It seems like it's not BusPatrol, but a company they acquired (Force Multiplier Solutions) that had corrupt leadership. I'm not sure how exactly that went down, or if the same people are still involved, but it does sound pretty bad. Apparently the corruption here caused the Dallas County Schools to go bankrupt and ultimately to be shut down and the school district split into other surrounding districts to take over.
This is the first that I'm hearing about this, but I don't think that your telling is quite right. The Dallas school district is "Dallas ISD", not Dallas County Schools.
Dallas County Schools was apparently a school bus service provider that served many different school districts in the area. I don't know why they named it that...
That situation looks pretty bad, but what happened was that a public school bus services provider went bankrupt, the school districts that it served became responsible for finding private replacement service providers, and residents of the service area had their property taxes raised to pay off the debt.
No school districts went bankrupt or were split up, just school bus service providers.
Ah, I had misunderstood this based on the first article saying that "Dallas County Schools" went bankrupt and was dissolved via a voter referendum. Based on its name and the apparent requirement of a vote, I had understood this intuitively to be a school district. Thanks for the clarification.
I guess once someone is a felon, they should never be allowed income? You might be right to criticize the company itself, but is their specific felonious behavior problematic (if so, you haven't spelled that out)? The way you say it, just the fact of them being felons is the problem.
That's not the problem. Wave a magic wand and have all cities walkable and bikeable and you'd still have school busses.
I suppose we could wave more magic wands and say "ok, everybody with kids has to live in a city whether they like it or not" and wave some more magic wands and eliminate all concerns about crime or other dangers, but if we're going to wave this many magic wands maybe we should just wave one that makes it so children don't need to go to school at all because they are all magically educated already.
I have the luxury of being relatively close to my kids’ schools and a grocery store and I’m also fit enough to bike and walk long distances. The only reason I can do this is because I work remote and we have the means to purchase a house almost wherever we want. However even I still drive a car frequently because it can turn a 30 minute walking trip into a 6 minute drive. Multiply that by the trips I take every day and it’s hours saved that I get to relax with my kids instead. Then there’s winter weather where biking becomes infeasible.
It’s not really possible to build a large city where everyone gets to live close enough to their job and their kids’ schools and the stores they need to go to, unless everyone is moving their house every time they want to change jobs.
The best we could do is robust public transportation. Whenever I hear calls to make everything walkable I can only assume the person hasn’t thought about all the people with kids, or who do work that can’t be done remotely, or who don’t want to move for every job, or who can’t afford to live in the nicest parts of town, or who live in places where winter weather would turn a 20 minute walk into a 1 hour hike, or who are too old or injured to be walking long distances, or all of the other reasons people drive cars. Maybe if you’re young, have no kids, and work a high paying job that lets you live wherever you want these ideas seem obvious, but some form of transportation, public or private, is a basic necessity for the rest of the world.
I don't know if that works in the EU but in the US most places are not a city and most places whilst technically walkable the kids will have to start walking at 4am and maybe they will get to school on time after walking along rural highways and on dirt roads. That would be incredibly dangerous, reckless and irresponsible.
As for tracking, I want more of it by individuals just not centralized corporations. The porch pirate bosses often park in front of my place to watch their minions of whom snatch packages around the time that kids are getting home. Some of the porch pirate minions drive vans and could easily snatch kids. I have been encouraging many of the people in my area to install cameras that log license plates and catch faces and vehicles in multiple directions of their roads and highways. We've removed some of the organized crime and pushed some of it out of this area and we will continue to push harder.
That does not make what I said not relevant. People are spread out across the country and kids in rural areas are just as valuable as kids in cities. I would never trust anyone that says otherwise. Also most of the land is not walkable in any realistic sense. Busses and cars are not likely going away for the duration of this short civilization. We will hit the great filter long before better options may have arrived.
It makes the phrase "most places are not a city" extremely misleading in terms of talking about school busses. The extreme majority of school busses and kids going to school do so in urban areas, i.e. in cities. Like, sure, over 40% of the US has zero inhabitants, so yeah "most of the US isn't cities". But its not like there are a lot of school busses and elementary schools in places where zero people live.
