Police in England installed an AI camera system along a major road. It caught almost 300 drivers in its first 3 days.

I literally watched cops driving while on their phone everyday after it was made illegal. Nothing was done, Nothing changed, they hand out tickets while breaking the same rules.

I mean yeah, fuck the police :) Seems like we're in agreement here.

Might kill someone is a precrime, a issue with these tickets in this case is that without the AI camera nothing would have been seen (literally victimless). If someone crashes into anything while on their phone the chances it will be used in prosecution is low.

Using your fucking phone while driving is the crime. This isn't some "thought police" situation. Put the phone away, and you won't get the ticket. It's that simple. We don't need to wait for a person to mow down a pedestrian in order to punish them for driving irresponsibly.

In the same spirit, if a person gets drunk and drives home, and they don't kill somebody -- well that's a crime and they should be punished for it.

And if you can't handle driving responsibly, then the privilege of driving on public roads should be revoked.

I don’t think texting while driving is a good idea, like not wearing a seatbelt. However this is offloading a lot to AI, distracted driving is not well defined and considering the nuances I don’t want to leave any part to AI. Here is an example: eating a bowl of soup while operating a vehicle would be distracted right? What if the soup was in a cup? What if the soup was made of coffee beans?

This is such a weird ad absurdum argument. Nobody is telling some ML system "make a judgment call on whether the coffee bean soup is a distraction." The system is identifying people violating a cut-and-dried law: using their phone while driving, or not wearing a seatbelt. Assuming it can do it in an unbiased way (which is a huge if, to be fair), then there's no slippery slope here.

For what it's worth, I do worry about ML system bias, and I do think the seatbelt enforcement is a bit silly: I personally don't mind if a person makes a decision that will only impact their own safety. I care about the irresponsible decisions that people make affecting my safety, and I'd be glad for some unbiased enforcement of the traffic rules that protect us all.

However this is offloading a lot to AI

It's offloading nothing because all it does is flag potential cases of violation of the law that are then reviewed by a human, the alternative is to take a picture of all cars and have humans review all of them.

I have no idea what your example is trying to highlight, but it matters not - if it was a fringe case, then clearly you would either appeal the fixed penalty notice, or reject the FPN and put your argument to a court.

Other passengers in the car, for one. The driver losing consciousness due to hitting their head on the steering wheel or dashboard from an initial impact because of not wearing the seat belt now becomes an out-of-control vehicle that can involve anybody in the vicinity of the impact. There are plenty of victims if you just think for a sec.

I guess it could be argued that everybody via higher potential expense via NHS?

And the other part, mobile phones, is certainly not victimless crime.

I wonder constantly how in this day and age people still don't use hands free either in-car, speaker, or BT systems if they really MUST be talking "all the time".

You realise you're applying what I'm assuming are US laws to a study based on English and Welsh laws, yes?

Distracted driving is not an offence, the use (or causing or permitting the use of) a mobile phone is an offence. For more broad issues, then charges of Careless (or even Dangerous) Driving would apply.

Plus your logic is so full of holes, it sinks faster than an Oceangate sub. You could use that angle to argue that throwing axes in a primary school is a victimless crime until someone gets hurt.