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.
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.)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.
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. :(
More guns to shoot the cameras perhaps.
Unconstitutional. Get that stupid ass shit dismissed in court.
Get it dismissed, and then sue the department that sent the fine.
Good luck with that.
Plenty of lawyers that work on contingencies if they think you have a worthy case.
Might have more luck suing the company running the camera software which flagged it.
Fuck it, sue them too.
YOU get a lawsuit! And YOU get a lawsuit!
EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THIS STUPIDITY GETS A LAWSUIT!!!
Too bad they’ll all be thrown out of court after the company pays off the judge…Ya know, it used to be when I’d say things like that, which I knew were always true, that people would say I’m crazy. That businesses can’t just BUY their way out of a lawsuit.
And now, the corruption is just out there. Everyone can see it now. Which kind of validates me, but also it means that things have gotten so much worse though out there. Now they feel no fear in basically telling the public “We run this shit, not you.”
Now for the next thing people will think I’m crazy for. Once they have it well established that they have bought and own the government, they’ll begin taking things away. I’m not talking about healthcare, or important things. That’s already started. They’re in the process right now of gutting programs like SNAP, and Medicaid. They began that about a year ago.
What I’m talking about is, right now you have no reason to believe that you can’t go down to your local ice cream parlor and get an ice cream cone. Nothing wrong with that. No reason to believe you’ll be denied. Give it time. There will come a day where you go to get ice cream, and they’ll tell you no. You’re not part of the in group. You’re not allowed to have ice cream.
And I’m not saying this about just ice cream. That’s just one example of something that is an affordable luxury, that has zero importance in life but it makes you feel good. It brings you joy.
Those are the types of things you’ll start being denied as they take more and more for themselves. They’ll want movie theaters to no longer allow the common man. They’ll want public pools closed, and renovated into private pools with private entry. They’ll want everything for them, and for you to beg to get common luxuries.
For them, it’s not about having vs not having. It’s about power. The ability to lick an ice cream cone, as they watch you go without, and laugh. They want the status of being able to tell you what to do. They want the world for themselves. That’s where this whole epstein’s island comes from. Some of them might actually be attracted to young kids, but really the thrill for them is to be able to take your sons and daughters dignity. They want what society says they can’t have, and is wrong for anyone to have. They want that. They want the taboo. They want the power to say they can have it anytime they want. Regardless of how wrong it is. To them it’s a show of power, and that’s all they’ve ever cared about.
Call me crazy, but in 20 years, when there’s an entire generation who’s never tasted ice cream in their lives, maybe you’ll remember this post. Probably not, but I will. Just like if I knew where my 1st grade teacher, Mrs Huey was, I’d go tell her the conversation we had 30+ years ago. The one in which she claimed that I’d grow up, and stop playing video games. I told her that on my death bed, I’d be playing video games no matter how old I got. I’m 42 now, and I’d ask her “At what point am I going to grow out of video games? When does the growing up happen? I’m older today, than you were the day you said that.” And she, in turn, I assume would tell me it’s not important, and that it was 30 years ago. Which is frustrating because 30 years ago she wouldn’t believe me, and now, she won’t care. Anything to avoid saying you were wrong I suppose. Which is weird to me. I have no issue when I’m wrong. Happens quite a bit. When I was 8, I thought I’d grow up to be one of the ninja turtles. Which, just conceptually makes no sense. The turtles became the turtles because they were already regular turtles, and then mutated when they got covered in toxic waste. If anything, I’d just be a really big mutated human. Think about it. The turtles were little regular pet store turtles. Maybe 7 inches tall if held upright. Then they get splashed with ooze, and they’re like 7 feet tall. So as a kid, I was probably 4 feet tall…so I’d be like 30 feet tall I guess? I mean, that would still be cool, but also, we’re ignoring the medical problems of being mutated. I’d probably get cancer again.
What was I talking about again?
I read this entire comment and I don’t regret it.
I have no idea, but username checks out
Yes, but the process is also a punishment.
What’s unconstitutional about it? Genuinely asking.
The Constitution guarantees the right to confront your accuser in court, which you can’t do with an automated camera. It used to be a guaranteed win if you showed up at all because the camera itself couldn’t hire a lawyer and present an argument.
It doesn’t have to. They send a representative from the camera company whose job it is to show up in court and rationalize their bullshit at the judge. I know this because I actually had to go through this process once, many years ago, to fight a clearly fraudulent ticket from one of these damn fool things in our local downtown.
Do you happen to live in the area the company is headquartered? Because I can’t imagine them flying a representative out for every ticket being contested.
These guys know how it works. They don’t “fly” anyone anywhere. They have low paid lackeys available in any and all of the areas they operate whose job it is specifically to hang around in courthouses and defend their tickets. It’s not like they drop everything and bundle an executive on a plane to go to Podunk, Missouri or whatever to argue about a one-off ticket.