> kids in rural areas are just as valuable as kids in cities
I never said otherwise. I'm just pointing out its misleading to act like most of the US population live in rural areas.
> Busses and cars are not likely going away for the duration of this short civilization
The majority of this short civilization existed without busses and cars being a requirement. Seems strange it can't possibly exist without them now, or at least a significantly reduced societal need on them to have a basic functional existence for a decent chunk of the society.
I stand by my words. Most of the US is not a city and in those places are children. Cities have more children by area density is not relevant in my opinion. It's not misleading, it's a fact that people live in all areas not just in cities. But enough of this dance for today.
"City" and "urban" are not the same thing and you are all up and down these comments playing the overlap in colonial usage of those terms to essentially mislead people.
The census designation of rural is very stringent and you basically need more cows than people to meet it. That's where this "80% of the population is urban" stat you love to vomit up comes through.
Buuut, of that 80%, most do not live in any sort of "city" in the colonial sense though it may be called one on paper (because city vs town vs other is a state level administrative distinction)
The average and median american lives in some kind of suburb. It might be outer and not very dense. It might be inner and very dense. But at the end of the day it is somewhere that's not walkable/bike-able without being at a severe time disadvantage to car/bus transport in the typical (i.e. we're not talking about 1am leaving the bar) case.
> The census designation of rural is very stringent and you basically need more cows than people to meet it.
Not true. The census actually doesn't really bother to define rural other than "not urban". So then it comes down to what the urban definition is. The urban definition is:
> To qualify as an urban area, the territory identified according to criteria must encompass at least 2,000 housing units or have a population of at least 5,000.
> most do not live in any sort of "city" in the colonial sense
What do you even mean about "the colonial sense"?
> it may be called one on paper
Its called a city on paper because it is a city.
> The average and median american lives in some kind of suburb
Suburbs, which exist in cities, yes. That's how we've built our cities here in the US, as sprawling suburbs.
> But at the end of the day it is somewhere that's not walkable/bike-able without being at a severe time disadvantage to car/bus transport in the typical
I mean I agree with that, hence my first comment being "I do agree most students in the US arrive by bus or car". Is being walkable a requirement for a city to be a city?
Wish granted, now cameras are put up on every walk path and bus stop instead, as people keep getting robbed to/from the stores, so while the school buses aren't fitted with cameras, the streets are instead.
Condoning the surveillance state because it makes the things they want people to like less comparatively worse is exactly the sort of evil "use anything as leverage to advance my goals" behavior is exactly how we got here.
So someone introduces a new, problematic feature to a long-existing technical system, and your answer is to "just" reorganize all of society to eliminate that system?
But those people don't even have the option, so what do you mean they prefer to not walk/bike? How pleasant walking/biking will be is linked to density, reduced distance to amenities, and infrastructure, things almost no US cities have.
I live blocks from Costco in one of those cities but the option is either get on my bike and share the four-lane road with aggressive drivers in massive trucks/SUVs or use a tiny sidewalk that randomly stops and picks up again a block or two later.
It's not relevant. If the word Costco is too distracting to interact with my point, then replace it with any place you might want to go in a day.
The lack of infrastructure is what makes the routine unpleasant, not failing to carry a small bag of bagels home. Not even the weather since riding a bike casually creates a breeze.
My point was that if you want to bike to get things you need, you have to go to places that are on more local scale.
A place like Costco can only exist with the support of a large amount of car infrastructure. So if you want to go there that's what you have to deal with.
Costco happens to have a couple products I want that I used to bring back by bike until I decided it wasn't worth it unless I was already walking back from the cafe near it.
Swap Costco out with any place I might want to go, and my point doesn't change because whether I can carry a bag of six bagels or eat a pizza in their food court isn't up for debate.
You got one-shot by a triviality. The argument is not whether Costco should be the one building built in more density acoss our cities but whether our cities are hospitable to walking/biking.
Costco just happens to be an example of a business I used to like to bike to near me, but it's adjacent to many other businesses I could have mentioned instead like restaurants, a cafe, and my friend's apartment, not the sole reason the streets exist around it.
