It’s safe to assume that in the next 10-20 years, a decent percentage of people – maybe 5-10% – will wear cameras that constantly record their surroundings. Such cameras already exist, of course, but they’re clunky and low-resolution; the ones we’ll see in the future will have a much better resolution and field of view, and be indistinguishable from normal glasses.
These cameras are going to wreak havoc on drivers.
I estimate I see around 2-4 endorsement code incidents every day on my walk to work. It’s usually a mix of TS10s ‘Failing to comply with traffic light signals’ (i.e. running a red light) and CD10s ‘Driving without due care and attention’. Sometimes there are more exciting/dangerous incidents, like cars driving the wrong way down a one-way street, or stopping in the middle of a zebra crossing, or a truck doing a three-point turn in the middle of a busy B road.
I’d be astonished if even 1% of these incidents resulted in points being added to a driver’s licence; it’s not like we have authorities scrutinising traffic cameras all day. As a result, even poor drivers don’t have to worry too much about racking up the 12 points that will disqualify them from driving (the incidents above are worth around 3 points each).
But if, thanks to wearable cameras, the reporting rate of incidents is double or tripled or more, then presumably we’ll see a huge increase in disqualified drivers; even more than the simple arithmetic would suggest, since most points stay on your record for four years. I can imagine a few scenarios:
- Under pressure from drivers groups, authorities refuse to examine videos submitted by the public (doubtful; we already use this as evidence in courts)
- Drivers can rack up more than 12 points – say, 24 or 36 (totally unfair and a tacit admission that there are a lot of unsafe drivers out there)
- Massive numbers of drivers are disqualified, leading to increased uptake of alternatives such as cycling, public transport, taxis, and driverless cars
It’s going to be a fascinating few decades for moral luck. And I wonder what other laws and codes of conduct will shatter under the force of intensified reporting. What other stuff is out there that is technically against the law, but most people get away with because no-one’s looking?
mssv 