via @NewtonMark

It’s about time "The Man" started recognising that sharing is not the same as stealing.

Barack Obama’s amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman

It seems like the road toll is increasing disproportionately to the increase in drivers. I guess it could be a media beatup – but ultimately, that’s not my point.

Any road trauma is a problem.

I’ve been hearing lots of arguments about how to lower the incidence of these events – but many are expensive and others will be ineffectual.

I agree our roads suck. I agree that "traffic calming" devices actually have the opposite effect on many types of drivers. I agree that speed limiting vehicles is dangerous in and of itself – and pointless – 90km/h is still too fast in a school zone.

So what other options are there?

Initially I thought using a GPS with GPRS feeding data back to a central computer would be useful. Not *that* expensive, technology is already here but I can forsee the outcry over "Big Brother".

The only option I see now is a cultural one. If we can’t stop drivers acting irresponsibly and outrageously we have to get over our fear of dobbing in a mate and report it. Every time.

Yes – there will be issues of malicious reporting and other such foul play… but I don’t think that should stop it. You can always warn those who make frivolous reports.

Perhaps it could take a number of complaints about the same driver within a certain period of time from different people before anything is done. All it would need is for 3 drivers to report that Green Lancer heading north at 130km/h+ on the Kwinana – and they get a visit from the Plod.

I know that in effect this can already happen, but if the Government is willing to spend millions on campaigns for drink driving and seatbelts, surely a "Dob in a Dickhead" campaign would be even more effective?

It’s a big cultural mindshift for us to make, but with the amount of people (families, friends, innocent bystanders) currently being affected by idiot drivers surely we can all agree to report the goons who are clearly risking not just their own lives?

I’m not a particularly politically motivated person – but I’m almost pissed off enough to get this whole "Dob in a Dickhead" thing going myself.

If the Death toll from road accidents is really 390 times that from terrorism, what the HELL are we doing destroying our basic personal liberties?

Are we totally mad? Who is responsible for this massive over-reaction?

I am getting fearful that the entire democratic world is turning fascist.

This absurd march towards oppressing the common man through the use of excessive authority is frightening. Where does it stop?

I don’t want to invoke Godwin’s Law on my first real post about this trend, but it does have all the hallmarks of Nazi Germany.

As Deborah Davis found out, it appears you now have to show your identification papers on demand – yet according to the American Constitution thats effectively a search without warrant.

Thankfully the ACLU will be helping Deborah get through this completely ridiculous prosecution.

We already have laws to stop “terrorists”… we don’t need new ones. Unless those new laws actually have a more surrupticious intent.

More on my latent paranoia as news comes to hand.

Slashdot | Intel Adds DRM to New Chips

History teaches that during the 1800’s there were many people who believed that the entire meaning and purpose of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cotton gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit. Ironically just the opposite was true;the industrial revolution demanded a mobile and skilled workforce.

First, they responded by making slavery last forever, and making laws so harsh you couldn’t even teach a person of color how to read. Then they responded by trying to micro-regulate the northern states, then they responded by trying to break off from the Union and fence themselves off from the rest of the world causing all hell to break loose.

Today many in media circles believe that the entire meaning and purpose of the information age is to use inventions like the Internet to leverage their copyright holdings to the far reaches of the Earth for unlimited growth and profit. Ironically, just the opposite is true; the information age demands the unrestricted flow of information.

First, they responded my making copyrights last effectively forever, then they responded by making it so that illegal copying could be punished worse than rape, then they tried to micro-regulate the technology industries with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and now they are trying to fence the information they control off from the rest of the world with Digital Rights Management (DRM). We are now at the point where society must tell them to go to hell.