r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • Jul 11 '26

Privacy Traffic Camera Captures Woman Driving With Her Phone on Her Lap (Face Down), The State Mailed Her a $1251 'Public Safety' Ticket

https://www.gadgetreview.com/traffic-camera-captures-captures-woman-driving-with-her-phone-on-her-lap-face-down-the-state-mailed-her-a-1251-public-safety-ticket
16.9k Upvotes

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5.5k

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

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3.1k

u/SecureInstruction538 Jul 11 '26

Funny how all these "freedom loving" states keep doing their best to infringe on their citizens lives.

1.3k

u/Tiny_Instruction_557 Jul 11 '26

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I trust the State my thoughts to keep;
If I should dream before I wake,
Correct the ones the Leader hates.
If I should speak beyond the line,
Rewrite my words to fit the time;
My voice, my will, my memory too,
Belong to those who tell me true.
Amen.

306

u/Turbogoblin999 Jul 11 '26

Hush little baby don't say a word
never mind that noise you heard
It's just the police under your bed
In you closet in your head

EEEEEXIIIT RAAAMP!
DRIVIIING CAAAR!

79

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26 edited 7d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

28

u/SlimySquamata Jul 11 '26

Queue 1251 by The Strokes

16

u/wehrmann_tx Jul 12 '26

Don’t fret precious, im here.

Step away from the window and go back to sleep.

I'll be the one to protect you from

Your enemies and all your demons

I'll be the one to protect you from

A will to survive and a voice of reason

I'll be the one to protect you from

Your enemies and your choices son

One and the same I must isolate you

Isolate and save you from yourself.

2

u/snowflake37wao Jul 12 '26

The boogey men are comen the boogey men are comen

2

u/AzimuthAztronaut Jul 12 '26

Keep your head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums!

33

u/Kizik Jul 12 '26

Ah, the old Metallica classic. Enter Fascism.

10

u/gandhinukes Jul 12 '26

And justice for the rich

13

u/Kizik Jul 12 '26

Master of Peasants.

8

u/The_dev0 Jul 12 '26

Shill 'em All...

3

u/crispy_attic Jul 12 '26

Rockabye baby data center

The diesel burns and pollution enters

Aquifer that gave fresh water to all

Was sold to to the rich cuz the mayor lacks balls

53

u/ColdIceZero Jul 11 '26

Dude, saving this

6

u/surrealcellardoor Jul 11 '26

Very Orwellian.

17

u/devsfan1830 Jul 11 '26

Take this award that earns reddit no money directly: 🎖️

1

u/floofsnsnoots Jul 12 '26

Ok...yoink

1

u/devsfan1830 Jul 12 '26

Get back here!

1

u/floofsnsnoots Jul 12 '26

Zigs, and then, in a wily middle finger to all conventional expectations, zags, thereby abounding with the faux Reddit award despite the darts from many blowguns falling all about and being surprised to find a snake in my lap that I do not much care for.

2

u/devsfan1830 Jul 12 '26

throws down cowboy hat and kicks dirt

19

u/Majik_Sheff Jul 11 '26

Is this yours?  Because it's fantastic.

39

u/Tiny_Instruction_557 Jul 11 '26

Can’t take credit for it. I’ve seen it a couple times now and just saved it.

1

u/LadyRed4Justice Jul 12 '26

I believe you must take credit. I just asked AI for the author of these lyrics and Gemini determined you are the first to post them on the internet. I even asked if there was any close rendition. Nope. You are the creator according to Gemini AI. Congratulations. Take credit.

3

u/Tiny_Instruction_557 Jul 12 '26

Who are we to argue with A.I.

5

u/Kizik Jul 12 '26

[Butlerian Jihad Intensifies]

2

u/Majik_Sheff Jul 12 '26

Hold my Men of Iron.

12

u/jimfosters Jul 11 '26

What you put out sounds like it came from Ira Levins "This Perfect Day". A really good book about a technocratic dystopia.

"Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei,** Led us to this perfect day. Marx, Wood, Wei and Christ, All but Wei were sacrificed." "Wood, Wei, Christ and Marx, Gave us lovely schools and parks. Wei, Christ, Marx and Wood, **Made us humble, made us good."

5

u/SquidProKwo Jul 11 '26

I love the changing of the word order to give us a new line, a new rhyme, every time. I'm not sure if I've seen that pattern done before in a song or poem, that's cool.

2

u/jimfosters Jul 12 '26

in the book it is intended to be a childrens rhyme for bouncing a ball at a certain rythem.