I've lived next to the bicycle lock-up area of an elementary school for over 20 years. In all those years I've never seen a single bicycle, not once. Of course, every morning and afternoon my neighborhood is grid-locked with minivans, but yeah, no bicycles.
I, for one, do not wish to smell my malodorous coworkers - who have walked or cycled to work and are all sweaty - all day. I already have one of them and it makes me want to vomit.
There are ways to gently inform the person(s) of your discomfort. If communicated well, it can be settled. In one case I dealt with, body odour of someone on my team was causing another person distress, but some gentle, kind advice (yes, it was embarrassing as hell so we did it in private) and a quick trip by him to the shops for some deodorant resolved the problem almost instantly. Here's hoping.
Man if only there was a solution to this. It's almost as if we could design our environment to minimize this (bike- and pedestrian-friendly routes) and then deal with the aftermath if it happens anyway (showers).
I do not consider employers that do not offer showers.
Yeah, we need to further normalize and require people never spending any time outside. I'm sure that'll go well for our society.
The world will be great once we wealthy people move to the giant dome cities where we can rid ourselves of the requirements of being outside from time to time.
Why does everyone suggest this like it's easily done and the only reason that we haven't is due to lack of intelligence and/or will?
It's not. It's an effort that will take decades, cost trillions of dollars, and will face both legislative and legal hurdles.
Besides, with individual trait recognition technology and smartphones, you'll just be tracked regardless. You have to hold leaders to account for this sort of abuse of power.
Yes, this is concerning. But there's also the other side. Some of the little miscreants who shared my bus ride were positively nasty. Some surveillance would have helped a number of people avoid bullying.
That's too generous. It is a propaganda piece by the driver lobby using a hypothetical, fabricated privacy argument to further the central driver lobby goal of total impunity.
While I'm sympathetic to a lot of privacy concerns, how hard is it to simply not be an asshole and not pass school buses when they have their flashing lights out?
Also, every car with a dashcam or built in cameras is basically already this. Where I live every intersection has cameras. Most of the buildings. It's not like this is anything new and honestly, probably a better use of cameras than most of the other applications.
> how hard is it to simply not be an asshole and not pass school buses when they have their flashing lights out?
As a parent with children who take the bus... this actually doesn't matter. You can't assume that the car's owner is passing the school bus. So, this is a case of finding someone guilty with no physical evidence. And the real fear there is that suddenly you are guilty because someone else was using your Wi-Fi, and you suddenly have the burden of proof to prove your innocence.
> Where I live every intersection has cameras.
And now you are guilty of crimes. Prove you didn't do them.
b) when it does it's usually some stupid situation where robotic adherence to the lights is in poor taste (like a bus picking up or discharging an entire team on a right side curb, or a divided median) albeit legally mandated.
c) School bus drivers already radio in plate numbers of anyone who does it in poor taste and the buses mostly already have dashcams so this isn't really solving a problem
You do not have to stop for a bus if there is a divided median and you're opposing traffic. For the team example, you don't know if someone from the team is going to cross the street so of course you still stop. "This is taking too long" is not a realistic reason to pass a school bus with a giant flashing stop sign on the side of it.
The existence of a license plate indicates that motor vehicle travel is not intended to be untrackable. That makes sense since these are powerful devices. It seems like a fair trade off since a motor vehicle provides many benefits but also high risk.
In a vacuum, I agree. But, license plate readers aren't limited to investigating crime/misuse of vehicle, nor are they limited to the government.
Tracking vehicles and linking that movement to individual movement (and spending and browsing and and and) used to be massively expensive, if not impossible.
Now all that tracking is "cheap" and being done at scale for all sorts of reasons.
Why stop at tracking license plates? Once you've started you should report on pedestrians, bikes, whether people are at-home, which building people are entering, the way they walk and many more. Those are all "alternative revenue streams" that are as valid from the operator/investor point of view and completely unrelated to whether the way of transportation or activity is meant to be untrackable or unrelated to a way of transportation at all.
There is also a factor of scale: a cop can follow you, but a system where everyone is monitored 24/7 is a very different story.
No, that's ridiculous. The number plate on a car is explicitly designed to be read from a great distance, to achieve public policy goals that offset the large and many social costs of cars. The function of the license plate is to identify the vehicle under real traffic conditions at a distance of at least 100 feet, day or night. Whatever identifying documents you may choose to carry do not have that same function.
