Although the title is link bait, this really doesn't surprise me.
Driving across the New Forest in the UK last summer I was "stalked" for half an hour by a couple of Apache helicopters. Every few minutes they'd pop up from behind cover or on the horizon somewhere, always pointing directly at my car.
Such practices, when startling or threatening, are straight-up assault. But same thing when cops stand on the side of the road in an aggressive posture while aiming their (radar) gun at anyone passing by. The moral imperative has little bearing on autonomous governments.
If you sail, you'll often be buzzed by military rescue helicopters too, practicing their approaches. Which is absolutely fine, if I ever need a helicopter to come rescue me (or a gunship to shoot the crap out of someone who's trying to shoot me!) I'm happy to have helped them train.
The A-10 warthog pilots used to practice on my employees' vehicles as they'd drive to visit a customer. The pilots work in pairs, each working back and forth over the vehicle from a different direction. It seems the strategy is that while one is wheeling to return the other is in mid attack.
You certainly feel you have their undivided attention. It helps if you pretend they aren't carrying live ammunition.
I've noticed this has happened more and more recently: an article with a link bait title makes it to the front page and then it gets it's name changed (im not sure if its changed by admins or submitters)
I've also noticed (from seeing the pre-change link-bait title and the post-change original title) that I would probably miss out on some interesting articles if it wasn't for link bait titles. (ie I agree with sibling DevX101)
So now I don't really see anything wrong with changing the title, as long as its done prudently. What's worse is blog authors that give their uninteresting articles link-bait names, then making it to the front page based not on the content of the essay but on the effectiveness of the title.
Civilians tailing civilians is one thing, but military tailing civilians had some legal problems[1]. I am not really happy they used one to execute what should be an illegal search for some cows in ND[2].
Isn't there an increase in cattle rustling in the prairie states?
Not saying the military should be directly involved, but I can see some org dedicated to finding rustlers using this technique as an option, if it's effective.
North Dakota didn't see the rise that other states did. That is probably from all the oil jobs in western ND.
The military is not supposed to be directly involved in civilian law enforcement. Effective is not a consideration at that point. It would cut crime a lot to have troops on every corner of Detroit, but that is not something that is good long term for the citizens of the US.
Wait until every police force has a dozen little drones in 2015 and they start paying for them by automatically generating (incontestable) speeding tickets.
If they WANT to write you a ticket, all they'll have to do is track you from home to work, as long as it takes and it will be perfectly legal, completely warrantless.
Is it wrong to not be bothered by this? I'll be disappointed if fully autonomous vehicles haven't started to hit the market by 2015. Stricter enforcement of manual driving rules should probably be a part of that.
I'm not saying I'm down with the idea of a government robot following me everywhere to see if I'm breaking the law, but I'm not very sympathetic to the idea that we have some sort of right to violate traffic regulations without consequence.
Safe driving is hardly a matter of speed compliance. It is noticing potentially tricky conditions 150 yards ahead and slowing down, or that you are blocking someone's merge and speeding up. It is slowing down in slick conditions, or in rain and congestion.
And I often find myself on empty highways in the early morning. With good tires and brakes, and a rested driver, why _shouldn't_ I go 100 miles an hour? Especially since I am off the gas well before anything that looks slightly sketchy.
Cruise control has made most drivers far stupider, as they surrender speed to the car and stop making the subtle adjustments to maintain or create buffers needed to be safe. Worse, they camp out in the left hand lane simply to avoid the necessity of those adjustments to accomodate merging traffic.
In theory, "autonomous" vehicles could drive faster and maintain those same buffers better than any set of human drivers. In practice, I expect those autonomies to be programmed to fit the preferences of a bunch of safety nannies and police departments determined to maintain ticketing revenues.