In my case this outfit only operates in our state, to my knowledge. They wouldn’t have to go far.
This seems trivially defeatable by having an officer use the camera footage as evidence when they issue a fine. Then there’s an accuser to be confronted in court - the officer
Not sure why you’re being downvoted.
It’s the sixth amendent.
For of such a short document it is ridiculous for any American not to know their rights. Unfortunately the internet has been taken over by the ignorant.
I mean, we should certainly take the time to learn our rights, but I wouldn’t say that it’s ridiculous to not remember everything contained in 40+ pages.
4th Amendment violation
That surely fails the Katz test
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?
AI …
that’s why it cites Georgia law.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!
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.
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The only reason to have a phone in your lap while driving is if you intend to use said phone while driving.
Your phone fell off the dashboard phone stand, you caught it and set it in your lap.
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?
I honestly throw mine wherever without thinking about it. Def has been on lap or in crotch a few times.
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.
Yes it does. Your phone is in your lap so you can look at it. Keep it away. I know everyone is addicted to them but just drive without looking st it.
I don’t own a car. I ride a bicycle and take Ubers and Lyfts for long distance travel, and smart phones are like the spice mélange to those drivers. They seem to need them to navigate the Universe. So this law just seems terribly ill-conceived. The lap is just an oddly specific place to focus on. So you can set them on the dashboard, center console, or anywhere else, but the lap is the danger zone?
My main phone is a dumb phone. I hate smart phones and only got one specifically for Ubder and Lyfts, so I’m not addicted. So I’m standing outside looking in and it’s a bizarre law. Sure, we don’t want people playing Angry Birds while driving, but I don’t think this is a well thought out solution that does anything at all except cause more chaos and suffering.
I know in Western Australia, where I live, it is illegal to have the phone resting on any part of your body.
https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/road-safety-commission/mobile-phones-and-distractions
I wonder where the line is drawn between on your lap vs in your pocket. By that I mean, what if it is in a clear pouch on a lanyard around your neck, or in a running-armband. In both those cases it could still be used by need not have been touched while the car is driving.
If you slam on the brakes or maybe brake too sudden and it flies off and onto the floor, then it could potentially slide under a pedal (like the brakes), hindering its function.
Is it likely? Probably not, but it is a dangerous hazard waiting to happen.
I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around the logic of this law and this was one of the things I considered they must be worried about. It’s not so much people using them, it’s just they don’t want them in the lap. Because Uber and Lyft drivers have to use them for work in the US. Here they have they often have a mount on the dash board to hold their phone and they’re constantly taking calls and checking maps.
As you say though it’s like a one in a million event freak accident if it flies off the lap and gets stuck under the pedal. It would be weird to pass a law for some off the wall scenario like that.
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
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
that’s not a summary; that’s the first paragraphs of the article
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.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Attorney’s Office, and Montgomery County District Attorney all initiated criminal investigations of the matter, which they combined and then closed because they did not find evidence “that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone involved had criminal intent”.
If I don’t have intent to commit a crime but I break the law, it’s not an excuse that a cop or judge will buy. Holy fuck.
I seem to recall something about a story where, like, a kids mom didnt know the camera was remotely turned on and walked through the room naked, after having just gotten out of the shower, and there was some kind of CPS investigation about it?
or is my brain mixing up several different school district voyeur stories together?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District
The school took 66,000 pictures of students in their bedrooms. School administrators should be listed as sex offenders but that doesn’t happen in the U.S. Case in point - our child rapist in chief.
Nope, that happened. If the institution spying on you in your home sees you naked, in your own home where you foolishly expect privacy, you’re a criminal.
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
The police officer didn’t witness the crime. They’re making that Judgement based on evidence provided by a third party.
If my house were broken into, and I managed to capture video of the incident, I can’t just hand that to the police and call it a day. The accused has a constitutionally protected right to face me in court, not just the video or the officer I gave the video to, so that their defense can interrogate it fully. What if there is additional context that undermines the narrative presented by this single piece of evidence? If I know the accused and had a reason to see them convicted (such as getting a kickback from any fine they pay), now my clear evidence becomes a little more suspect. Now there’s a very clear motive for me to skew, misinterpret, or completely fabricate the video.
That’s what OP is referring to. If a company is going to install cameras and claim their cameras caught me doing something I shouldn’t have, I have a right to ask that company for more details regarding their claim. Ideally in a public court, with a representative of the company under oath.
Or more concisely: the government should never contract out law enforcement to private companies.
Have you ever fought a traffic ticket? You’re not on trial. You’re not pleading guilty/not-guilty. It’s an administrative/civil thing.
Every traffic ticket in the US I’ve seen requires you to check a box to plead before you pay it (assuming you aren’t fighting it). When you pay it, you are either pleading guilty or no contest. If you go to your court date instead you get asked to enter a plea and it can be not guilty.
