Of all the potential uses for AI, catching people violating traffic laws in safety critical situations is one of the least offensive to me. Ticketing people who run school bus stops is a no brainer. Same for people recklessly driving through construction zones or making unsafe passes on two lane roads. Also a fan of using these systems to ticket people looking at their phones while driving. Too many people die every year from stupid reckless driving.
The problem, of course, is all the thousands of vehicles caught up in the scans that didn't violate any traffic laws. What happens with that data? Why should my privacy be compromised for the chance of someone committing a minor traffic infraction?
Hell, let's just police everyone's hard drives just in case, you know? Isn't catching pedophiles a good thing, after all?
If a school bus with cameras films you on your private land then trespass it away and get a court order to destroy records. On a public street, however, you don't have privacy, anybody can film you.
They very well might be using the data in nefarious ways beyond just detecting people who blow through a bus stop sign, and I support legislation restricting that.
But when you’re driving a deadly vehicle on public roads, you don’t have a legal right to privacy that’s the same as if you were on private property.
I partially agree, but current monetary fines were set when enforcement was very manual and often lenient. Technically, in California, even speeding 1 MPH above the speed limit can land you a $234 fine. If we had perfect AI systems that fined everyone every time they went 1 MPH over, most Californians would be broke. Certainly, most people break a dozen laws every time they drive to work.
You can say that we should only restrict this to critical safety situations, but it becomes a very slippery slope once cities start to see that revenue coming in. In some situations, cities have contracted private companies who profit on every ticket their cameras issue - that creates a huge conflict of interest and incentive for them to keep tuning the cameras to catch more and more 'offenses'.
I have no sympathy for people who speed past a stopped school bus.
With that said, the automation of law enforcement is deeply concerning to me. I'm of the opinion that most of our laws are calibrated based on enforcement costs that are simply being removed and it's going to fundamentally transform society if we continue to automate in this way.
In 2020 the county issued 36 citations per active camera, or 50,698 citations total. In 2025 the county issued 34 citations per camera, or 51,779 total.
Wow. That is a mind-boggling number of citations.
Montgomery County’s steady stream of stop-arm violations stems largely from one problem: Drivers seem unsure or unaware of what to do when buses are traveling in the opposite lane. The school bus stop at 1400 East-West Highway exemplifies drivers’ confusion, says Moon, the state delegate, standing on the side of the road as traffic whooshes by. It’s right off the highway’s intersection with Colesville Road, a seven-lane thoroughfare with raised medians. In Maryland, drivers traveling in the opposite direction of buses are not required to stop if the roadway is separated by a physical median.
But East-West Highway has two turn lanes, or what Moon calls “a paint illusion,” in which “a median is suggested.” Here, without a true median, it’s illegal to pass the stopped bus, regardless of what lane you’re in, but it’s easy to miss the difference. Many of Montgomery County’s most ticketed stops have these false medians, in addition to wide, congested roads and four-way intersections that Moon says can make it hard for drivers to spot buses stopped across several lanes of traffic. In fiscal year 2025 some 89% of all stop-arm tickets issued at the county’s top-10 citation locations were for opposite-lane violations. “You’re dealing with a very congested urban environment with lots of changes,” Moon says. “There’s just infinite numbers of drivers on these commuter thoroughfares to replenish the people that are getting the first wave of tickets.”
I'm a little bit mixed after reading the article. I guess I don't entirely blame companies that see a financial opportunity to help enforce laws, as ostensibly, it should be win-win for both the public and private space. Where it breaks down (as the article points out), is when the law is ineffective at achieving it's purported goal. This is where I differ somewhat from the article's conclusion, however, as I view it as the government's responsibility at that point to correct the dysfunctional law. If all the evidence is there—do something about it. There might be a moral expectation that private companies "do the right thing", but there's certainly no practical expectation that will occur.
Case in point: where I live, the interstate is often congested, and a driver "camping" in the left lane frequently leads to traffic jams that back up for miles. The cars that get backed up become frustrated and start zooming and weaving through traffic in the right lanes to get past the blockage. And while there are plenty of police, they only go after the speeders (presumably because speeding tickets are more lucrative). I don't think I've ever seen someone pulled over for squatting in the left lane, despite the fact that it's illegal where I live and despite the presence of numerous signs that say "Keep Right Except to Past".
This is what I would call an example of a dysfunctional law, as I highly suspect that if one had the capability and interest to analyze aerial footage of traffic patterns, it would be found that left lane campers are a much more significant factor in the root cause of interstate traffic accidents than speeders. But the incentives are too perverse to fix the problem, so the situation persists.
