Maybe $48k is a bit much, but this is so obviously a crazy thing to do.
Passengers are allowed to use their phones and your jammer won't discriminate. People can take hands-free calls and your jammer won't discriminate. Pedestrians can use their phones and your jammer won't discriminate. People who have broken down might want to call the AA. And so on.
The charitable explanation is probably that they weren't thinking much. That they had a skill set to allow them to do this quickly and easily.
If I had the idea to do this I'd have to think about and work on it so long that they obvious reasons why it's not such a great idea would probably occur to me.
Either that or when an idea occurs to me I'm never so hyperfocused on it that I won't take a step back and stop asking myself if I can but if I should at some point early in the process.
...sounds about right? Is this supposed to be an injustice? You can't unilaterally shut down a public resource like RF sectiona because you've decided to be the Batman clearing the streets of hands-free cellphone users.
I spend time in the "third world" where they honk all the time and don't care about road laws (i.e. lane lines are merely suggestions, no requirement to buckle your seat belt), non existent road law enforcement.
It's amazing. Every type of vehicle shares the road in relative harmony. It's the ultimate "mixed use/complete streets" liberal wet dream of transportation infrastructure. It maximizes the utility of the roads. There's also far fewer lifted trucks and similar which harms the visibility of the highly alert drivers.
Everyone is still on their phones, but because they are used to a far more chaotic roads, they pay FAR better attention. Furthermore, the average health is infinitely better (almost no obesity), so even their 80 year old grandmas are far healthier and thus more fit to drive.
Unironically deregulate the roads. We need to radically increase speed limits, significantly reduce penalties for meme stuff "i.e. california stopping at stop signs", and yes go after "do-gooders" who think that risking jamming ambulances is worth getting their "slightly safer roads"
Unironically, put Tullock's spike in every car.
Traffic cops are road marauders/parasites. Many tickets shouldn't exist. And no, I don't have any driving tickets.
We have standards, called laws, for how we use shared resources. The fine is about $60/day. Feels low to me to be honest. The actions described could have easily contributed to death via disruption of emergency services.
Hero. So tired of seeing drivers swerve around at deadly speeds on the highway while they play around on their phones. I would contribute to a Gofundme to help this guy pay off the $48k.
If this person had not continuously operated the jammer along the same route, at the same time every day for years, they probably wouldn't have ever been caught.
That being said, I can't count the number of times I've passed someone who's going dangerously slow and drifting in their lane, only to see them staring down at their phone. If Humphreys only ran the device for about 30 seconds whenever he saw someone on their phone, he'd probably have gotten away with it for a lot longer.
I didn't read TFA but I bet the guy got caught because he told his brother and 10 other people. The kind of person who does this is that same guy who doesn't own a TV and never seems to shut up about it.
The police who stopped him had their radios jammed during the interaction; so I'm not particularly sympathetic to the title's artificial framing:
> Fined $48k for using a jammer to keep commuters from using phones while driving
The person jammed 911, both on and off the freeway every single work-day for months. They also jammed legal usage of mobile devices on the freeway and in the surrounding area. They were rightfully fined, and if it discourages others then so much the better.
Not to mention I'm not even sure how that's supposed to be safer? The distracted drivers are now more distracted trying to figure out why their isn't working and people who weren't distracted listining to Spotify are now looking at their phones actively as well. Dude was literally making a bubble of people messing with their phones around him while he drives
He was incredibly lucky. Assuming there was no other criminal penalties, he screwed up royally and gets off with a fine he will be able to pay and a life that was not destroyed by the federal government.
I of course agree with him being guilty, but cars should be prohibited from allowing loud speakers. Also, independently, phones should be prohibited from using speakers at all when in the vicinity of several other phones.
This happened to me driving down interstate 95. I tried calling the FCC, the highway patrol, and every single entity I tried to get a hold of was like "this is not something we can really do anything about". Seriously, how do you even report something like this and get attention on it?
In a way it doesn't surprise me one bit. In a world in which everybody is told they're important you get people who actually believe that they are more important than others to a degree they start seeing them as NPCs. And you don't actually care about NPCs getting inconvenienced or even killed as long as you are marginally safer yourself. I've seen someone wearing a t-shirt that said 'I'm a big deal'. I kid you not.