This has been an ongoing concern (internal surveillance of children and drivers, external of other traffic) for at least two months now:
* They're Putting AI Cameras In School Buses (April 7th 2026) - https://www.usermag.co/p/theyre-putting-ai-cameras-in-school
* School bus Driver Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoAvL1MoTIA
Look up the history of this company, bus patrol - they're felons and in prison.
I read a few different articles such as https://www.thenewspaper.com/news/67/6717.asp and https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/corrupt-public-official-sen...
It seems like it's not BusPatrol, but a company they acquired (Force Multiplier Solutions) that had corrupt leadership. I'm not sure how exactly that went down, or if the same people are still involved, but it does sound pretty bad. Apparently the corruption here caused the Dallas County Schools to go bankrupt and ultimately to be shut down and the school district split into other surrounding districts to take over.
This is the first that I'm hearing about this, but I don't think that your telling is quite right. The Dallas school district is "Dallas ISD", not Dallas County Schools.
Dallas County Schools was apparently a school bus service provider that served many different school districts in the area. I don't know why they named it that...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_County_Schools
That situation looks pretty bad, but what happened was that a public school bus services provider went bankrupt, the school districts that it served became responsible for finding private replacement service providers, and residents of the service area had their property taxes raised to pay off the debt.
No school districts went bankrupt or were split up, just school bus service providers.
Ah, I had misunderstood this based on the first article saying that "Dallas County Schools" went bankrupt and was dissolved via a voter referendum. Based on its name and the apparent requirement of a vote, I had understood this intuitively to be a school district. Thanks for the clarification.
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Who'd have thought a bus company would run buses for the various applications that buses are used for.
That point-of-view doesn't soothe anyone alarmed by expansion of warrantless law enforcement surveillance.
Anyone can record anything in public in the US, for better or worse. Change the laws if you think it's a problem.
TIL - the purpose of buses is mass surveillance. SMH.
I guess once someone is a felon, they should never be allowed income? You might be right to criticize the company itself, but is their specific felonious behavior problematic (if so, you haven't spelled that out)? The way you say it, just the fact of them being felons is the problem.
Never being allowed income and getting contracts for mass surveillance are not the same thing.
Perhaps not managing AI camera systems that track children. There are plenty of other career options.
I wish i still had the capacity to be surprised by anything
Maybe design cities to be walkable and bikeable so that you have the option get things done without driving a car which is inherently trackable?
That's not the problem. Wave a magic wand and have all cities walkable and bikeable and you'd still have school busses.
I suppose we could wave more magic wands and say "ok, everybody with kids has to live in a city whether they like it or not" and wave some more magic wands and eliminate all concerns about crime or other dangers, but if we're going to wave this many magic wands maybe we should just wave one that makes it so children don't need to go to school at all because they are all magically educated already.
Much of the world operates without dedicated school buses. Kids use public transit or walk or whatever, just like other residents.
I have the luxury of being relatively close to my kids’ schools and a grocery store and I’m also fit enough to bike and walk long distances. The only reason I can do this is because I work remote and we have the means to purchase a house almost wherever we want. However even I still drive a car frequently because it can turn a 30 minute walking trip into a 6 minute drive. Multiply that by the trips I take every day and it’s hours saved that I get to relax with my kids instead. Then there’s winter weather where biking becomes infeasible.
It’s not really possible to build a large city where everyone gets to live close enough to their job and their kids’ schools and the stores they need to go to, unless everyone is moving their house every time they want to change jobs.
The best we could do is robust public transportation. Whenever I hear calls to make everything walkable I can only assume the person hasn’t thought about all the people with kids, or who do work that can’t be done remotely, or who don’t want to move for every job, or who can’t afford to live in the nicest parts of town, or who live in places where winter weather would turn a 20 minute walk into a 1 hour hike, or who are too old or injured to be walking long distances, or all of the other reasons people drive cars. Maybe if you’re young, have no kids, and work a high paying job that lets you live wherever you want these ideas seem obvious, but some form of transportation, public or private, is a basic necessity for the rest of the world.