Good. People who run school bus stops deserve to be ticketed and fined. This is one application of AI that’s being done right.
There’s a school bus. It’s big and yellow. The stop is shining and blinking. There’s kids about to cross the road. So yes, my sympathy for this sort of behavior is non existent.
I would think data on repeat offenders would be more useful than the overall number when seeing if the system is effective. Stricter penalties are likely to be more effective - the offenders are either choosing not to stop, or they aren't competent at paying attention, etc.
The militant stop for schoolbus story grinds my gears. We don't stop for city buses. Why aren't we teaching children to be defensive and preparing them for the real world. Cross the road when there are no cars. Wait on the side of the road that the bus actually stops at. When a bus stops and I see a kid jump out the door and sprint full throttle in front of the bus and across the opposite lane without so much as a glance I think to myself yikes we are putting a lot of faith in people stopping for flashing red lights.
Fortunately drivers in my area (Detroit Metro) are all in a hurry and seem to want symbiosis with the rest of traffic. They stop and start almost instantly. Kids don't lolly gally. But when I lived in Northern Virginia, it was the opposite. Bus drivers really took liberty with blocking the road for WAY longer than necessary. Huge hall monitor energy, "i'm king of the castle i'll make you wait just to assert myself"
TDLR: If you read the article it's about school administration corrumption kickbacks and a dot com revenue scam where our tax dollars are wasted on a service that doesnt make kids safer. The tickets aren't the offensive part of this.
I have zero problems with this type of citation. From the description, it sounds like there’s a safety issue with some road markings that needs to be fixed and everyone who is not endangering young pedestrians would be happy.
I hope that all this surveilence in some kind twist of fate this will encourage micro-mobility and proper public transport because it becomes the only way to not have your unique identifiable ID across the entire nation in a database and not have fines every month as a normal every day expense.
But then surveilence companies will simply find a reason to start tracking the clothes people wear as 'signals' so it's just going to be less cars with more surveilence.
Might still be an upgrade over a unique id glued to you.
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Hell, let's just police everyone's hard drives just in case, you know? Isn't catching pedophiles a good thing, after all?
But when you’re driving a deadly vehicle on public roads, you don’t have a legal right to privacy that’s the same as if you were on private property.
You can say that we should only restrict this to critical safety situations, but it becomes a very slippery slope once cities start to see that revenue coming in. In some situations, cities have contracted private companies who profit on every ticket their cameras issue - that creates a huge conflict of interest and incentive for them to keep tuning the cameras to catch more and more 'offenses'.
An automated fine is the least painful way to enforce that.
With that said, the automation of law enforcement is deeply concerning to me. I'm of the opinion that most of our laws are calibrated based on enforcement costs that are simply being removed and it's going to fundamentally transform society if we continue to automate in this way.
After falling for decades, annual pedestrian deaths in the US surged 70% from 2010 to 2023
That aligns suspiciously with the rise in smartphones.
Case in point: where I live, the interstate is often congested, and a driver "camping" in the left lane frequently leads to traffic jams that back up for miles. The cars that get backed up become frustrated and start zooming and weaving through traffic in the right lanes to get past the blockage. And while there are plenty of police, they only go after the speeders (presumably because speeding tickets are more lucrative). I don't think I've ever seen someone pulled over for squatting in the left lane, despite the fact that it's illegal where I live and despite the presence of numerous signs that say "Keep Right Except to Past".
This is what I would call an example of a dysfunctional law, as I highly suspect that if one had the capability and interest to analyze aerial footage of traffic patterns, it would be found that left lane campers are a much more significant factor in the root cause of interstate traffic accidents than speeders. But the incentives are too perverse to fix the problem, so the situation persists.
There’s a school bus. It’s big and yellow. The stop is shining and blinking. There’s kids about to cross the road. So yes, my sympathy for this sort of behavior is non existent.
Fortunately drivers in my area (Detroit Metro) are all in a hurry and seem to want symbiosis with the rest of traffic. They stop and start almost instantly. Kids don't lolly gally. But when I lived in Northern Virginia, it was the opposite. Bus drivers really took liberty with blocking the road for WAY longer than necessary. Huge hall monitor energy, "i'm king of the castle i'll make you wait just to assert myself"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VinCGmdj-jQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz4HEEiJuGo
> the program is heavily burdening residents who either can’t or don’t pay the fines.
maybe they should stop driving dangerously
But then surveilence companies will simply find a reason to start tracking the clothes people wear as 'signals' so it's just going to be less cars with more surveilence.
Might still be an upgrade over a unique id glued to you.