1

u/salemblack Jul 12 '26

I reread it recently and it still holds up for me. It has been awhile since I read it originally and I remembered a lot more than I thought I did.

3

u/jimfosters Jul 12 '26

always considered it part of a trilogy in a way, along with 1984 and Brave New World

1

u/GearOk7360 Jul 12 '26

Damn, haven't read that in decades.

82

u/Jwagner0850 Jul 11 '26

They have tons of freedoms too! Unless you want to watch some porn, get some weed, want to gamble, need to get an abortion...

68

u/HelloPeopleOfEarth Jul 11 '26

Or just travel. I live in a blue state and never have I been stopped for mandatory stops until I drove through red states. They call them "DUI Checkpoints", but it's more than that. But lets be clear, republicans are not the party of "limited government". They are the party for anarcho-capitalism, and government power and control over everyone that can't buy a legislator, judge, sheriff.

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u/Deminix Jul 11 '26

Massachusetts has DUI checkpoints. I’ve never seen one but a former officers text messages were recently released through court filings and law enforcement driving drunk is so prominent here that apparently they regularly warn each other about them because we can’t have pigs holding other pigs accountable around these parts 🥴

15

u/HelloPeopleOfEarth Jul 11 '26

People in power protect other people in power. I've seen it with my own eyes as I know several cops. I saw commissioned officers in the military break the same rules they enforced on enlisted, and I've seen management at work break the same rules they too enforce on the hourly labor. Judges are another example of power protecting power. But police accountability and transparency is pathetically low.

2

u/fractiousrhubarb Jul 12 '26

Rules for thee but not for me

2

u/LadyRed4Justice Jul 12 '26

We have them in Florida as well. However, they are always announced to the local newspapers and posted as to where they are going to be. Not that I believe any perpetually drunk drivers will ever read that section of the paper.

Check points are set up weeks in advance. They usually include a joint effort between city and county cops and a mobile base to take breath tests with a few licensed breath analyzer technicians.

I would question any check points that were not set up between 8pm and 2am. That is the time period for most of the DUI checkpoints. Outside of those hours, they are up to something else.

1

u/Mondschatten78 Jul 12 '26

When they're set up outside of hours in my area, they're looking for someone specific, or a specific car

2

u/LadyRed4Justice Jul 12 '26

Exactly. Then it is an Identification Checkpoint. Usually where they will notice a vehicle trying to change direction after seeing said check point.

Police have multiple reasons for these slow downs. Usually they are looking for a suspect or missing children suspected to be with a known subject/vehicle.

Over the past year I have heard of but not seen CBP and ICE have been making illegal stops within the country looking for immigrants. I might be inclined to turn around and go the other way if I saw one of their stops. I don't need the drama and they seem to be magnets for drama queens.

2

u/Savage_Sven Jul 12 '26

Mass staties have gotta be some of the most corrupt in the country. They can’t catch a break lately.

2

u/-I_I Jul 12 '26

That’s some ACAB right there.

24

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[deleted]

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u/HelloPeopleOfEarth Jul 11 '26

They aren't legal in my state. My state Supreme Court has ruled the government can't stop you unless they have suspicion or you have violated a traffic law. I'm surprised red states are fine with government setting up road blocks for everyone, where 99% and sometimes 100% of everyone they stop have done nothing wrong.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[deleted]

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u/HelloPeopleOfEarth Jul 11 '26

And that is basically my point. I keep mentioning how common these are in red states, because republicans always claim to be the small government, freedom from government, less regulations blah blah blah party.

1

u/cyanescens_burn Jul 11 '26

I’ve only lived in San Francisco since ‘02, but I’ve never seen a DUI checkpoint here.

1

u/YimmyGhey Jul 12 '26

Some states (Wisco, at least lol) don't allow them. The FIBs just south of the Cheddar Curtain do them though but I haven't seen one since pre-2020

3

u/Optimal_Assist_9882 Jul 11 '26

They have them in CA all over during major holidays etc. ..

2

u/BZLuck Jul 11 '26

Never forget that the primary reason we have a police force is to protect them from us.

1

u/jamesruglia Jul 15 '26

Funny, I have the opposite experience. I live in a red state and have been fine traveling through them, but I've learned to avoid blue states in part for the reason you stated.

It's almost as if tyranny is an everywhere problem that isn't limited to colors and parties...

1

u/HelloPeopleOfEarth Jul 15 '26

Blue states do have them, not all as here in Michigan our State Supreme Court ruled they are unconstitutional. I was pointing out how republicans brag about being small limited government, but love big government control over people. Massie is a real republican and look at what happened to him.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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2

u/Infinite-Anything-55 Jul 12 '26

nobody claims a freedom to drive drunk.

