..in realtime. Sorta. Anyway, basically it looks like hte English government will be setting up a system that monitors all vehicles on the road, 24x7x365. They're putting up sensors that read license plate numbers and record where you've been, if you're legal or not, etc. Since the sensors are being put up ever 1/4 mile or something, there's plenty of conjecture they'll be used to enforce speed limits, too.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/15 ... _database/

Man, that's freakin' horrible. Say goodbye to any anonymity. Basically at this point, unless you walk, your government will know where you are, all the time. Fuck all that. I really hope someone blows this thing the hell up.

And so, the lowly pedestrian Rinox beats all you bastards with driving licenses!! Muhahaha.

That plan will survive untill someone decides to calculate how much it will cost.

I see several benefits in this system, but if i look at the magnitude of the concept (monitoring ALL vehicles ..) i don't think it will happen.

Btw i wouldn't mind if there was a record somewhere of my whereabouts, it will never get looked at anyway unless there's a problem or an alarm goes off (if i'm violating something).

So i'm not really against this system, i just don't think it achievable.

I'm for it. The reason is we suffer heavily from A. People without insurance. B. People with no driving liscence and C. Both of the above. Oh, and people without pasports either. I can understand that is a massive thing, and to pull something of this maginitude off, is going to be damned expensive. (Here go the taxes) But, With us being a small and twisty country, with roads much more complex than the USA, we get a lot of idiots using them like racing tracks. Sure, It'll suck that we've got no privacy, but hey, think of all that money in fines that the government will make.

And then, when they hike the taxes again, we have amunition to use against them and say "where did all that fine money go?"

I tell you what, This country can piss me off something bad. I wish we'd all just overthrow the damned government.

Satis the things been in the pipe line for months, I'm surprised noone else has heard about it. Blunkett proposed it so I doubt it will happen.

There are obvious benefits. However, it should be hugely rejected simply because there is no such trust in any of todays governments.

Just wondering: is having a car insurance obligatory in the UK? Or the US? It is over here, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case everywhere.

car insurance is obligatory in the US. At least to a liability level. I think there are some ways out of it, but you basically have to have a big pile of cash set aside to handle claims. Something like that.

Anyway, it looks like most of you guys are for it. Wow. I don't like the idea of the government watching my every move. Even though I'm actually a law-abiding citizen, I don't want to be watched. I believe in privacy, and I believe in the timeless axiom:

"From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." -- Thomas Jefferson

Anyway, I don't like the idea of total control, because total control is power, and power breeds corruption, and corruption breeds tyrants. Bleh, I'll say no more before I get hauled off to Gitmo.

Yeh, i kinda agree with that too. Its just a fact of who we are now. Damn shame, because it would be nice for the government to benefit from improved monitoring, but the simple fact is th world is full of crooks.

Even if we could trust the current government, can we trust the next?

I dare not answer yes or no to such a vague question. Its not that simple. When i speak of popular trust within the government, i imply indefinate trust. None of us will live to see such days, but one day it will happen.

I can totally dig what you mean satis, about the privacy thing, but at the end of the day, we've got our own houses to have privacy in. (For now)

EDIT: and yeah ox, Insurance is mandatory.

k...I would have sworn it wasn't in some countries, and it sounds very anglo-saxon so I figured it would be in the Uk or US.

Btw Satis: I never said I was against it, I said that it wouldn't matter anyway for me, prancing around anonymously by foot or bus (or tram).

No we are definately licensed. My Dad got caught in an accident with an unlicensed one so I've been pro ever since. Lucky it wasn't a bad accident but the insurance issues were a nightmare.