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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: 0s | 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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quamserena ◴[10 Dec 25 21:30 UTC] No.46224165[source]▶
Part of the public pushback is that people almost always drive the “feels like” speed and not the posted speedlimit. We build 6 lane roads and then wonder why people go 50mph when it’s 35 posted, it’s because it’s 6 lanes and 35 feels slow. Cities profit from this in the form of speed cameras, which is why they’ve been outlawed in a lot of places.
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asdff ◴[10 Dec 25 22:51 UTC] No.46225117[source]▶
The driver blithely keeping with the flow of traffic is not the one I am worried about. It is the one who is aggressively trying to cut through the flow of traffic while putting everyone and themselves in danger that I worry about.
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dylan604 ◴[11 Dec 25 01:11 UTC] No.46226411[source]▶
I love when cities time their lights so that aggressive drivers just get hit with waiting at a red light while driving the speed limit means hitting greens for long stretches.
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1. potato3732842 ◴[11 Dec 25 11:44 UTC] No.46230194[source]▶
Sure, some people will get hit with the reds. Some people will learn the timing and learn that you can run just one red and then hit all greens, or that it will save you 5+min if you hammer down and pull a "clearly not ok" pass to get around some idiot who's going too slow to make the green timing.

So yeah, you're reducing speeding, number go up, pat yourself on the back. But you're also increasing the incidence of something rarer than speeding, but way worse.

This is the same problem that 4-way stops at roads that don't deserve them create, you're basically teaching people that the signage is bullshit.