No more car chases?

[Dr Mordrid]

http://www.livescience.com/technology/060708_popsci_starchase.html

Los Angeles, car capital of the country, is notorious for its epic police chases. O.J.-style pursuits may make for exciting TV, but the fatality statistics are sobering: Police chases kill, on average, one Californian every week.

Now the Virginia-based company StarChase has proposed a safer way to catch fast- moving crooks—shoot GPS homing devices like darts and stick them to the back of fleeing vehicles. Instead of a frantic pursuit, an officer eases off the chase and lets police headquarters track the suspect by computer.

Police can then move in for a calmer arrest.

[KvHagedorn]

Kinda scary future tech in a way, but this makes a lot of sense, really.

[Dr Mordrid]

You concerned about the Orwellian implications? Pffffttttt.... Try this;

http://www.caltax.org/member/digest/apr2001/apr01-07.htm

State Eyes Use-based Road Taxes

By Lisa Vorderbrueggen

Imagine a world with no gas taxes. Instead of shelling out 38 cents a gallon in taxes at the pump, an onboard computer records your travel and you are charged for where and how many miles you drive.

One day, using 21st century technology, this could be how motorists pay for roads.

California has joined eight states in a study of whether global positioning satellite, or GPS, tracking can offer an alternative to the gas tax, the staple of transportation funding since the 1920s.

The issue is especially critical in California, which leads the nation in the push to replace smog-producing gasoline fueled vehicles with alternatives such as electric batteries or hydrogen.

But if California is too successful, it will jeopardize its primary source of cash for transit, road repairs and expansion.

Californians pay $6 billion a year in federal and state taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel. Such taxes comprise 85 percent of the state's annual transportation budget.

"The gas tax is good for another seven or 10 years, but as we move to a system where we don't use gasoline or diesel fuel, we have to find some alternative ways of charging the users," said Professor Martin Wachs, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley and co-author of the soon-to-be-released report, "Reforming Highway Finance: California's Policy Options."

The states commissioned the three-year, $770,000 feasibility study earlier this year from a research team at the University of Iowa.

Minnesota is leading the study with funding from Kansas, North Carolina, Texas, Washington, Iowa, Wisconsin and the Federal Highway Administration.

The idea is to charge people based on where and how many miles they drive, explained lead researcher David Forkenbrock, director of the university's Public Policy Center.

Each vehicle is equipped with GPS equipment and geographic information system software.

An onboard computer records how many miles a driver travels on each road. The state, county and city determine the appropriate charge per mile.

At the end of the month, the driver uploads the data to a central processing center, which, like a credit card company, sends the driver a bill and each jurisdiction its money.

[KvHagedorn]

Yep, that's typically messed up. Why do they need to do this if it is not some ploy to monitor every person in the country? If the government was actually a servant of the public, the same thing could be achieved by a simple meter reading. Traffic counts let the government know which roads are most frequently used.

[MultimediaMan]

The Obvious counter to the dart is to wait for the cops to back off, stop for a moment, remove it, and put it on a stray dog or in a homeless person's shopping cart/basket, or a toss it into a commuter bus, then continue your crime spree....

More than one person has been tracked via their Cell phone or their GPS-enabled Onstar System doing something they shouldn't have. This sort of thing is nothing new....

[Dr Mordrid]

You can turn off a cell phones GPS, and you don't have to get Onstar.

[Jammrock]

The Obvious counter to the dart is to wait for the cops to back off, stop for a moment, remove it, and put it on a stray dog or in a homeless person's shopping cart/basket, or a toss it into a commuter bus, then continue your crime spree....

More than one person has been tracked via their Cell phone or their GPS-enabled Onstar System doing something they shouldn't have. This sort of thing is nothing new....

Would be difficult if 1) a police helicopter was overhead, or 2) the tracker lodged and locked itself into the metal of the car ... or plastic, depending on what car.

[az]

You can turn off a cell phones GPS, and you don't have to get Onstar.

Every cell phone is trackable as long as it is on and within reach of the network. In cities, the mesh of radio cells is quite dense, so tracking the phone by cell is quite accurate.

[Dr Mordrid]

Not if it's turned off

Dr. Mordrid

[az]

I think I implied that when I wrote "as long as it is on"