Originally Posted by
B. Carfree
There was a time when motor vehicles were not required to have many of the safety features that are now mandatory, like lights. Time and experience march on to, hopefully, improve roadway safety. As you note, the worst motorists among us seem to also be prone to not taking responsibility for their ill deeds. This can be rectified by requiring the driver to "sign in" in order to make a car function. When there is probable cause that a car was involved in a hit and run, the driver can then be firmly established.
No one's due process rights are violated by this. However, it does strip people of their anonymity while operating deadly machinery, but there is no right to drive; it is a regulated privilege, thus such an intrusion should be Constitutionally permissible.
Let's face it, our current way of doing things involves an assumption that people are basically civilized and somewhat responsible citizens. Clearly there are far too many folks who don't measure up. I'm sick of giving them a pass, especially when that pass is written in the blood of cyclists, pedestrians and other innocent victims (even other motorists).
The alternative is that more and more of these crimes will be solved with the use of surveillance equipment. This will lead to even more public support for our trend towards a total surveillance state, since (almost) everyone likes it when an evil person who tries to get away with murder gets caught.
It's interesting, but in most hit and run cases the car itself isn't identified either. The case in this thread is more of an exception than the rule.
I have mixed feelings about the "surveillance state". I don't like it, but it isn't the surveillance itself that bothers me. It's the data mining. Years ago after a pattern of vandalism at my warehouse, I installed passive cameras that are focused on the street in front. They are not connected to the internet, and record with the file written over every 7 days or so. If nothing happens, it's a no harm, no foul situation because what's recorded will never be seen. OTOH, there's a record if there's a valid reason to examine it. In the years since I installed the system, I've never had a reason to see the recorded images. The motion activated lights, and possibly the sight of cameras seems to have solved the problem.
Nothing we do will stop the proliferation of video recording of public areas, so I think it's important to have a public discussion and establish policies about how long the images can be kept, whether they can be mined, what would justify saving and examining them, and how they would be used. This is one area where law in the USA is severely lagging behind technology.