Granted, I haven’t been ticketed in all 50 states… yet.
Edit: Apparently the click-bait headline is referencing a person from Australia, despite the rest of the article talking about US law… No idea how traffic tickets work there…
To be clear I live in Texas so maybe we do things differently wherever you live. We definitely go to court and plead for traffic violations.
MA. Tickets have “I’d like to pay” or “I’d like a hearing”. No mention of guilt.
Hearings are civil, not criminal, and you represent yourself in front of a magistrate (baby judge). If you tried to represent yourself in a criminal case, the judge would give you a very hard time about that choice. Either way, you don’t call witnesses, there’s no cross examination, and no discovery.
I don’t get where people are going full Law&Order, demanding to see their accuser.
It doesn’t violate constitutional rights as long as whatever the camera can detect/see would be the same as a police officer. If it has a license plate reader and face detection or whatever it’s unconstitutional because an officer probably wouldn’t have been able to issue a ticket if it were a person there instead of a camera. If it’s something like an obviously missing seatbelt or phone use seen through the window at a reasonable angle it’s constitutional.
I don’t understand the “face an accuser in court” argument. It’s a photo. You argue about the photo with the judge. The photo is your accuser.
No
The company sending the letter is the acccuser.
They need to explain how they interpreted the photo
Did you ever have a misunderstanding with someone that simply explaining it to each other cleared it up? How can a camera explain what it saw. The police officer wasn’t there and isn’t a witness. Also these cameras are not owned by the police. It’s a third party company that has a lease with them. So someone with no authority to make traffic stops is taking pictures of you and sending the bad stuff to police for money. Doesn’t that sound like a conflict of interest?
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Traffic violations are rarely criminal cases.
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.
They sure should if they are using a killing machine.
You know what doesn’t need monitoring like this? Bikes
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.
Harsh
You don’t think an anarchist society would have any mechanism to stop people from driving dangerously?
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
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.
Not every religious person feels the need to forcibly convert others.
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.
it uploads data
… So. To the internet?
simple to do on device
Image recognition is not computationally cheap. There are more and less expensive ways to do it, but the absolute floor of it turns your phone into a hot plate. So whatever’s in there would need to be at least a phone chip.
someone needs to check
So it is kept and stored.
pre all-this-shit
Red light/speed cams, triggered on motion sensor boolean when light red or radar speed reading>x.
You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, which is fine, but why are you speaking confidently and assuming such good will about proven constant brazen liars saying they’re not doing the shit they literally always do?
You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about
Lmao.
You can literally detect phones with a raspberryPi the idea that you need to upload it to a server is ridiculous.
You can ‘detect phones’ via anything with WiFi. Are you trolling? Do you not understand the difference between image processing and simpler more computer readable signals?
You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. How are so many people so rabidly and confidently ignorant?
One I got a $125 ticket for driving 27 near a school on a Saturday in Washington, so no system is perfect…
Would be funny if it was a more modern vehicle, with a massive ipad that’s nearly bolted to your forehead and has displays on the back of every headrest.
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.
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.
Public institutions also have in-house software roles, and if those are insufficient they can have a tender to make the software that belongs to the public institution afterward (to then be hosted government managed infra). This happens all the time.
So its not right to dismiss this immediately.
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).
There is zero technical barrier for this happening.
I guess we’ll have to make a disincentivization barrier instead.
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.
Because it’s largely a boogie man OP invented, the network layer isn’t magic, if anything OP is suggesting was being done secretly (unlike say teenagers getting better insurance rates if they put a telemetry box in their car), it would be pretty easy to detect.
I don’t know what town it is exactly (Kirkland or Kenmore, WA), and they had a speed limit posted as 30mph., but gave my friend a ticket for going over 28 in a 25 zone. They grayed out the speed limit in the photo they sent that was approved by a cop. My friend would’ve had to go and get a picture of the sign to prove what assholes they were. I remember the sign and know for a fact that it said 30. Not enough to fight it, but enough to stay the fuck away from that town.
Old guy told me in addition to photos you should request all documentation regarding that specific sign and that stretch of road, such as the work order to have it installed. Public records laws vary lol
Wow, good to look into if ever defrauded like this!
Not enough to fight it
if that’s not worth fighting then nothing is. I’ve met High school kids that have fought tickets before. U.S. Traffic Courts are notoroious for being extraordinarily mundane
They would have fought it if you could fight it like a normal ticket, but you couldn’t. You could pay or write them a stern letter that would mean nothing. Seattle has those kinds of tickets too. This would have had to have been a trip to the AG or something. I don’t know how they would have fought it without a lawyer.
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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Wouldn’t they have to prove it was a phone and not some black address book or something
For your safety.™
