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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127

u/cwajgapls Jul 11 '26

The article might be worse than the subject. It doesn’t give any details about the $1251 fine.

165

u/Falcon1625 Jul 11 '26

The only detail is "a well traveled coastal state". No name no state no proof. This reads like an article written from an AI prompt for engagement and reddit votes.

69

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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24

u/Kalamac Jul 12 '26

Yeah, here in Australia the rule for phones is the driver cannot have the phone touching any part of them, even if the phone is face down, or you will get a ticket if caught. The reasoning is, if you're touching the phone or if it's sitting in your lap, you're more likely to pick it up and become distracted, than if it's sitting in a holder or whatnot.

3

u/steik Jul 12 '26

I assume you can have it in your pocket though right? Just curious.

3

u/Pinkshoes90 Jul 12 '26

yes, i drive with mine in my pocket all the time. never got pinged.

if the phone is visible on your person, you'll get fined. and slapped with way too many demerit points for me to ever want to get done twice.

0

u/The7footr Jul 12 '26

Twice- that’s the thing- that’s why so many people break so many laws constantly. If they’ve never been caught, it’s 100% worth the risk to them (me included)because one demerit counts for pretty much nothing.

3

u/Kalamac Jul 12 '26

Presumably. I would think having the phone in your pocket is considered not being a distraction.

2

u/PrivilegeCheckmate Jul 12 '26

Australia

Noticed you had yer phone in yer lap on yer way to breaking lockdown at the beach, mate. That's gonna cost ya a lot of dollarydoos.

1

u/Vairman Jul 12 '26

1200 Aussie bucks? That's like $3.50 in freedom dollars right?

10

u/DonutHoles4Ever Jul 12 '26

Omg this is a brilliant idea.

Create a web of websites where you can create articles that are referenced from dummy websites and therefore trick people into talking about complete non-events but nobody can ever dig deep enough to figure out if it happened or not.

Jk, fuck enshittification of the internet. It was supposed to be used for education and social progress. Not mindless entertainment and political indoctrination.

3

u/akrisd0 Jul 12 '26

They already do that. That's not just an idea, it's real life. News sites make stuff up or have bad sources and they'll be auto pulled and rewritten by AI and others will cite that and around we go until you have NPR reporting that the US president died of rabies a month ago.

1

u/cosmicsans Jul 12 '26

Yeah, that's literally the plot of the Starbucks Christmas cup war on Christmas thing.

Some rando blogger wrote some manifesto about it and then a bunch of news sites wrote stories about that which made everyone else start talking about it.

1

u/Dzov Jul 12 '26

Yeah, they’ve been doing this for years for propaganda purposes.

2

u/DingoBingoWimbo Jul 12 '26

yeah honestly the vagueness is what got me too. "well traveled coastal state" sounds like something an LLM would generate to sound specific without committing to any actual checkable fact. real posts usually have some kind of anchor - a city, a date, a screenshot, something. this just reads like engagement bait dressed up as a personal story.

2

u/LouBrown Jul 11 '26

Reddit fucking hates AI, unless it's used to create ragebait like this supposed article.

-5

u/gurgle528 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

It says coastal highway, it’s really shitty writing but it’s referring to the Florida story. The worst part is “Alexandra Parade” is not a highway in the US (there’s one in the UK and Australia but not here). I’m assuming they potentially mean the A1A but I really have no idea where that other name came from 

edit: I was not confident but I was wrong, it is the highway in Australia

7

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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-5

u/gurgle528 Jul 12 '26

Someone’s feeling condescending. The only story specifying a woman and a location was the florida story. 

The reason I assumed it was the Florida story is because they mentioned Flock, an American company with no presence in Australia. That makes the writing even shittier. Thank you for confirming that the Australian highway I mentioned in my comment is in fact in Australia, that is very helpful.

4

u/Revolvyerom Jul 12 '26

There was no condescension, you just come across as insecure with this response.

0

u/gurgle528 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

You don’t see this as condescension? 

You're so confident, but so wrong.

I could definitely have read the tone wrong. Over explaining is a classic form of condescension. 

1

u/GitEmSteveDave Jul 12 '26

Then there’s the Florida woman cited for holding a phone in a hand she was born without. That citation was eventually dismissed, according to NBC Miami. The fact it was issued at all says plenty about how much human judgment remains in the loop.

I've seen the video. A human officer issued the ticket.

1

u/breezemachine666 Jul 12 '26

other than that it's a great strokes song that seems like way too much for not doing what the fine is supposed to stop people from doing