How are we supposed to separate the responsible, safe 100mph drivers from the irresponsible and unsafe ones? In most part of the US, practically everyone has a car and has to drive on the highway, so the cheapest, simplest solution is to set a limit that applies to everyone. I'm not convinced it's a particularly burdensome requirement, either. The faster you're going, the more the dangers increase, and I know too many people who, unlike you, are not safe drivers at high speed to be in favor of making it more accepted for them to drive 100mph in most places (though I have no problem with the 80mph, or potentially higher in the future, speed limits in certain parts of middle-of-nowhere Texas).
The rules can be quite burdensome. New York to Montreal is about 7 hours at regulated speed, over a well-maintained, straight highway through thinly populated territory, with very little traffic for those leaving at 5am. A good driver, in a proper car, with good weather, can easily and safely make the trip in less than 4 hours. That same driver will be well below the speed limit in bad conditions.
I recently saw a half-dozen police cars on that trip, all in a 200 mile stretch, on a fine early Saturday morning. They weren't out to ensure the safety of the traffic.
The essence of safety is situational judgment. And traffic law is already a matter of discretionary enforcement, on US highways police routinely ignore speeds up to 10mph over the limit. That discretion should be further deployed to spot and cite unsafe drivers: weavers, passing-lane congesters, bad-weather speeders, right-lane passers. But there is more work and less revenue in that, isn't there?
When you got your driver's license, you agreed to obey traffic regulations. Not some of the rules, some of the time, not only when you agree with the rules about what's safe, not unless you're in a hurry.
I'm not trying to say all the rules are right. Some of them should be changed (and consistent enforcement is a great first step toward that). But this idea that you have some right to not have them enforced because you find them inconvenient is absurd.
Say, when you decided to write in English, you agreed to obey the rules of grammar, which state that every sentence should have a subject, an object and a verb. Constructions such as "Not some of the rules . . . " etc break that rule.
And when you decided to pick a fight with me, you agreed to not put words in my mouth. Suggestions that I assert some right to not have the laws enforced upon me, when I made no such statement, or any statement of any kind about my rights, break that rule.
I'm not saying all these rules are right. But this idea (that is, that while lecturing others, you have some right to break those rules because you them inconvenient) is absurd.
> But this idea (that is, that while lecturing others, you have some right to break those rules because you them inconvenient) is absurd.
Heh. Protip: When criticizing style as a point of argument, make sure you don't accidentally a word.
I'd actually recommend against criticizing style at all, unless someone's paying you to do it for them. It's hard to do in good faith. But thanks for the help, anyway.
Any reader will know what I mean, which for my style here is enough, because I am not the one arguing for compliance.
And I'm not criticizing style "in good faith" but to make a point: the spirit of a rule is more important than its letter. Your agreement is obvious in the annotated violations of common rules of usage and argument.
I don't really care about your grammar. But putting words in my mouth irritated me enough to craft a snarky response.
You use "agreed" in a very slippery way. Agreement implies consent, but few consented to be governed by the rule "accept the rule or be fined if you choose to drive. And by the way, you get to pay for the roads either way you choose."
I say "few" because I'm sure there are some people who like this setup. Like maybe you for example.
I don't get it... is someone forcing you to drive on public roads? Was your driving examiner holding a gun to your head while you parallel parked? Does a State Trooper come to your door every two years and march you down to the DMV to renew under protest?
You have the same right to the roads as anyone else. You pass the test, you follow the rules, you're free to drive. Not wanting to follow the rules doesn't exempt you from them. Ever. I mean in what part of your life is that how it works?
(And pretending you don't benefit from public roads because you don't drive on them is crazy too. Where does your food come from? Your mail? Leave aside the craziness of the idea that you shouldn't have to pay taxes for things which don't directly affect you, which completely misses the point of taxation... An issue for another time, perhaps.)
Sorry, I don't have time to put in the requisite political theory, but in short, what gives the "public" the right to claim the entire continent, or indeed if you look at the issue correctly, THE ENTIRE PLANET unto their driving rules?
If you are genuinely curious then read some political theory. Such as John Locke's second treatise on government, and "For Individual Rights" (see Amazon).
