Big Brother in Little Dixie

Well, it’s worse than I thought. The Oklahoma legislature is not relying on the DMV to someday provide a database to catch uninsured motorists…they’re accepting proposals from 3rd-party vendors to create this system.

They plan to install 20 cameras around town to read your bar-coded car tag as you drive by. The car tag record will provide your personal and auto information to compare against a database containing records from all auto insurance companies. If you’re not in there, the 3rd-pary vendor will mail a ticket to your house and try to collect. The vendor will then split the collected money with the state.

A similar system in current use in the UK has been a disaster in errors, one mistake resulting in a death.

Even the vendors vying for the contract are expressing concern about the potential lawsuits and public backlash due to errors.

"If the query response is returned with a disclaimer regarding accuracy, and a citation is generated based on inaccurate data, that will ensure negative press and possibly litigation, none of which will help generate revenue and so, projections must be reduced," a vendor stated in an April 27 amendment. "The vendor and DPS will be accused of 'trolling'... not really knowing status but hoping that enough vehicle owners will actually be driving uninsured vehicles to make the system profitable. This is certain to create a vast number of failed citations, a very high level of bad press, public resistance and reduced revenues... If a name and address is sent in a broadcast email to many insurers, that would be in clear violation of both state and federal DPPA laws, inviting challenge in the courts and also greatly reduce the ability to provide revenues to the state; that too means that current projections would have to be reduced; this is a serious problem with the current system."

And check out this pompous reply by some stoopid Oklahoma bureaucrat.

[ DPS responded that mass-emails of private information to insurance companies would not violate driver's license privacy laws because the for-profit company would be operating on behalf of DPS. "It is respectfully suggested that the vendor concentrate on providing a system for verification of out of state car tags and spend less effort on concerns about OCIVS, per the RFP," DPS responded. ]

You know, I hate uninsured drivers as much as everyone else, but this isn’t the way to go. Our state government is giving permission to some company to troll among citizens for offenders, access our personal information, and hunt us down for money.

It seems that a better way to get more people to buy car insurance is to help them get a job, by removing obstacles to business. The two are directly linked (see previous post).

Oh, and the state legislature has already budgeted and thus spent the projected “revenues” for the first year of operation. They hope to get the system installed by this summer. This plan was first approved in 2006. They’re going to spend our tax money to pay for this. It will be wasted – I don’t see how this will bring in the revenues projected. Even if they manage to get blood out of a turnip (money from someone who can’t afford insurance), I see the money going back out in legal settlements. One vendor anticipated a 20% error rate. It’s ineffective and intrusive.

We are hurtling toward that sci-fi world in which you walk into Gap, your eyeballs are scanned, and an automated voice starts talking to you about the jeans you bought six months ago. I want my privacy, and I want the stoopid politicians to stop trying to solve every damn “problem” they think they see. They create 10 more problems and throw my money into the wind. Just stop. You’re not smart enough to solve the problem.

More info: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/31/3165.asp

Road Blockheads

I’m hoping some smart person out there can figure this out for me.

“A proposed traffic camera system that state budget officials expected to generate at least $50 million in revenues from tickets sent to uninsured drivers has run into roadblocks. Lawmakers were unaware that there is no central database containing all insurance records, but the governor hopes the motor vehicle insurance verification system will be operational summer 2011.”

So, now they’ve figured out this magical database doesn’t exist. But if it did, it somehow would lead us to uninsured drivers? What about those who’ve never had dealings with the Department of Motor Vehicles i.e. illegal aliens? (I’m assuming an image of one’s car tag is the key to “unlock” your information you gave them when you purchased your tag. You had to show proof of insurance to get the tag…) What about those who got insurance so they could get the tag, then canceled? Or those who do not renew a few months after getting the tag? The database records are wrong, do not reflect the reality other than the day the car was registered.

This is the problem in a nutshell: any database of information the government may have is made up of records of people who have followed the law. Inclusion in the database means you successfully showed proof of insurance and successfully tagged your car. So how the hell does this work, to ferret out all those people not following the law? We want all the people NOT in the database! Can someone out there figure this out for me?

Okay, let’s assume the magical database exists. It just does. Now think of how often government workers enter information incorrectly. So, all the addresses in our magical database are going to be current and correct? Okay. Is US mail a surefire way to send and receive important correspondence? Uh, no. Which is why they developed the “certified” option. Do you throw away most of your US mail? I do. And I’m not fooled by those envelopes that say IMPORTANT and DO NOT DISCARD. But somehow all the tickets are going to land in the hands of those criminal offenders.

So, let’s assume the camera took a shot of someone’s car tag on their car (who knows where and why and under what circumstances). The tag connected us to some car owner that somehow is in the system (yes, the system that only contains those with insurance and tags), but somehow we know does not have insurance NOW. Miraculously we send a ticket to the correct address and the person receives it. Will that person pay it?

Maybe they don’t have insurance because they can’t afford it. Actually, uninsured rates are directly tied to unemployment rates, and the auto insurance industry is charting these increases due to the recession. Oklahoma ranks 4th in the nation with 24% of drivers uninsured. New Mexico is number one with 29%. So what if the person cannot pay? Jail? Efforts to pursue and prosecute? Sounds like expenditures, not revenues.

This is the dumbest idea ever. If the average ticket is $100 for being uninsured, then they plan to catch 500,000 drivers in one year in the wonky manner described, in order to receive 50 MILLION DOLLARS. There are 2.4 million licensed drivers. 24% is 570,000. Not all have cars, teenagers, elderly. So, they’ve really set their expectations high, to catch almost every one of them.

And by all means, let’s go ahead and budget and spend that $50 million.

I do have other questions…like who approached the state legislature with this humdinger idea and just so happens to have a bunch of cameras for sale. The really stoopid people in this scenario is us, because we voted on the guys who voted on this.

It would be great if there was some way the government could identify and ticket those with no insurance. I have been victimized several times in the past by the criminals who hit me and have no insurance and I was out the cost of my property damage with no recourse. What would be the right thing for the government to do is NOT pocket that money for themselves, but set up a fund for victims to make claims against. The law-abiding citizens were the ones suffering damages, not the government.