Flint Ironstag: But 1 in 8 cars on the road are uninsured. So clearly they have not been detected by any cameras. So the "camera on every street" myth is obviously just that, a myth.

Or, y'know, restricted to higher-population areas. Which is the actual case, apparently.

unyon: olddinosaur: England is like a time machine, everything they do there now happens here later.

Then you should probably pay more attention to what happened to her empire.

Rest assured I do, and it scares hell out of me.

lohphat: Wait a sec.

In CA you can't get gas without pre-paying by card or cash. What's a "drive-off" if you mandate pre-pay?

You must carry a record of insurance while driving unless stopped by a LEO.

Why not just mandate proof of insurance with the annual renewal and skip the cameras?

From what the article says the cameras are there to prevent people from driving off without paying, but now they are going to be used to also check for insurance before you can pump gas.

I know the cameras do work to keep people from driving off without paying. In my area word got out that people were being arrested at their homes because they were caught on camera driving off without paying, those drive offs fell down to almost none.

However I think using them to check for insurance will only cause delays at the pump and lead to people not being able to get gas because their paper work was messed up or the system wasn't updated with their info.

ongbok: This is a stupid idea. You know that all this is going to do is cause problems because the records aren't going to be updated in a timely fashion. So you are going to have people who have insurance not being able to get gas because either the insurance company farked up or the government farked up. Either that or you are going to have delays in the system that turn a 5 minute stop for gas into a 20 minute stop. I would hate to be the customer service phone monkey that has to field these calls all day. The officials that come up with this shiat never stop and think about this type of stuff.

Good point. We have a problem here in the U.S. with people having warrants issued against them for tickets they already paid, I can just imagine what a clusterfark this would be.

lohphat: Wait a sec.

In CA you can't get gas without pre-paying by card or cash. What's a "drive-off" if you mandate pre-pay?

You must carry a record of insurance while driving unless stopped by a LEO.

Why not just mandate proof of insurance with the annual renewal and skip the cameras?


It's already mandatory to present your insurance certificate when paying your annual road tax. I guess a lot of people just let their insurance expire and don't renew in a timely fashion? Or maybe the don't pay road tax either.

albatros183: /// 1984 was 10 years ago

That explains why my computer made horrible screeching noises for thirty seconds before I could log onto the Information Superhighway.

Now I can surf the net and discover the joys of the James T. Kirk Singalong Page, Mr T. Ate my Balls, and of course Mirsky's Worst of the Web. Or maybe pick up a few new Doom WADs and Second Reality by Future Crew.

/good times

Sgygus: Insurance should be paid for by the gallon, at the pump.

/a good old idea that never seems to go anywhere

I make that point from time to time and most people who hear it get all derpie on me.

\But nothing compared to when I mention that the government could issue it's own credit/debit cards to people and reap the 3% charges from merchants instead of the banks.

Am I the only one who read this part about it photographing and logging the plates?

That's just a small step from the iris scanners from Minority Report. Why do the Brits let this happen to themselves?

Greymalkin: gweilo8888: ...

Ok, now let us pretend that the ridiculous hypotheticals you have presented actually ever happen.

Compare to the figures in the article: "around 160 people are killed and 23,000 injured by uninsured and untraced drivers every year."

Are you seriously suggesting that your scenarios (or similar) would happen 23,000 times a year? Or even 160?

Yes I am aware even if this system was in eve ...

I had the same thoughts. Uninsured drivers are a menace. If someone can't afford insurance they certainly can't afford to cover someone else's medical or property costs, and there's a good chance that there are other reasons they shouldn't be driving. If they hit another car or run someone over, they're gonna book it, and there is not much that the law or your own insurance can do for you if this happens. Uninsured motorist coverage in the U.S. can take care of part of it but it usually carries high deductible and has a low limit. A pedestrian who is a victim of hit-and-run is on their own unless the driver can be tracked down.

Really, what are the chances of needing to drive an uninsured car in an emergency AND needing gas to get to a hospital, especially compared to the risk that uninsured drivers cause?

Flint Ironstag: Country Member: Gord, it's kinda sad that the Brits who so gallantly stood up against the Kaiser, and then the Nazis at such an enormous cost to safeguard freedom in the world are now so willing to roll over in the face of the actual realization of Orwell's nightmare without so much as a whimper.

America has the No Fly List. America won't let its citizens visit Cuba. America makes it's citizens pay income tax even if they live abroad. America makes it's citizens carry ID when they drive. America made all its citizens show a passport when crossing the land border to its neighbour. (Drive from Northern Ireland to Ireland and the speed signs changing from MPH to KMH is the only clue you are now in a different country)

Why did you allow all that to happen?

