Ideas

Some people need to be taken from the road indeed!!!
Tommy

THIS IS THE WORST IDEA EVER! You have just came up with a way to double the bad drivers on the road. now you have the bad driver and the driver paying attention to his license plate and trying to dial that number while still driving.

PLEASE DO NOT GO THOUGH WITH THIS IDEA.

I don't think using a camera phone is a good idea. Like Gods_Light said, it has the potential of being just as dangerous. Maybe the camera could somehow be mounted in/on the car, and then the phone could be used, just to press a single button to contact the police.

I totally agree with what you're saying about dangerous drivers though. I can't stand it when huge trucks drive only a few metres behind me on the highway.

i thought i gave a comment on this one few minutes back?

Anyway...I believe the INSPIRATION and the loosely pitch blew the good point this IDEA wanted to convey...thus earning GL's high pitch comment =) I really thought in the first instance that this IDEA has something to do with RFID again and hope to opine to Joyce's RAGS idea...with the data based hooked up with the authority.

I've thought that a sort of driver data-base would be a good idea, but... I don't know how to impliment it. Camera phones ARE dangerous, a hood mounted one expensive (though, I can see non-network advantages to it... a small & low-fps camera with a flash memory could come in handy after an accident), and I'm not sure who the information would benefit. You want to send it to the police, but of course they aren't really interested. Tracking down a person for bad driving is much more difficult than just pulling over the next bad driver they see (and they rarely do that! They usually just pull over people who it would be easy and profitable to ticket).

Don't see how it could do any good without huge infrastructure changes. But keep thinking on it! I know there's something there (or will be someday!)

Would you like the police calling you, because somebody didn't like how you merged into there lane ?? I think you would get other drivers making reports for nonsense therfore overloading the justice system!!

Who's going to have a camera phone mounted on their car just for the occasions when they want to report somebody's bad driving? If you want to take a cellphone picture and annoy the police by texting it to them just do it. No device required.

I'm resubmitting to IdeaWarz for ANDROID specific consideration. Lets presume we're either capturing video or photo here, and the app is intended to specifically report anti-social activity to police.

It would be like a "BAD GUY" app you launch. As soon as its running, the video and audio stream captured by your phone is headed to a website for review by police, and police are immediately notified.

Any GPS data the phone is collecting is also relayed. If the telco won't release cell tower triangulation data, then the police will have the caller's ID can request it directly from them.

This is basically what a phone SHOULD do when 9-1-1 is called.

At first, police won't be interested in this service. Chicken and egg. But after people start posting reports (users probably need to follow-up with a phone call to police) and alerting police to multimedia which supports their reports, the police will eventually start monitoring the website's RSS feeds.

Once the site gets non-stop reports, police will find it extremely helpful to monitor the site for a stream of multimedia crime-fighting goodness.

That's MY permutation on this idea. Feel free to comment on my take, or present your own.

What happens if you send a picture to 911 now with a mulitmedia phone? do they get it? does anyone know? anyone know a 911 dispatcher that would let us try it?

Acutally I want the police to spend less time with traffic and more time with other more serious problems.

Well I'd assume it would be serious if someone is going to actually fire off a photo or video clip to the police. Interesting question... directing a photo to 9-1-1. I'd imagine it would end up in the negasphere.

I've posted it on LinkedIn, shall see if anyone comments...
http://www.linkedin....340258?goback=%2Eahp

This doesn't have to be about traffic specifically. Its more about any 9-1-1 call where it would be helpful to have multimedia (and GPS data as cops probably get A-GPS at best) available to police.

I agree with LarsBell in that deluging the police with videos of questionable origin is probably counter-productive. However, I do have a strong belief in the power of shame. I think a lot of people drive badly for the same reason there are trolls on the internet: anonymity. Those bad drivers wouldn't cut off their friends or swerve dangerously in front of their mother. I think a site that allows you to easily post offender videos on the net and helps you index them to a location and link them to a person would be great. If people knew their bad driving (or any other anti-social behavior) would show up when they were googled, they might pay more attention to the road.

It would crash the police's server with all those images of bad driving. Just use your camera phone and upload the image to a single site that lets you rant over his bad driving. Actually I think someone already did this maybe?
http://drivehonest.com

This and some Road Rage Cards and you are set! http://www.roadragecards.com

Gordon,

You're idea is awesome!

People driving recklessly is a very important problem. Far more people are killed on the roads than in Afganistan and Iraq together. I know it would take time get it working smoothly, but it could be worth it.

Imagine someone driving recklessly and getting three reports in 20 minutes. The cops may be able to stop the driver before someone gets hurt, but regardless, three video reports should be sufficient evidence to prosecute.

I agree that it is a problem to try to video someone while driving, but depending on the circumstances, most people are going to try it anyway. And it is worth mentioning again that you don't have to be driving.

The website shame idea (drivehonest.com) is excellent too. Really, it has to build momentum there before law enforcement will take interest.

I have seen police systems that automatically check license plates with infrared cameras.

But, I think this idea would be ok for general safety. Like a panic button, not sure about driving. Though I can see you point.

Response via LinkedIn (how are photos sent via mobiles possibly handled by 9-1-1:

"When you send a photo, it is typically an attachment to an e-mail. Traditional PSAP systems would not be able to receive this as part of a 911 call. of course, they could have e-mail and would receive it that way. PSAP systems are advancing, especially with E911 so this situation may be changing."

VisionQuest~
"It would crash the police's server with all those images of bad driving."

I assume this would be an independent server initially (until police determine facilitating this themselves would be worth while). So while I am curious how 9-1-1 handles incoming mobile photos, to actually implement anything in this world, we're looking at a just-do-it approach where the posts are publicly visible and we'd assume police would review incoming posts.

DriveHonest.com is very similar to what I'd like to see. But RSS feeds, GPS tagging and less this-guy-is-a-jerk more just-the-facts.

Maybe the biggest problem is, in most cases we'd want people to use this service, them calling 9-1-1 is most appropriate. I wouldn't want to divert any panic calls from 9-1-1, but I would want a mobile device to help collect as much info as possible during a 9-1-1 call. It may not be that this is only used for 9-1-1... it might be not-panic but still something calling for a public record and police notification.

So its an app... that can be launched quickly on demand... but also gets automatically launched during a 9-1-1 call. But its CAN'T CAN'T CAN'T mess with the 9-1-1 call. If the app somehow crashes the phone, then its all bad.

I think this is an idea before its time. Too much technology can be bothersome.

Shaming is very powerful, but it might be most important eventually to simply log the events and factual data. Yes, it would be a disaster to crash a 911 call with data. Is it possible to split off a second independent data channel from a 911 call? I think they should already have a fast transfer to 411, or to the non-emergency police number, instead of reciting the number and not transfering a non-emergency call. Probably, a transfer does not free the line (another opportunity for improvement).

I see no reason why CH could not develop something that improved 911 functionality. It may require an unusual business model, but, so what.