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Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

(alpranalysis.com)
239 points sodality2 | 1 comments | 10 Dec 25 17:42 UTC | HN request time: 1.372s | source

Built this over the last few days, based on a Rust codebase that parses the latest ALPR reports from OpenStreetMaps, calculates navigation statistics from every tagged residential building to nearby amenities, and tests each route for intersection with those ALPR cameras (Flock being the most widespread).

These have gotten more controversial in recent months, due to their indiscriminate large scale data collection, with 404 Media publishing many original pieces (https://www.404media.co/tag/flock/) about their adoption and (ab)use across the country. I wanted to use open source datasets to track the rapid expansion, especially per-county, as this data can be crucial for 'deflock' movements to petition counties and city governments to ban and remove them.

In some counties, the tracking becomes so widespread that most people can't go anywhere without being photographed. This includes possibly sensitive areas, like places of worship and medical facilities.

The argument for their legality rests upon the notion that these cameras are equivalent to 'mere observation', but the enormous scope and data sharing agreements in place to share and access millions of records without warrants blurs the lines of the fourth amendment.

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yannyu ◴[10 Dec 25 20:28 UTC] No.46223289[source]▶
I've thought about this a lot as I see more and more reckless driving in the areas I live in. Surveillance is generally a net negative, but it's also bad when you see people speeding around schools, rolling through stop signs, and running red lights. We seem to have a worst of all situations where traffic is getting increasingly difficult to enforce, driving is getting more dangerous year by year, and we're terrified of government overreach if we add any automation at all to enforcement.

I don't know the solution, but I do know that in the US we've lost 10-15 years of progress when it comes to traffic fatalities.

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aners ◴[11 Dec 25 01:18 UTC] No.46226479[source]▶
We have very few alternatives to driving in the US so we have very lax driver training and testing.

Across the US we have roads and infrastructure that encourage speed right next to decaying pedestrian infrastructure. It's very difficult to get state DOTs to roll back or do traffic calming. They often prohibit the use of bollards or barriers near these roadways.

In a lot, not all, physical changes to the environment could drastically reduce traffic fatalities without surveillance.

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1. shiroiuma ◴[11 Dec 25 08:22 UTC] No.46228918[source]▶
Yep, the US has built itself a car-centric society over the last century, and there's essentially no way to change that now without burning everything down and starting over from scratch. They can't make driver training too strict because too many people would fail, and then have no way to get to work, and then who knows what those people would do. They can't turn cities pedestrian-friendly without tearing down everything there now and just the legal hurdles there are immense. I just don't see a way for this to change meaningfully in a lifetime, outside of a few little pockets here and there (like some towns or cities creating extremely limited pedestrian-only zones, which would then need a lot of parking to be useful for people, basically like an outdoor shopping mall).