You make valid points, however your assumption that I'm an "American" is incorrect and as such I didn't allow any of these things to "happen".

all the good names are gone: That's just a small step from the iris scanners from Minority Report. Why do the Brits let this happen to themselves?

For the same reason Americans let the people who looted their economy roam free.

Country Member: You make valid points, however your assumption that I'm an "American" is incorrect and as such I didn't allow any of these things to "happen".

Would we be correct to assume that the reason you didn't offer your actual nationality was that you're aware a similar list of issues could still be compiled, thus undermining the point you're trying to make?

all the good names are gone: Am I the only one who read this part about it photographing and logging the plates?

That's just a small step from the iris scanners from Minority Report. Why do the Brits let this happen to themselves?


Err, yeah...

Why are Americans so prone to exaggeration?

davidphogan: I worked at a gas station. The owners would make us pay when someone drove off after filling up, but we weren't allowed to change the rules to require customers to pay first.

If the owners are still allowed to charge me for $30 cause some asshole drive off with a tank of gas and I couldn't stop them (I wasn't allowed to try) I'm okay with this. That or go with the easy answer, and require people pre-pay?

My dad worked at a gas station in the 70's and it was the same policy. If you let someone drive off then the amount came out of your paycheck. If someone didn't have the cash on them he would take collateral of something with a greater value than the bill so they could go get money and come back to pay it. He only got burned by one person but the collateral in that case was a cool wooden billy club, my dad still has it to this day :)

More recently I went on a thanksgivings day trip with my fiance and her family. Gas stations down south seemed a little sketchy when we wanted to top off the tank and then pay afterwards (almost as if it was unheard of) but this was a rented van and I didn't know how much I needed to fill it up all the way. A couple of them required one of us to stay inside with the cashier until we paid, others held on to my drivers license and wrote down the plates.

Greymalkin: Ok, now let us pretend that the ridiculous hypotheticals you have presented actually ever happen.

Compare to the figures in the article: "around 160 people are killed and 23,000 injured by uninsured and untraced drivers every year."

Are you seriously suggesting that your scenarios (or similar) would happen 23,000 times a year? Or even 160?

Yes I am aware even if this system was in eve ...

The hypotheticals are intentionally ridiculous to make a point, and because most folks on this site have a sense of humor. Will lesser hypotheticals play out, and especially people who actually do have insurance getting shut down by a system that won't be able to handle data errors? You're damned skippy they will.

Somebody getting hypothermia because they had to walk to help when their car ran out of gas in BFE the middle of the night, and the system wrongly denied them gas even though they carried insurance? That's very believable. Somebody getting hit by another car when they were walking on the side of a winding, unlit road without hi-vis clothing, because they didn't plan to be without their car? Equally believable. The chances that people will occasionally risk injury or worse from this system are there, whether or not you care to admit it.

There is absolutely no need for the system as described, because it is placed in the wrong area. Where it belongs is in police cars, which pretty much everybody passes with fair regularity, meaning you're just as likely to get caught, if not more so. (You'd need to place cameras in a hell of a lot fewer cop cars than you would gas stations, for near-100% national coverage.) Then the cop stops you and removes your vehicle if you don't have proof of insurance. That way, you have an opportunity to argue when the system inevitably makes mistakes. You provide proof, you leave unharmed apart from a brief inconvenience explaining yourself.

You know, innocent until proven guilty. Not the reverse, which is what this idiotic system is.

And your argument is a straw man. Uninsured drivers aren't more likely to have an accident than insured ones. If anything, they're less likely, just for the very fact that they know that if they get caught, they are way up shiat creek without a paddle, and if they have an accident, they're almost guaranteed to get caught. Hence getting uninsured drivers off the road doesn't increase the fatality rate any more than getting an insured driver off the road would, and arguably less so. The UK has socialized healthcare, and so the amount of insurance the driver carries means little to nothing to the victim's chances of survival, either.

And for some figures to counter yours, a recent Telegraph article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8867072/Road-deaths-rise-for- first-time-in-five-years.html

Assume similar levels year-round (a fair thing to do, as accident rates are likely higher in winter, not lower, given icy roads) and you have 2,000 fatalities a year on UK roads. Your 160 caused by the uninsured sounds pretty small now, doesn't it?

Hence all it means is that you're more likely to get your damages covered if there's an accident with another driver. But then, you can already get uninsured driver coverage for a pittance. And so all you're really saying is "I think that some people other than myself should occasionally be inconvenienced by a system that will wrongfully revoke their right to drive, and should in extreme circumstances risk injury or death so that I can save the small amount of money I pay for uninsured driver coverage."

And that, good sir, is pretty pathetic.

Gothnet: all the good names are gone: Am I the only one who read this part about it photographing and logging the plates?

