Comments on: prosecuting mobile phone drivers

By: brian

brian — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:32:54 +0000

Repressive governments use surveillance to persecute free speech and victimless adult consenting behaviour that such states oppose, such as casual sex and recreational drug use. These social behaviours are fundamentally different to deliberately negligent or dangerous behaviour that has negative consequences for others, such as being distracted by mobile phones while driving and causing accidents. Your straw man argument conflating these two fundamentally different circumstances is not persuasive.

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By: Mark W

Mark W — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:19:51 +0000

I find this idea interesting but repulsive. Repulsive because if the idea were to take off where would it end. Governments everywhere but most especially repressive governments everywhere have always wanted the citizens to dob each other in. To be able to turn states informer, with such a low barrier of entry would surely lead to mission creep. Today it would be using a mobile tomorrow who knows what we would be encouraged to inform on. Already we have the slightly creepy tourism hotline, but if your proposal were to be implemented where would this end. What would society look like.

Sure talking and driving is bad, as a mostly pedestrian it scares me. But I seriously wonder if this crime is as harmful to society as what you are suggesting as a remedy. Turning everyone who has a phone and a grudge into a potential state stoolie is not representative of the sort of society I want to live in.

Pervasive surveillance is a fact of life, extending pervasive surveillance to all of the citizenry seems terribly 1984ish to me. I fear that in the dystopian future that you propose not only will Big Brother be watching you but little brother as well.

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By: anthony

anthony — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 06:24:35 +0000

interesting idea – i like it. but as you say, its elegance, simplicity & openness will be unlikely to take root in the suit-mentality in govt or police :(. i’ve thought about similar ‘dob-in’ schemes in the past related to other dangerous driving behaviour (after calling the ph# on a “we value safe driving…” sticker on the back of a company car, and finding it disconnected), but the practicality of collecting useful evidence is even harder than for cellphone-drivers.

as for basket-case Qantas, this year even more than last i think their attention is on “more important things”. add that to Boomer mentality, and, well…

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