I don't know if that works in the EU but in the US most places are not a city and most places whilst technically walkable the kids will have to start walking at 4am and maybe they will get to school on time after walking along rural highways and on dirt roads. That would be incredibly dangerous, reckless and irresponsible.
As for tracking, I want more of it by individuals just not centralized corporations. The porch pirate bosses often park in front of my place to watch their minions of whom snatch packages around the time that kids are getting home. Some of the porch pirate minions drive vans and could easily snatch kids. I have been encouraging many of the people in my area to install cameras that log license plates and catch faces and vehicles in multiple directions of their roads and highways. We've removed some of the organized crime and pushed some of it out of this area and we will continue to push harder.
> in the US most places are not a city
Most people in the US live in urban areas. Most US citizens live in cities. The urban population of the US is about 80% of the population.
I do agree most students in the US arrive by bus or car, but that's not because most US citizens live on farms off country highways.
That does not make what I said not relevant. People are spread out across the country and kids in rural areas are just as valuable as kids in cities. I would never trust anyone that says otherwise. Also most of the land is not walkable in any realistic sense. Busses and cars are not likely going away for the duration of this short civilization. We will hit the great filter long before better options may have arrived.
It makes the phrase "most places are not a city" extremely misleading in terms of talking about school busses. The extreme majority of school busses and kids going to school do so in urban areas, i.e. in cities. Like, sure, over 40% of the US has zero inhabitants, so yeah "most of the US isn't cities". But its not like there are a lot of school busses and elementary schools in places where zero people live.
> kids in rural areas are just as valuable as kids in cities
I never said otherwise. I'm just pointing out its misleading to act like most of the US population live in rural areas.
> Busses and cars are not likely going away for the duration of this short civilization
The majority of this short civilization existed without busses and cars being a requirement. Seems strange it can't possibly exist without them now, or at least a significantly reduced societal need on them to have a basic functional existence for a decent chunk of the society.
I stand by my words. Most of the US is not a city and in those places are children. Cities have more children by area density is not relevant in my opinion. It's not misleading, it's a fact that people live in all areas not just in cities. But enough of this dance for today.
> Most of the US is not a city
Nearly half is entirely unpopulated. Once again I don't get why that matters about the discussion of school busses in general.
Rural areas cover 80% of Europe by area. Its not like rural areas are a uniquely American thing.
"City" and "urban" are not the same thing and you are all up and down these comments playing the overlap in colonial usage of those terms to essentially mislead people.
The census designation of rural is very stringent and you basically need more cows than people to meet it. That's where this "80% of the population is urban" stat you love to vomit up comes through.
Buuut, of that 80%, most do not live in any sort of "city" in the colonial sense though it may be called one on paper (because city vs town vs other is a state level administrative distinction)
The average and median american lives in some kind of suburb. It might be outer and not very dense. It might be inner and very dense. But at the end of the day it is somewhere that's not walkable/bike-able without being at a severe time disadvantage to car/bus transport in the typical (i.e. we're not talking about 1am leaving the bar) case.
> The census designation of rural is very stringent and you basically need more cows than people to meet it.
Not true. The census actually doesn't really bother to define rural other than "not urban". So then it comes down to what the urban definition is. The urban definition is:
> To qualify as an urban area, the territory identified according to criteria must encompass at least 2,000 housing units or have a population of at least 5,000.
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...
> most do not live in any sort of "city" in the colonial sense
What do you even mean about "the colonial sense"?
> it may be called one on paper
Its called a city on paper because it is a city.
> The average and median american lives in some kind of suburb
Suburbs, which exist in cities, yes. That's how we've built our cities here in the US, as sprawling suburbs.
> But at the end of the day it is somewhere that's not walkable/bike-able without being at a severe time disadvantage to car/bus transport in the typical
I mean I agree with that, hence my first comment being "I do agree most students in the US arrive by bus or car". Is being walkable a requirement for a city to be a city?
Wish granted, now cameras are put up on every walk path and bus stop instead, as people keep getting robbed to/from the stores, so while the school buses aren't fitted with cameras, the streets are instead.
I'll take it a step further.