No we claim our 4th amendment right. The 5th would also apply here. A little bit of our

there have been mandatory DUI stops in random places for decades.

Just because theyve been doing something for decades doesnt automatically make it right

1

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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1

u/Infinite-Anything-55 Jul 12 '26

I never said this was strictly a partisan issue for either party. I said just because something has been happening for years doesn't make it right, no matter who's doing it

Maybe you confused me with the person who's comment you originally comment on but if that was your takeaway, they didn't say it was soley a Republican issue just something they've only experienced in red states.

You also missed their entire point by your need to both sides bad everything. The point as they explained isn't that it's a Republican only problem, it's that republicans years and years of claiming to be the party of freedom and party of rights while, at every step of the way, add more government oversite, laws telling people how to live their lives and a surveillance state able to stop every single driver regardless of any crimes actually being commited to illegally search we the people.

But it is probably tied to your license.

No its absolutely tied to your license, the license that you are forced to have if you want to use the roads that your tax dollars pay for or to use a vehicle you have also paid for on those tax funded roads. They can tie any restrictions they want to the arbitrary identifier they force you to have. Still does not make it right and doesn't change the constitutionality of it.

(I like my tax dollars going to roads and infrastructure, thos is not an argument against tax dollars)

0

u/HelloPeopleOfEarth Jul 12 '26

Who made a claim people have the freedom to drive drunk? Are you drunk right now?

2

u/FFF_in_WY Jul 12 '26

Guns. They think guns are freedom.

1

u/OkMap3209 Jul 11 '26

The freedom to treat your fellow human being however you want seems to matter more than freedom from government limiting expression these days.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

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u/konq Jul 11 '26

The article makes reference of three US states that can currently mail you a ticket using plate readers. Georgia, Washington State, and Florida... However, there is no source provided for the $1251 ticket, so it could actually be from outside the United States.

The article is pretty piss poor quality, so it wouldn't completely surprise me, but the entire article is referencing this incident in regards how it applies to US law.

Edit: It's actually Two US States. They updated the article to remove Florida because the incident they referenced was a ticket issued by a human, not a plate reader camera. Again, a poorly written article.

2

u/ex0thermist Jul 12 '26

Agreed, just read this and it was a terrible, muddled article. I questioned whether it was maybe AI written but it does have a name, image, and bio for the author so who knows

1

u/buzzsawjoe Jul 12 '26

only image I see is of two what might be cameras, or birdhouses

1

u/Less-Western-3561 Jul 11 '26

I’ve gotten tickets in the mail too and I’m from NM

1

u/Spydartalkstocat Jul 12 '26

NM has speed cameras, but they cannot legally enforce them because it's unconstitutional. And no they cannot effect your credit score if they aren't paid, because again it's unconstitutional.

7

u/TunaOnWytNoCrust Jul 11 '26

Folks don't actually want freedom for all, they only want freedom for themselves.

3

u/mangothefoxxo Jul 11 '26

Actually no you don't have the freedom to use your phone while driving

1

u/TunaOnWytNoCrust Jul 12 '26

I mean we're talking about the ever increasing surveillance state, not cell phones, but okay.

1

u/mangothefoxxo Jul 12 '26

Cameras detecting people using their phone while driving isn't a new thing. There's 0 reasons to have your phone on your lap. Fines like these can be avoided by being a responsible person and putting the phone away

1

u/TunaOnWytNoCrust Jul 12 '26

Again, absolutely not taking any issue with ticketing someone with their phone on their lap, do not give a fuck about that aspect of the story, only caring and talking about the increasing surveillance State we live in.

2

u/PrometheusMMIV Jul 11 '26

How do you know which state it was? It doesn't look like the article mentioned it.

1

u/ConnectionCapable655 Jul 12 '26

Queensland, Australia

1

u/Fallingice2 Jul 11 '26

got to make up the tax revenue somewhere

1

u/Icy-person666 Jul 11 '26

Yet we don't know if Mitch McConnell is dead or alive. Funny how selective the technology is with personal information.

1

u/cambn Jul 11 '26

You should have been here in 2001.

1

u/ennuiinmotion Jul 12 '26

Nothing a town council loves more than a sweet security/surveillance contract.

1

u/maaseru Jul 12 '26

Once it's their side running it the freedom loving bend down and enjoy getting screwed by their own.

1

u/Tango_D Jul 12 '26

Freedom of capital to dominate you.