That's just a small step from the iris scanners from Minority Report. Why do the Brits let this happen to themselves?


Err, yeah...

Why are Americans so prone to exaggeration?

Exaggeration? Brits already HAVE the iris scanners from Minority Report. I should know; I'm a Brit, and I had to have my iris scanned the last time I went on a short domestic flight from Gatwick to Edinburgh. A *domestic* flight, for god's sakes -- it's not much beyond getting on a bus, and needed an iris scan to achieve.

Flint Ironstag: Country Member: Flint Ironstag: Country Member:

You make valid points, however your assumption that I'm an "American" is incorrect and as such I didn't allow any of these things to "happen".

My bad. Apologies. I checked a few people's profiles before I replied but didn't check yours.
~
Awwwww. Isn't that sweet.

ongbok: I know the cameras do work to keep people from driving off without paying.

Yeah, but it's not an automated system, right? The station attendant has to figure out that someone didn't pay, then they can review the tape to find the driver. The cameras mostly act as a deterrent.

I once accidentally drove off from a UK station without paying, because I've always lived in big-city suburbs in the US and have rarely if ever seen a pay-after station, so I just forgot. (really. I just assumed if the gas was in the car, I must have already paid for it)

I figured it out before I was even off the station property and drove back to the same pump, then went in and paid. The next few times I entered the UK I wondered if immigration was going to pull me aside.

Uninsured does not necessarily equal bad driver. Sometimes it just equals broke and or unlucky. Know a guy, good driver but uninsured due to unemployment. So naturally he's been hit twice in the past year by insured drivers driving like fark heads. Which means his cost of insurance goes up simply for other people's stupidity, so he wont be getting insurance any time soon.
All that to say, insurance is too dang expensive and memphis TN drivers suck

For extra funny ...

I think it may have changed recently, but last I checked in the UK you could buy a plate with any number on it you liked ... walk into Halfords (c.f. AutoZone) and ask for it - in the UK the specs and font are standardized but plates are made privately, and most car dealers and parts stores have the equipment.

"That's why US plates clearly display the registration year (bright coloured sticker on the plate itself)"

There are still bass ackwards states that tag plates? I'm shocked.

Flint Ironstag:
Does mean the Police have to more or less trust us since we do not have to carry any insurance, registration, driving licence etc. If we are stopped the cops can ask our name and address and check that with the records but we don't have to show them anything.

Well, there are these ....

Flint Ironstag:

Why do Americans allow themselves to be forced to carry ID when driving? Why do Americans (in many states) allow themselves to be legally forced to give a Cop their name and address if asked? Why do Americans (in many states) allow themselves to be forbidden to video a police officer in public?

Brits do not have to carry a driving licence, insurance, registration or any ID when driving. Brits do not have to tell a cop their name unless and until they have actually been arrested for a specific offence. There have been British cops who stopped people from videoing them, but the law and official Police policy is that the public have the right to film them. In some US states the official policy is that Americans do not have that right.

How do citations work over there?

Here in the US you don't actually have to carry your drivers license on you. There is probably a law somewhere in the system that says you have to but if you know your social security number then an officer can look you up in the system through those means.

On a side note, I was pulled over by a Missouri State Highway Patrol officer this past weekend for not wearing my seat belt. He asked me to take a seat in the front passenger seat of his car while he was filling out the paperwork and I noticed a small camera inside his cruiser. I wondered if they are using it to build a larger database of faces since normally they'd only have you on file through mugshots

The Numbers: DssDevl: That's it, folks, Just keep giving away your freedoms in silence.

Just curious, what freedom is being given up here?

You don't consider being tracked by a camera losing freedom? Remeber, this is a camera that thinks and can change your actions.

Everything phases.

Start at uninsured motorists, end at?

Start with aerial drones that simply observe
Get to aerial drones that shoot missiles,
End with thousands of aerial drones above our country.
(above example has already occurred in full)

Start with Taser will only be used in place of officer pulling a firearm
End with COMPLY NOW ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT
(above example has already occurred in full)

/no foresight?

OhLuverly: Uninsured does not necessarily equal bad driver. Sometimes it just equals broke and or unlucky. Know a guy, good driver but uninsured due to unemployment. So naturally he's been hit twice in the past year by insured drivers driving like fark heads. Which means his cost of insurance goes up simply for other people's stupidity, so he wont be getting insurance any time soon.
All that to say, insurance is too dang expensive and memphis TN drivers suck

His rate went up because someone else hit him? Byzantine.

I've been in TX 12 years and have yet to figure out US underwriting ... I've made one at-fault claim, and the premium didn't go up. My weekend super car's premium is less than the one for the wife's shopping car, same policy.

Sgygus: Insurance should be paid for by the gallon, at the pump.

