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Comment by awqrre | Hacker News Reader

We are moving in a scary world... technology is nice but it makes monitoring too easy. As I see it, updated laws is the only thing that can save us... One of so many examples would be to get rid of car license plates.

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I feel that car license plates are a reasonable compromise.

A car provides you with an ability to inflict a lot of damage AND with an ability to escape from the scene quickly. Think hit and runs, road rage, dangerous driving, drunk driving, driving without license, etc.

I'll definitely take lack of anonymity when driving over having to deal with the millions of unaccountable assholes.

That's not something you can feel, but it seems reasonable to think it.

A neighbor of mine made a license plate reader and he logs all the traffic into and out of our neighborhood. People thought it was creepy, until he was able to give the data to police after a couple of nights where cars were broken into.

That will make insurance rates skyrocket.

why?

Because it will make hit and runs easier to get away with. It won't make liability insurance worse, but it will make coverage that pays for damages in those cases much more expensive.

and let me guess, it will make terrorists harder to catch. most newer cars already broadcast their locations to the car manufacturer (http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1)

The article does not corroborate your claims at all.

> Rather, Ford cars have several on-board services such as "Sync Services Directions" (a navigation device that works with drivers' phones) and 911 Assist, which users have to switch on and opt into. And employers can use a service called "Crew Chief" to monitor their corporate car fleet.

Not really. Hit-and-run situations usually have few witnesses (that's why the person think they can get away with it) and even if there are, for someone to have the presence of mind to get a license number in a hit and run is not that common.

Without license plates, people will think (correctly) that they can get away with it even when there are more witnesses.

I wonder what percentage of hit and runs get a license plate number, and what percentage of the ones that _do_ get an id eventually end up with the insurance company in question recovering costs from the at-fault driver? My gut feel? The number of hit and runs and the insurance company costs is likely to be a very small part of the costs of running an insurance company, and that the rate of recovery from the identified hit and runs is probably a vanishingly small amount in the big picture. Maybe I'm being classist/racist/prejudiced here, but I'd guess there's very few hit and runs done by fully insured Tesla drivers on 200k+ a year - compared to hit and runs done by some variation/combination of unlicensed drivers in uninsured vehicles by people with no assets or income to make it viable to recover from.

I'd love to see some data, but my back-of-the-envelope analysis reckons this wouldn't even budge the needle on my insurance costs.

Probably a small number get a license plate number, because having license plates discourages hit and runs in situations where there are enough witnesses that's it's likely that one of them will do that.

Austin police do not follow up on hit and runs unless there is a crime - vehicular assault or manslaughter. Even if you have the plate number and video footage.

Leaving the scene when there is property damage IS a crime in and of itself.

Point being, they don't care about property damage.

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