Condoning the surveillance state because it makes the things they want people to like less comparatively worse is exactly the sort of evil "use anything as leverage to advance my goals" behavior is exactly how we got here.
This isn't any more private. There are cameras with recognition tech just about everywhere now. If anything, this is less private.
So someone introduces a new, problematic feature to a long-existing technical system, and your answer is to "just" reorganize all of society to eliminate that system?
The vast majority of folks don't want to walk/bike in Phoenix, Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans, etc where it's near or over 100 degrees in the summer.
But those people don't even have the option, so what do you mean they prefer to not walk/bike? How pleasant walking/biking will be is linked to density, reduced distance to amenities, and infrastructure, things almost no US cities have.
I live blocks from Costco in one of those cities but the option is either get on my bike and share the four-lane road with aggressive drivers in massive trucks/SUVs or use a tiny sidewalk that randomly stops and picks up again a block or two later.
What are you going to buy at Costco that you can carry home on a bike?
In other words, if you want to bike to get your groceries, Costco is the wrong choice.
It's not relevant. If the word Costco is too distracting to interact with my point, then replace it with any place you might want to go in a day.
The lack of infrastructure is what makes the routine unpleasant, not failing to carry a small bag of bagels home. Not even the weather since riding a bike casually creates a breeze.
My point was that if you want to bike to get things you need, you have to go to places that are on more local scale.
A place like Costco can only exist with the support of a large amount of car infrastructure. So if you want to go there that's what you have to deal with.
Costco happens to have a couple products I want that I used to bring back by bike until I decided it wasn't worth it unless I was already walking back from the cafe near it.
Swap Costco out with any place I might want to go, and my point doesn't change because whether I can carry a bag of six bagels or eat a pizza in their food court isn't up for debate.
You got one-shot by a triviality. The argument is not whether Costco should be the one building built in more density acoss our cities but whether our cities are hospitable to walking/biking.
Costco just happens to be an example of a business I used to like to bike to near me, but it's adjacent to many other businesses I could have mentioned instead like restaurants, a cafe, and my friend's apartment, not the sole reason the streets exist around it.
Wait until you try putting a Costco-sized bulk package of something on a bike.
Interesting how both responses zoomed in on the one part of the comment that wasn't a problem for me and asserted that it was the problem.
Replace Costco with "some place I like to go" if that is less distracting.
I've lived next to the bicycle lock-up area of an elementary school for over 20 years. In all those years I've never seen a single bicycle, not once. Of course, every morning and afternoon my neighborhood is grid-locked with minivans, but yeah, no bicycles.
I, for one, do not wish to smell my malodorous coworkers - who have walked or cycled to work and are all sweaty - all day. I already have one of them and it makes me want to vomit.
There are ways to gently inform the person(s) of your discomfort. If communicated well, it can be settled. In one case I dealt with, body odour of someone on my team was causing another person distress, but some gentle, kind advice (yes, it was embarrassing as hell so we did it in private) and a quick trip by him to the shops for some deodorant resolved the problem almost instantly. Here's hoping.
There are many ways to avoid this. The problem is your co-worker, not cyclists.
Man if only there was a solution to this. It's almost as if we could design our environment to minimize this (bike- and pedestrian-friendly routes) and then deal with the aftermath if it happens anyway (showers).
I do not consider employers that do not offer showers.
Yeah, we need to further normalize and require people never spending any time outside. I'm sure that'll go well for our society.
The world will be great once we wealthy people move to the giant dome cities where we can rid ourselves of the requirements of being outside from time to time.
> Maybe design cities to be walkable and bikeable
Why does everyone suggest this like it's easily done and the only reason that we haven't is due to lack of intelligence and/or will?
It's not. It's an effort that will take decades, cost trillions of dollars, and will face both legislative and legal hurdles.
Besides, with individual trait recognition technology and smartphones, you'll just be tracked regardless. You have to hold leaders to account for this sort of abuse of power.
That's never going to be misused or anything... gross.
Yes, this is concerning. But there's also the other side. Some of the little miscreants who shared my bus ride were positively nasty. Some surveillance would have helped a number of people avoid bullying.
That's only true if the school will actually do something based the surveillance evidence. It seems many do not.
