British motorists face spy-in-sky monitoring

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Stick or carrot?: The lack of vision being shown, can only be explained by an ulterior agenda.

While the technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and is capable today of these ?solutions?, the question of rollout coverage needs addressing. For example, what do you do with foreign cars? What about people who simply don?t wish to be spied upon? And I?m not talking about criminals here, just ordinary people. The right to privacy has seemingly gone out the window, in the sovereign rush to declare ?national security? against would be terrorists. Meanwhile, grandmothers around the land on their way to the shops had better watch out, lest they go to jail?

The comments regarding smoothing traffic flow are a question of degree. Yes, if they get just 1 car to modify its usage pattern, they can claim victory. But this is a clear case of spin. The truth is that many people work nine to five, and have no possibility to alter their usage patterns, regardless of carrots or sticks. And given that they are part of the peak hour, I suspect a great many people will be unfairly grouped into the stick category.

Yes, nice foresight there.

Now, having said this, perhaps one might ask, why are so many people on the roads in the first place? Perhaps a better approach might be this: Encourage people to work from home (plenty of remote work technology around today), and pay the businesses who comply a carrot. The burden of proof must lie with the business, with stiff penalties for fraud (I?m talking serious jail time for directors), and there may be a payoff in the peak hour commuters. And you know what, this could ultimately cost nothing. If we said ?the carrot is a lower tax burden?, then we could not only be better for business, better for the environment, and better for our mental health. How much money would be saved from that?

Similarly, have you ever noticed how when school holidays are on, it takes much less time to get to work? When will we see classes delivered via technology? Perhaps we could have a proportion of school students (e.g. a year, or maybe the entire school) who work from home? And if we can scale the technology, the cost of operating a school would greatly diminish, with benefits flowing back to the local community in the form of lower council taxes. Everyone wins.

Ultimately, I see this as a great opportunity. Yes, technology is there and can help us. But rather than employing it in a big brother solution to spy on motorists and raise revenue, if it were employed to liberate, and reduce costs, encourage business growth through lower taxation, improve our mental health, allow us to sleep in an extra hour in the morning, and generally save us money, then why not?

Government, use your power for good, not evil.; Posted by: roberto_maietta@... Posted on: 05/02/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use