August 11, 2008

Bad Driver ID System

Tierney Lab asks the question: Can bad drivers be shamed?Those who know me IRL have long suffered with my rant about my paintball system for driving offenses. It goes like this:

First, you start with a paintball system that uses medium duration but ultimately non-harmful (to the paint of the car, to the environment) paint that is color-coded by offense. Red for tailgating, yellow for talking while driving, purple for failure to use a turn signal. When someone does one of these offenses, the community of other drivers, bike riders, pedestrians etc takes a shot and hits the car. The paint should last something like, a month, right? So it serves as a warning to other drivers (beware!) as well as to the driver or other user of the offending vehicle (perhaps this is how the teen finds out his dad is a tailgater?). However, because the paint is temporary, it gives the offender a chance to reform, and it does not overly penalize "false positives" that should wear off in a relatively short time. Yeah, I'm a liberal like that, I believe in second chances and false positives.

The real problem, of course, is the rage-a-holic who takes a gun out to shoot at the person marking them with the road rage paint. So it's got a few kinks.

Posted by binky at August 11, 2008 06:20 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Random Thoughts


Comments

Yet again, people confuse the different mind modes. The part of the mind that would be sensitive to shame (in a productive way) is not the part that's active when driving, when mapping my way from here to there. People drive crazy because they either experience no consequences, in which they learn they can get away with it, or because they experience consequnces which are preferable to their previous state of mind. Intensity tends to be a good predictor of preferable state of mind, so getting a little feedback with the rage paint may give someone taking chances more of what they're looking for, whether they realize it or not. Best thing to do is take their license for a while, or stick them in a sensory deprivation tank.

Posted by: Morris at August 12, 2008 01:16 AM | PERMALINK

Of course, mandatory sensory deprivation would require a new bureaucracy, tons of unionized, overpaid-at-an-honest-living-wage government employees, but, you know, big government for thought control is totally different from big government for social and economic justice, as we've spent the last eight years learning.

Posted by: moon at August 12, 2008 09:27 AM | PERMALINK

So what you're saying Morris is that you're an authoritarian, yes? That people should be tortured until they accept your worldview, assuming they can figure out what it is? After all, Tom Clancy pointed out that sensdep is torture, so it must be, right? Because he's smart and all?

Binky dear, if someone tags my car with purple paint to mark me as a malefactor, how is it not in my best interest to tag every other car within range with the same purple paint so as to dilute the impact of my badge of shame?

Posted by: jacflash at August 12, 2008 10:55 AM | PERMALINK

That's why it's temp-o-rar-y.

Posted by: binky at August 12, 2008 06:16 PM | PERMALINK

That's still a month where I'm shooting off all the purple paint I can get my hands on.

Posted by: jacflash at August 13, 2008 07:35 AM | PERMALINK

so are stocks, but no one's looking to bring them back.

Posted by: moon at August 13, 2008 10:27 AM | PERMALINK
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