warning on your cell phone that your taillight is out. That would remove ignorance of the issue as an excuse, and it would help people like me who legitimately don't notice shit like that 90% of the time. The only time I'd notice a taillight out is if I was reversing in near-darkness for some reason.
...and it's people like you that will later argue that if the rest of us would just do our morning exercises like the law requires, we wouldn't need surveillance cameras in everyone's living room to remove ignorance as an excuse...
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I'm sorry, I don't know how that follows?
It was already presumed in the parent (which this was a reply to, if that wasn't obvious) that this surveillance exists.
So given that its there either way, do you really prefer that it only be used against you rather than for your benefit?
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I was referring more to ignorance of the taillight being out..
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transparency would only exist... (Score:1)
if a) the system was implemented by various departments and agencies, b) the data was used to actually monitor and sufficiently discipline law and policy violators, and c) if said departments and agencies actually made that data public.
Accountability? (Score:1)
Police unions will kill it (Score:3)
Or the systems will start mysteriously malfunctioning after being "accidentally" damaged. Cops consider being above the law to be a job perk.
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It seems like Ford's trying to push this through by advertising to the pencil-pushers, not to the public, so it has a fighting chance.
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Solving the wrong problem (Score:3, Insightful)
This is solving the wrong problem. Focus on preventing the police from unjustly murdering, imprisoning, and harassing people first, then worry about how they drive. That will go a lot further toward building some trust in the police.
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Yes, because we can't focus on more than one issue at a time.
Subpoena-able? (Score:2)
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Transparency is nice
It's not just nice, it should be a requirement. I recently read where cops might start wearing camera's on their uniforms. I don't think it should be might, but required. Another thing that should be required is for police officers guns to start having cameras on them. When the weapon is drawn the camera starts recording so there is no doubt where the weapons was pointed when fired. The data from both these cameras ether be stored on an encrypted ssd card or preferably uploaded over the 3g/lte network
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Some places already do this. It's a good idea.
Oh, sure there is. Privacy. If I call the police to my house because it's been broken into, that doesn't mean I want the contents of my house to be on youtube. Even moreso for the victims of violent crimes. The police shouldn't be broadcasting people's worst moments for people's entertainment.
It
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Oh, sure there is. Privacy. If I call the police to my house because it's been broken into, that doesn't mean I want the contents of my house to be on youtube. Even moreso for the victims of violent crimes. The police shouldn't be broadcasting people's worst moments for people's entertainment.
That is a very good point, and one I hadn't thought of. I'm not sure this would be a issue though with the number of people I see letting themselves be filmed for worlds dumbest and shows like Cops.
But still it is an issue that would need to be worked out. If they are standing on a public street talking to the cops then filming shouldn't be a issue. Its just when it comes to cops on private property.
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Sounds great, and I agree.
However somehow I don't think the police would. They apparently don't like to be watched... Constant monitoring is awesome if you're the one doing the monitoring. Not so much if you're the one being monitored. Personally, I don't think police should have a choice, considering the nature of their jobs. Unfortunately I think their unions would disagree, and I don't see the general public winning that fight. Sad, really...
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I am Lord Apathy, not Lord of Apathy. You are confusing me with my brother.
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Like audio recordings of interrogations, the summary will be transcribed and the original wiped to save storage space. Clearly that transcription will never, ever, in a million years get tampered with.
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I want to download all of it and figure out where I should put my Dunkin' Donuts franchise...
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In other news (Score:2)
GM shares go up as police forces dont want to be monitored.
Records were Lost (Score:5, Insightful)
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Uh, you are aware that a bat mitzvah is the female version of a bar mitzvah, yes?
Hey workstations crash (Score:2)
Hey workstations crash and data gets lost. It even happens to big government at the IRS.
Old news (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Old news (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure they'll be waiting in line for this (Score:3)
Here's the reality of trying to watch police officers:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... [arstechnica.com]
They're used to being above the law - not following rules.
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They don't like being monitored all the time? I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!
Too bad they won't get the hint and realize that regular everyday citizens^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcriminals don't like it either.
Good idea! (Score:2)
In unrelated news... (Score:2)
Who would sign up for this? (Score:2)
They wouldn't like that here (Score:3)
RCMP here in Yorkton are notorious for flipping on the lights to zip through intersections and speeding through school zones on the way to Tim Horton's for their coffee and doughnuts. Sadly, it's not a "meme" -- they really are that arrogant in this town. :(
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Having recently tried eating at a Tim Horton's (in Vancouver) for the first time, my question would be "why?" Why hurry to Tom Horton's? Away, yes, I could understand that, but to? It's a mystery to me.