I went to college, thanks. If you sincerely believe that government shouldn't have the ability to own or regulate the use of public lands, we're unlikely to have a productive conversation.
Colleges do not teach political theories contrary to the current mythology of our age, on the contrary, they pimp the theories favorable to the government they exist under.
A drone costs more than a helicopter. The FAA has ensured that the price isn't going to fall too far since their avionics has to be DO-178B class A rated. I.E. the same rating that passenger aircraft need to get.
Your comment is very interesting to me since the FAA has not yet publicly announced the rules for integrating UAS into the national airspace. Whats your source that DO-178B compliance is required?
As fully autonomous vehicles hit the market, I imagine there will be a good case to re-examine driving rules. Perhaps there will be autonomous-only lanes with different speed limits.
You assume of course they are going to be ticketing for 10mph over.
What if because of extra accurate military gps precision and laser "radar" they can ticket you for going 5mph over? How many times a day do you do that? Will you accept a $100 ticket for that? Your insurance rates going up every time you go 5mph over?
What if they aren't generating enough tickets so they decide to vary the speed limit up and down the same stretch of road or highway? Perfectly legal.
Then you develop two classes of citizens, those who don't care about $100 tickets so they speed all they want, and those who reach a point where they cannot afford to drive.
No, I assume (or rather hope) that traffic regulations will be enforced strictly, and that drivers will respond appropriately to the incentive and obey the law. I assume local regulatory boards will respond to any economic impact caused by the law by setting regulations that they intend to be followed consistently. I expect a period of confusion and litigation to give way to a much safer, saner roadway.
The current system of semi-arbitrary rules with extraordinarily selective enforcement is utterly inane, and has nothing to recommend it except that it may be somewhat safer than having no rules at all. But, again, I cannot comprehend where people get the idea that they have a right to ignore the rules when it suits them.
If 5mph (or 1mph over) over becomes the new 10mph over, I assume that everyone would adjust. I go 10mph over all the time, I go 15mph over less frequently, and 20mph over less frequently still. (And, of course, the real thrust of the post you're responding to was a desire for autonomous vehicles.)
That said, I think most current speed limits are too low, so I wouldn't like having to drive 5mph over instead of 10mph over, but I'm not terribly worried about it: I doubt that technological changes will be perfectly handled by legislation initially, but I expect things to work out to a serviceable state eventually.
It will not be used for road safety, it will be used to target dissent or people they don't like since there are so many traffic laws you are probably always breaking one.
You don't need a warrant to tail someone's car, especially to write them a speeding ticket. From Wikipedia, "In Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), the Supreme Court ruled that a search occurs when 1) a person expects privacy in the thing searched and 2) society believes that expectation is reasonable."
Society does not believe that it's reasonable to expect your speed to be private on a public highway, and so a "search" never takes place. (You're not being charged for a misdemeanor or felony anyway, so the Constitution is even less applicable.)
Personally, I think that stricter enforcement of speeding laws would be great. Eventually enough people will complain to get freeway speeds bumped up to something reasonable (how about 75?), and people driving fast on surface streets deserve what they get anyway. (Cities are extremely car-friendly with respect to speed limits; you're allowed to drive 35 on my tiny little side street in Brooklyn! 35!)
most speeding occurs on highways. Several states already use planes to monitor speeding on highways. The only difference is these planes will be unmanned...
In my view, the importance of this article is this question: 'Who watches the watchers?'
What does that mean exactly? Well, it seems to me that there are some people (authorities) in the US who would like to use drones for domestic policing and surveillance. While that may not be a bad thing in and of itself, it could be abused by someone who has a desire to abuse others.
So my takeaway is that transparency into domestic drone programs is a good thing. And I, for one, will not trust any domestic agency that wants to use drones without being truly transparent about what they want to use drones for.
Driving across the New Forest in the UK last summer I was "stalked" for half an hour by a couple of Apache helicopters. Every few minutes they'd pop up from behind cover or on the horizon somewhere, always pointing directly at my car.
I see no problem with it at all.