Police In UK Want To Stop Your Car At The Press Of A Button

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the stop.-now. dept

Over in the UK, police are requesting the power to stop cars remotely at the press of a button. The technology, of course, is not difficult, and already some anti-theft systems let people kill the engines remotely. Oddly, the story includes a quote from police saying they already have the power to press a remote kill switch on cars – but details aren’t given. The worries are (a) that people will freak out about Big Brother-ish use of technology (b) or that the cars won’t be able to be stopped safely. Considering that most attempts to do automatic braking scare people, the idea of completely stopping a car without warning the driver could go over quite badly. Related to this, though, police are also suggesting using the same technology to enforce mandatory speed limits – where the car refuses to go above a certain speed. Furthermore, the article suggests that these speeds could be made variable, such as lowering the top speed on certain roads during inclement weather. Not sure about in the UK, but I imagine there would be riots if such technology were introduced in the US. People here seem to believe that speeding is a right.