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Could be wrong but I don't think Flock makes speed trap or red light cameras. These are license plate readers that conduct constant surveillance of everyone at all times, whether or not you've broken any traffic laws.

plate reading allows police to identify known and unknown suspects. For known suspects (e.g. police have PC, suspect fled), plate reader can help find the suspect without high speed pursuit. For unknown suspect (e.g. citizen report of street racing), plate readers can develop a suspect pool and narrow down candidate suspects for further investigation.

Sure, I won't dispute that warrantless mass surveillance of everyone at all times makes it easier to track down criminals. I just want to be clear that that's what we're talking about. These don't only target people who are "Running reds" or driving at "extreme speed".

I chose reckless driving because it's relatable . The cameras help with all crimes. Many stores are putting them up to discourage shoplifting / armed robbery, for example.

Is your objection to convicting criminals or false convictions?

I wasn't necessarily making an objection, just an observation. But I suspect that warrantless government surveillance of the movements of millions of private citizens who have not been accused of a crime might be considered inherently objectionable by many regardless of what other effects it might have.

Consumers are overwhelmingly giving consent to surveillance via their apps. So when the government would like to it's a bad thing? why not improve policy so the government has guidelines for doing so, so they don't to conceal their agenda behind private enterprise?

> Running reds, extreme speed, escaping police are all common.

How do these cameras prevent those crimes?

plate reading help police track down suspects without pursuit. video recording in general help police collect evidence necessary to convict reckless driving.

It sounds like you're talking about solving crimes, not preventing crimes.

solving crime and convicting criminals has first and n-order effects. For one, a few criminals commit most crimes, so locking people up reduces many crimes. Secondly, convictions are a deterrent.

Do you have a source for those claims?

“Those claims”

Police just aren't doing their job in the US, who even knows what they're doing at this point. Basically no country had the post-covid driver issue as much as America. Some states basically halved fines lol, make them do their jobs.

Seriously. People run reds in front of cops and they do nothing. I was tboned and the person that hit me had no license or anything to identify and ran a red and still was let go without anything.

What led to this?

This is what happens to your country when you don't really care about public services (in many cases they're looked down upon, just look at teachers, federal workers but also police). There's difficulty recruiting and retaining police officers in the US (i'd imagine anywhere but especially the US) because it's not seen as a good job. I'm not a huge believer in IQ but intelligent and capable people just can't be convinced to go into this line of work unless they truly care about their community (very rare). Just way more fun to go to the big city and work in an office with an AC.

I'm sure there's a million other reasons why people don't want this job, but this reflects in how harsh you can be on (new) agents.

that is a big part of it. Directly, people don't give the police enough respect, and indirectly, they don't encourage politicians to develop policy to support the police.

The amount of times I've seen cops just sitting in their cars playing on their phones or loitering around chatting and ignoring everything around them is ridiculously high.

> At the same time, the public demands more oversight and constraints on police , which reduces their ability to enforce the law

Don't make excuses for them. If you're legally allowed to kill people on purpose, you (should) get oversight and tight constraints. We don't because of a lot of reasons, but we should

They get paid six figure salaries for not actually doing a whole lot, they can manage.

To what extent? Do you want infinite oversight and little-to-no crimes convicted? What are your expectations on law and order vs criminality? do you believe people naturally police themselves?