Under The Glow Of Surveillance.

I gotta say, when I first heard about this I wasn't wild about the idea.  And it hasn't grown on me.  DC Area commuters are set to be scanned by flesh sensing cameras next year.  See, they're opening up new express lanes that can be used by car-poolers for free and by single riders for a fee.  The only trouble is figuring out which is which and charging the toll without slowing down traffic.

So that seems like a good idea at first, more lanes that move faster for those that want to pay for it.  Except if you realize that we already have a whole bunch of HOV lanes around the city.  These new HOT lanes are just a way for people who are too lazy or self centered for carpooling to get in on the action.

So the locals are contracting out for new technology because enforcing this by hand apparently won't work.  The cameras differentiate between skin and upholstery using infrared beams as the cars speed past, charging drivers without enough riders.  Hello invasion of privacy.  I know perhaps using HOT lanes is a privilege and you have to give up certain things for that, but using roads at all is a privilege.  How long before there are all kind of invasive devices monitoring your movements?  And yes, innocent people have nothing to worry about, the same rhetoric can be posited for all invasion of privacy concerns.  And just like in all the other cases, its really about abuse of information and the slow erosion of rights.  The price of freedom is eternal vigilance; not (as George Bush would have you believe) by the government, but from the government.

But never-mind all that.  You guys are about to flush a bunch of money down the toilet to pay for these cameras so that you can start making money with HOT lanes.  Wouldn't you make a lot more cash if you just left out the cameras?  Here's a couple alternatives that don't involve peeping at me with infrared.

• Don't allow individual drivers to use HOT lanes.  Then when someone gets pulled over they pay $100 for the infraction.  You only have to identify 1 out of every 100 single driver cars to make up for not charging them.  This also keeps the pressure on people to carpool, reducing the number of vehicles you have to accommodate anyway.
• Charge car-poolers for using HOT lanes just like everyone else.  They can split the fees amongst each other, its still the same price per car, or you can arrange some incentive program whereby they can get reimbursed after proving they actually run a  carpool.
  

• Infrared Scans May Regulate HOT Lanes - washingtonpost.com