A day after reading this, I keep thinking about this article.
I wonder if Humphreys had rigged up something that faded out the interference, and then used it when pulled over, if he could have "played dumb" enough to not get his vehicle searched? IE, if the interference "faded out" instead of abruptly turning off, would the FCC agents have suspected they got the wrong vehicle?
Likewise, if Humphreys had hidden the interference device well enough, such as inside the dashboard, could it have remained undiscovered during a search?
Or, did the FCC agents collect evidence in such a way that they would know to take the car apart?
---
One trend that I've seen in cases against cell phone jammers is that the criminals often appear unsavvy; IE, they don't realize what they're doing is a crime, so they don't take precautions in case they're caught. (But that doesn't excuse their behavior.)
30 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 65.8 ms ] threadPassengers are allowed to use their phones and your jammer won't discriminate. People can take hands-free calls and your jammer won't discriminate. Pedestrians can use their phones and your jammer won't discriminate. People who have broken down might want to call the AA. And so on.
What was this person thinking?
If I had the idea to do this I'd have to think about and work on it so long that they obvious reasons why it's not such a great idea would probably occur to me.
Either that or when an idea occurs to me I'm never so hyperfocused on it that I won't take a step back and stop asking myself if I can but if I should at some point early in the process.
I'm talking about in practice, not the theoretic world where no driver ever uses their phone.
I spend time in the "third world" where they honk all the time and don't care about road laws (i.e. lane lines are merely suggestions, no requirement to buckle your seat belt), non existent road law enforcement.
It's amazing. Every type of vehicle shares the road in relative harmony. It's the ultimate "mixed use/complete streets" liberal wet dream of transportation infrastructure. It maximizes the utility of the roads. There's also far fewer lifted trucks and similar which harms the visibility of the highly alert drivers.
Everyone is still on their phones, but because they are used to a far more chaotic roads, they pay FAR better attention. Furthermore, the average health is infinitely better (almost no obesity), so even their 80 year old grandmas are far healthier and thus more fit to drive.
Unironically deregulate the roads. We need to radically increase speed limits, significantly reduce penalties for meme stuff "i.e. california stopping at stop signs", and yes go after "do-gooders" who think that risking jamming ambulances is worth getting their "slightly safer roads"
Unironically, put Tullock's spike in every car.
Traffic cops are road marauders/parasites. Many tickets shouldn't exist. And no, I don't have any driving tickets.
That being said, I can't count the number of times I've passed someone who's going dangerously slow and drifting in their lane, only to see them staring down at their phone. If Humphreys only ran the device for about 30 seconds whenever he saw someone on their phone, he'd probably have gotten away with it for a lot longer.
> Fined $48k for using a jammer to keep commuters from using phones while driving
The person jammed 911, both on and off the freeway every single work-day for months. They also jammed legal usage of mobile devices on the freeway and in the surrounding area. They were rightfully fined, and if it discourages others then so much the better.
Well, here's another fun one I guess, where a trucker wanted to disrupt his log keeper but ended up interfering with an airport: https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2013/FCC-13-106A1.html
He was incredibly lucky. Assuming there was no other criminal penalties, he screwed up royally and gets off with a fine he will be able to pay and a life that was not destroyed by the federal government.
In a way it doesn't surprise me one bit. In a world in which everybody is told they're important you get people who actually believe that they are more important than others to a degree they start seeing them as NPCs. And you don't actually care about NPCs getting inconvenienced or even killed as long as you are marginally safer yourself. I've seen someone wearing a t-shirt that said 'I'm a big deal'. I kid you not.
I wonder if Humphreys had rigged up something that faded out the interference, and then used it when pulled over, if he could have "played dumb" enough to not get his vehicle searched? IE, if the interference "faded out" instead of abruptly turning off, would the FCC agents have suspected they got the wrong vehicle?
Likewise, if Humphreys had hidden the interference device well enough, such as inside the dashboard, could it have remained undiscovered during a search?
Or, did the FCC agents collect evidence in such a way that they would know to take the car apart?
---
One trend that I've seen in cases against cell phone jammers is that the criminals often appear unsavvy; IE, they don't realize what they're doing is a crime, so they don't take precautions in case they're caught. (But that doesn't excuse their behavior.)