However, there is a dark side to all this tech. When They begin to use the tech for the powers of evil, people must stand up to the machines. This week's evil technology is the red light cameras. Police officer-replacing gadgets suspended from street lights and charged with catching evil doers running red lights. The robots are taking over. You should all know this. It's well covered in the Terminator documentary series.
You may have surmised by now that someone I know was sent that letter in the mail detailing their infraction through text and images. That's true. My wife opened her letter this morning, and there, in vivid detail, were two pictures of the car moving through the light, undeterred by the change in color from cautionary canary to criminal crimson.
Luckily, they also included the date, because on that particular date - gasp! - my wife was not driving that car! We quickly called the municipal court in question, and the kind woman explained to me that the ticket was not really against my wife; it is against the car. This means that she won't get any points, nothing on her record, she just pays the $85 fine, and that is the end of it. At which point I asked, "Will the car have the ticket on its record?"
The question is glib to be sure, but certainly well within the bounds of reason. The car has no bank account. It would never be able to cover the debt it would owe to my wife. It can't pick up more hours at work, and it certainly can't speak up in its defense were this thing to go to trial. If the car is responsible for running the red light, is the car also responsible for the speeding of the driver that day? The report from the first image stated that the car was doing 58 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour zone. That seems a bit excessive.
What else can we pin on the car? Surely the car has been guilty of other, driving related missteps. I know for a fact that the car has parked on the wrong side of the street. That car has changed lanes at an intersection. That car has sped on other occasions. The car has operated with an expired inspection before, and it has also traveled the roads with a defective directional signal.
In our country, we hold people responsible for their actions, and they have the right to being innocent until proven guilty. My wife was not driving that car that day. She wasn't even in that car that day. The truth is that she hates that car. She doesn't ever drive it. She drives her big mom-mobile, and runs errands in an apartment on wheels. She is innocent, yet because her name is on the registration, she is being held responsible for something that she didn't do. When an innocent is told to plead guilty in the name of a machine with her name on it, I have to question the methods by which the law is being upheld and also the way punishments are handed down.
Before you, out there in reader-land, decide that this is an over-protective husband looking to get his darling wife out of a traffic ticket, you need to understand that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she wasn't driving. How can I be so sure? Because I was driving to work that day at that time at that intersection. I was speeding, and I tried to beat a yellow light. I apparently didn't. I also would have grudgingly pulled to the side of the road if an officer of the law saw me do it and encouraged me to take a driving break for quick color lesson. I would have taken that ticket, with my name on it, and put a check in an envelope to pay my debt to society.
However, this is not what happened. A camera took a picture of a car, and that camera wants the car to pay. I think we should just let them work it out. We can let an ATM be the judge, and a self-checkout line in the A&P can be the bailiff. The jury can be entirely comprised of dishwashers, toaster ovens, and Roombas. Robot court is now in session!
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