Rome Police Use Twitter To Battle Illegal Parking 157
cartechboy writes "Illegal parking has always been a major problem in Rome. More than half of Rome's 2.7 million residents use private vehicles, and the ancient city has a staggering ratio of 70 cars per 100 residents. So many residents park, uh, creatively. But now authorities think they've found a way to fight bad parking using social media. Basically, they've asked residents to post photos of bad parking jobs to Twitter. In December, the Italian cops began encouraging smart phone users to snap pics of illegally parked cars and tweet those photos to the department's Twitter account. The new system, which was created by Raffaele Clemente, Rome's chief of traffic police, seems to be working. In the first 30 days, police received more than 1,000 complaints tweeted to their account; (one example is here). Officials were able to respond to around 740 and hand out citations."
Town planning - lack of. (Score:5, Insightful)
What irks me is the lack of town planning for cars in European cities then the incompetent authorities act like it is all the citizens fault. I get that they have ancient medieval town centers that are almost impossible to modify - but that is no excuse for not providing adequate amounts of free to almost free just out-of-town parking and efficient cheap public transport into the centers (efficient does not mean it has to be profitable in the direct sense).
Singapore for example with so little space has pioneered high rise cheap parking for all out in the suburbs and electronic pay to enter town centers that really increased the quality of life in the inner city, or so I hear.
Don't get me started on the last century traffic lights on timers and no trigger sensors of any kind in sight even at the pedestrian crossings. Christmas lights I like to call them. The amount of petrol they must waste stopping scores of cars for no reason must be mind-boggling.
Re:Privacy Risks (Score:2, Insightful)
Since when is a license plate private? It's as public as the number on your house, and Google Street already put those online.
Re:Privacy Risks (Score:5, Insightful)
At risk of being put online? Don't people risk exposing their license plates every time they back out of the garage?
I think the real concern is, "This just puts millions of illegally parking individuals at risk of being publicly shamed."
The best protection for any one concerned their license plate may end up online seems pretty simple and obvious: think ahead, be considerate, and don't park like an asshole.
Re:Town planning - lack of. (Score:1, Insightful)
That's because most town planning like this is run by civil engineers. And not just any civil engineer... civil engineers that couldn't find jobs in the private sector and work for the government. The gutter trash of the engineering world.
Re:Town planning - lack of. (Score:5, Insightful)
What irks me is the lack of town planning for cars in European cities then the incompetent authorities act like it is all the citizens fault.
First, those towns were planned when there were no cars at all. Second, some towns tried to restructure itself into a more car friendly town, and the result was a less human friendly town. For some reasons, the most searched for towns are those with a horrible parking situation. So blame who you want, towns with a not adequate parking situation fare better in general, because they seem to get the general idea how to operate a town, and one aspect seems to not concentrate on cars too much.
Re:Town planning - lack of. (Score:5, Insightful)
Whie I entirely aggree with you that the main problem comes from the city lacking the proper parking spaces, that makes it no excuse to park like a complete douche.
Re:Town planning - lack of. (Score:2, Insightful)
But the issue with Rome is the people that live there and the cars they drive - I highly doubt they would be interested in out of town park and rides.
Re:Privacy Risks (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not just use the non-emergency number that most police agencies have to report a parking infraction?
Because this provides photographic proof of the bad parking before they send out a meter maid.
This just puts millions of license plates at risk of being put online for the purpose of reporting a person's supposedly bad parking.
Never quite understood this whole 'privacy of license plates' thing. If I look out the window right now I can see a dozen+ license plates. If I went for a walk I'd see hundreds. How is it private if there are two of them on every car for everyone to see?
Re:Town planning - lack of. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wrong ration (Score:4, Insightful)
Government getting money != working (Score:3, Insightful)
The new system, which was created by Raffaele Clemente, Rome's chief of traffic police, seems to be working.
I would argue if it were working then they wouldn't be getting many such tweets. Perfaps you forget aim is not to give more itations but fewer illegal parkings. All we can say is it might work.
Re:Privacy Risks (Score:2, Insightful)
America is litigation land, and they just don't want the hassle of any frivolous lawsuits.
Re:Town planning - lack of. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, seeing as this is London, and was "planned" over hundreds of years, I don't think that criticism works as well as you think.
Re:Town planning - lack of. (Score:4, Insightful)
The European design wastes a lot less petrol than the American design, because you can get around and do a lot without even getting into the car. It is a local inefficiency as a trade-off for a higher-level efficiency. In America, you want to buy milk? You have to move a ton of steel around at homicidal speeds. In Europe, you want to buy milk? You walk for the same amount of time—or less—and you buy it from the shops.
"Town planning fail" happens when you think that the car is an important and necessary part of modern life. It's not. It's useful that some people have cars; but to think it should be convenient for everyone to drive most of the time is foolishness.