/a good old idea that never seems to go anywhere

How would the pump know what insurance group your car is in...?

Tenatra: Here in the US you don't actually have to carry your drivers license on you. There is probably a law somewhere in the system that says you have to but if you know your social security number then an officer can look you up in the system through those means.

Oh I guess I should also say that this is flawed and shouldn't be used as a method though. If they use your social instead of an ID then they are going to say your full name and SSN over the radio. Since it can be picked up on scanners you run the risk of being a victim of identity theft.

Tenatra:
"Brits do not have to carry a driving licence, insurance, registration or any ID when driving. Brits do not have to tell a cop their name unless and until they have actually been arrested for a specific offence."

How do citations work over there?


The "offense" can be driving without insurance. UK police have a whole load of vans which read number plates as cars pass by. If you get flagged as 'no insurance' they pull you over. If you can't prove you have insurance they take your car away and you go walking home.

This is just a logical extension of that system. And a good one, too. There's far too many morons out there who think the system only applies to them when they're claiming benefit money.

OTOH car insurance went up by 40% in the UK last year because of all the insurance fraud, mostly done by organized crime. If they keep it up it'll soon be too expensive to drive over there.

DssDevl: The Numbers: DssDevl: That's it, folks, Just keep giving away your freedoms in silence.

Just curious, what freedom is being given up here?

You don't consider being tracked by a camera losing freedom? Remeber, this is a camera that thinks and can change your actions.

What you need to remember is that these are private businesses and as such will probably all have posted signs reminding you that they reserve the right to refuse to serve you. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure I don't have a right to be sold fuel or to dictate the manner in which that sale takes place.

I am, however, free to choose not to enter such premises and I'll still retain that freedom.

Flint Ironstag: I understood you had to carry your licence while driving? I've even seen quite a few articles linked on Fark where cops have demanded a driving licence from people in shops or walking on the sidewalk.

The license only really serves its' purpose to identify you and in the system it is used to track points against your license. Both your SSN and license are tied together which means that they are able to look you up either way. After you are pulled over they will go to their car and get on the radio with dispatch. If you have your ID, then they will broadcast your name but if your social is used then that will be used as the method over the radio so you can be found in the database.

What they really want is to know if you have a suspended license and/or a warrant out for your arrest.

Waiting for the FOLLOWUP where some perfectly legal car/driver has tags misread (I for a 1, or 0 for an O, etc.) on his way to work, job interview, family emergency and is denied gas.... then the attendant gets the shiat kicked out of him for 20 minutes.

/or the guy really looses it, drives over the pumps and the place goes all Ramboesk

All these stupid plans seem pretty retarded to me, It should be a simple '2 strikes and your out' system.

If you get caught without insurance, same with Phoning/Texting while driving, DUI, using false plates to evade charges etc, it should be an instant 5 year ban, if you get caught driving during the ban, you go to jail.

Seems logical to me, of course there would be a right to appeal if you have extraordinary circumstances, but anybody using the 'I need my car for my job' excuse can fark right off.

Wouldn't it have been cheaper for the UK government to simply have a Universal Car Care just like they have Universal Health?

Just force everyone to pay the government to insure their cars.

They're already in the deep end. Might as well go full retard.

So Gitmo, the Patriot Act, Extraordinary Rendition, incarceration rates off the scale, the death penalty, religious nutcases in positions of power, no legal alcohol until you hit 21, custodial sentences for petty drugs possession, every cop armed: yup, what we need is more American Freedom over here.

archichris: Little.Alex: Sgygus: Insurance should be paid for by the gallon, at the pump.

/a good old idea that never seems to go anywhere



A good idea if you're trying to generate more insurance fraud.

No its a really good idea, pay $10 for a gallon of gas, get instant insurance, drive car out of station and into your brother in laws van full of family members.....everyone sues.....Profit.


Or you buy gas, intentionally hit your own brother's car, both claim whiplash, (emphasis on the h in whiplash ) then you take the $300 throw-away car to your Uncle's body shop; where he junks it but claims to have done $10,000 work on it.

And none of this is investigated any more than Welfare Fraud is - because it's another unmanaged government pile of money.

SickAsAParrot: All these stupid plans seem pretty retarded to me, It should be a simple '2 strikes and your out' system.

If you get caught without insurance, same with Phoning/Texting while driving, DUI, using false plates to evade charges etc, it should be an instant 5 year ban, if you get caught driving during the ban, you go to jail.

Seems logical to me, of course there would be a right to appeal if you have extraordinary circumstances, but anybody using the 'I need my car for my job' excuse can fark right off.

Yes, because if there's one thing America isn't doing enough, its sending people to jail.

/Your newsletter, kindly deposit it in the trash.