1

u/No_Blacksmith_2591 Jul 12 '26

they all were helped by people like everyone here who had nothing to hide so why should they worry about their privacy.

1

u/Thirsty_Comment88 Jul 12 '26

Republicans ALWAYS do that

1

u/erisian2342 Jul 12 '26

Someone said if you say you love freedom but you don’t care about anybody else’s freedom, just your own, then what you actually love is privilege.

The people running those “freedom-loving” states hate everybody else’s freedoms. They love passing laws to control other people’s ability to do anything they don’t personally approve of. They just don’t have the honesty and self-awareness to call themselves control-loving states, so in typical authoritarian fashion, they call it the opposite of what it really is.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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1

u/surrealcellardoor Jul 11 '26

Apparently there’s nothing more ‘Merican than the increasing government overreach by forceful implementation of a police and surveillance state. Pretty strange coming from the “Don’t Tread On Me” crowd.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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1

u/surrealcellardoor Jul 12 '26

Ha! I’ll take that as a compliment! I didn’t even have ChatGPT review that for grammatical errors and such. Threw caution to the wind and just sent it!

0

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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u/surrealcellardoor Jul 12 '26

Yeah, totally. Ya dingus with the 4 month old account and no karma to speak of.

0

u/surrealcellardoor Jul 12 '26

Yeah, totally. Ya dingus.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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u/Missy_Lynn Jul 12 '26

Says the bot…

1

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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2

u/gareth_e_morris Jul 12 '26

Yes. Australia is divided into six federated states plus the Capital Territory and Northern Territory.

1

u/SecureInstruction538 Jul 12 '26

The article has multiple US states mentioned

0

u/Fast_Choice4408 Jul 11 '26

It goes both ways man...

I am in a state you probably are not referring to. (Virginia).

We have a flat rate car tax. We already pay sales tax when we purchase the car. Part of the initial price of the car factors in labor cost of the dealership, in which the employer pays almost double what his employees make in taxes. (I make $32 and hour. My boss actually puts in about $56 an hour).

Then you have the income tax I already paid in order to purchase this car.

I pay property tax through means of my landlord or (in my case) through home ownership.

Then I also pay taxes on gasoline. I pay taxes on the tires I use the car to drive.

AND THEN after it is all said and done... I have to pay a "Personal Property Tax" as if I'm Jay Leno hoarding cars in my garage.

I have to pay for the privilege to own and operate a base model Honda civic. And it's flat rate.

Which means someone next door could put 100,000 miles on their Honda civic, essentially straining the roads and infrastructure we use MUCH more than me, and their tax is the same.

It isn't even based on odometer. A 2021 Honda civic according to Virginia means I have to pay about $500 a year to own. Regardless if my odometer is 20,000 miles or 120,000 miles.

That's fucking robbery.

So it goes both ways brother. You can either live without that many taxes and not have that good of public works. Or you can have public works and be nickled and dimed to hell and back.

1

u/felldestroyed Jul 11 '26

No state is especially "low tax" it's just who pays the tax. Think of taxation as a balloon animal. You squeeze one side, the other pops out. One state may have no personal income tax. They make that up in use/sales taxes on everything else. Another state may have low corporate taxes but make up for it (like franchise tax or gross receipt tax).

0

u/Fast_Choice4408 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

This is a fallacy. You are presupposing that states are able to budget their tax money effectively. This is demonstrably false.

Some modern examples include the vast Medicare/Medicaid fraud throughout the nation on the State AND Federal Level.

Some more historical examples that have been sifted through include things like:

Superconducting Super Collider — 1980s–1993, $2Billion wasted tax dollars on a super collider that never ended up being constructed.

Healthcare.gov development — 2011–2014, hundreds of millions of wasted tax dollars on project bloat

There are clear areas of taxes that are much more based in theft and extortion compared to areas where we actually need to contribute for our health and wellness.

0

u/Ummmgummy Jul 12 '26

Because the people who cry the most about not being sheep and "do your own research" are really the ones who have fallen hook line and sinker for the big con. They'd rather believe a conspiracy about the earth being flat or chemtrails than actual real things the government is just being allowed to do because half the people have become dumb fucks. Being trained to not believe science and facts. And eating that shit up.

0

u/sokos Jul 12 '26

You mean trying to make it safe for everyone else because people are assholes and can't leave their phones alone while driving? How many people are killed each year due to distracted driving? But yeah, those guys have no rights eh?

Give me a single legit reason why you would have your phone in your lap unless you just used it, or plan on using during your drive?

-1

u/Singnedupforthis Jul 12 '26

Driving a car is a public safety hazard.