People who pass through red signals need a night or two in jail, not enhanced privacy protections.
True, but the article is complaining about other innocent people that might get caught in the surveillance dragnet.
That's too generous. It is a propaganda piece by the driver lobby using a hypothetical, fabricated privacy argument to further the central driver lobby goal of total impunity.
While I'm sympathetic to a lot of privacy concerns, how hard is it to simply not be an asshole and not pass school buses when they have their flashing lights out?
Also, every car with a dashcam or built in cameras is basically already this. Where I live every intersection has cameras. Most of the buildings. It's not like this is anything new and honestly, probably a better use of cameras than most of the other applications.
The concern is the sharing of such surveillance with law enforcement and other government agencies.
> how hard is it to simply not be an asshole and not pass school buses when they have their flashing lights out?
As a parent with children who take the bus... this actually doesn't matter. You can't assume that the car's owner is passing the school bus. So, this is a case of finding someone guilty with no physical evidence. And the real fear there is that suddenly you are guilty because someone else was using your Wi-Fi, and you suddenly have the burden of proof to prove your innocence.
> Where I live every intersection has cameras.
And now you are guilty of crimes. Prove you didn't do them.
> As a parent with children who take the bus... this actually doesn't matter
Huh? As a parent with kids who take the bus, people ignoring the flashing lights on buses absolutely does matter.
> this is a case of finding someone guilty with no physical evidence.
Bus drivers call the cops on the cars who do this already. What evidence do they have, other than the license plate?
a) it doesn't actually happen that often
b) when it does it's usually some stupid situation where robotic adherence to the lights is in poor taste (like a bus picking up or discharging an entire team on a right side curb, or a divided median) albeit legally mandated.
c) School bus drivers already radio in plate numbers of anyone who does it in poor taste and the buses mostly already have dashcams so this isn't really solving a problem
Source: bus driver in the family
You do not have to stop for a bus if there is a divided median and you're opposing traffic. For the team example, you don't know if someone from the team is going to cross the street so of course you still stop. "This is taking too long" is not a realistic reason to pass a school bus with a giant flashing stop sign on the side of it.
Happens more school days than not on my street.
a) it happens all the time
Source: actual statistics instead of just second hand reports from a single bus driver.
https://www.ghsa.org/resource-hub/school-bus-safety-action-p...
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Judging by the enthusiasm for hosted AI models and tools like Claude Code on Hacker News, I don't think people care much about surveillance anymore.
The existence of a license plate indicates that motor vehicle travel is not intended to be untrackable. That makes sense since these are powerful devices. It seems like a fair trade off since a motor vehicle provides many benefits but also high risk.
In a vacuum, I agree. But, license plate readers aren't limited to investigating crime/misuse of vehicle, nor are they limited to the government.
Tracking vehicles and linking that movement to individual movement (and spending and browsing and and and) used to be massively expensive, if not impossible.
Now all that tracking is "cheap" and being done at scale for all sorts of reasons.
Why stop at tracking license plates? Once you've started you should report on pedestrians, bikes, whether people are at-home, which building people are entering, the way they walk and many more. Those are all "alternative revenue streams" that are as valid from the operator/investor point of view and completely unrelated to whether the way of transportation or activity is meant to be untrackable or unrelated to a way of transportation at all.
There is also a factor of scale: a cop can follow you, but a system where everyone is monitored 24/7 is a very different story.
Just implant the AirTag on my body and share it with everyone ffs
99.99% of Americans have freely chosen to do this exact thing, so any concerns about this must be imaginary.
The existence of IDs indicates that people are not intended to be untrackable, whether on or offline.
This is a fair trade off, because…
By your logic, there can be no argument against universal web tracking, let alone universal purchase tracking, etc.
No, that's ridiculous. The number plate on a car is explicitly designed to be read from a great distance, to achieve public policy goals that offset the large and many social costs of cars. The function of the license plate is to identify the vehicle under real traffic conditions at a distance of at least 100 feet, day or night. Whatever identifying documents you may choose to carry do not have that same function.
What does being a powerful device mean in regards to location tracking? Safe operation tracking makes sense, but location doesn't.