Will logs be 'accidentally lost' after accidents? (Score:2)
There have been 3 times that I've been close to being involved in a major accident with another automobile, and in all 3 cases it was due to 'Police Driving.' Cop cutting across 2 lanes of oncoming 65+mph highway traffic to reach the shoulder, cop deciding not to wait at a light and swerving into the oncoming traffic lane without turning on his siren while I'm making a legal right turn into said lane...
If this system can somehow make cops accountable for their own bad driving (particularly in the event of
Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait... what the fuck good will it do? [slashdot.org]
Terrible summary, unwarranted inferences (Score:4, Informative)
Sometimes you wonder, "Who's watching the police?" Well, now it appears everyone can
Really? Can they? How have you managed to infer that from these two articles, neither of which says any such thing?
The idea behind this system is to improve fleet management with a side benefit of creating a degree of transparency to improve public trust.
I don't see anything in either article about increasing transparency.
What they are saying is that this will allow police departments (not the public) to monitor their drivers and better promote safety among them, and that this will then, hopefully, lead to more public confidence in driving cops - and less cops dying in fatal crashes, because
crashes are the number one cause of officer fatalities.
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Data collected by this type of system would fall under state FOIA laws meaning the data would be available and consumed by the public either directly or indirectly. Additionally the largest municipalities already have open government mandates that include law enforcement reporting that must be machine readable.
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and less cops dying in fatal crashes
like the cop that blocked the entire lane of a 2-lane major expressway along my commute when he pulled someone over and decided to park completely blocking the lane. complete moron. he couldn't drive 100 yards on pull off onto a side street? hundreds, if not thousands of people inconvenienced, and put in danger from the disruption in the flow of traffic.
thank god these men and women are protecting us.
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You're right, your anecdote of a single event completely invalidates everything the article says. Everybody ignore the article!
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Eh, my other reply was probably off the mark. Too early.
Anyway, yes, exactly like that cop. He's exactly the sort (assuming he didn't have some reason you weren't aware of for doing what he did) who can benefit from this project.
Override Button (Score:2)
Of course cops will need an override button so that it can switch off these functions when patrolling poor neighborhoods of color. /sarcasm
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Recently cops have done things like murder handcuffed suspects in the back of their patrol cars and gotten the deaths marked down as "suicides," chase down and relentlessly beat homeless people for being homeless and inconvenient, and gunned down deaf kids for "not complying with an... order." All of these actions have gone unpunished.
Obviously they don't give a fuck whether we see what they do or not.
Big PDs have been doing this for years. (Score:5, Informative)
It's called vehicle tracking, and the devices I was working with ten years ago had arrays of discrete (on/off), continuous (analog) and data inputs you could wire up to anything and the state would be relayed back every few seconds over a cellular data link. For example some police departments equip cruisers with shotguns mounted in the trunk. Put a switch on the shotgun mount and as soon as an officer takes the shotgun out of the rack an alarm goes of back at HQ and the crusier's position is marked on a map.
You can use the inputs on those units for anything. Put the same unit in a snow plow and connect the discrete input to a switch that is activated whenever the plow is lowered. Collect the GPS fixes where the plow is down, put them on a map and bingo, you have a map of the streets you've plowed.
What you do with the inputs is limited only by your imagination. You could put a switch in all the seats and you'd know if the crusier was transporting anyone, or when an officer exited the vehicle. Mount accelerometers in the vehicle and wire them to the analog inputs and you know when the vehicle is maneuvering aggresively. It's not engineering, it's Arduino style inventing.
Public Trust My Ass (Score:2)
Go on to YouTube and watch any of the countless videos of cops being fascist assholes, all caught on their own dashcams. Then note how few if any of these criminals with badges actually recieved a punishment befitting their crime.
Then tell me again how having record of police driving habits will automatically lead to them earning back the public's trust, knowing all the while how cops rarely see consequences.
This just in... (Score:2)
Police departments nation-wide have placed on hold all orders for Ford Taurus police models and have now moved unfulfilled orders to Dodge Chargers and Chevy Malibus.
'Police' is a verb as well (Score:2)
Lame synopsis.
The system will be able to tell what speed (Score:2)
The system will be able to tell what speed the police offers are traveling
Yes but why would Ford care how quickly they pick up their hookers?
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Score:2)
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They will claim this will help criminals know where they normally are for planning crimes.
Because it will.
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Yeah. "The cops were at this place an hour ago, so if I drive my de Lorean at 88 I can be sure to not get caught this time!"
No, you're thinking too small. More like "This is the neighborhood with the highest ratio of accumulated wealth to police presence, so we will pull off some big jobs there." Or "Hey, did you notice how the police never seem to drive down 4th Street?" Or "police response times to this neighborhood drop by 75% at time X."
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Sometimes the officers must drive faster than normal traffic to find problem drivers .
Really? Your argument is that they NEED to break the law? Because they won't go flying by a speed trap or, failing that (radar detectors and whatnot), an unmarked cop moving at the limit?