Robocops Being Used As Traffic Police In Democratic Republic of Congo 39
mspohr writes "The Guardian describes robocops used in Kinshasa to direct traffic: "The solar-powered aluminum robots are huge, towering over the jammed streets of Kinshasa, as cars and motorcycles jostle for road room, their horns blasting. Each hand on the odd-looking machines — built to withstand the year-round hot climate — is fitted with green and red lights that regulate the flow of traffic in the sprawling city of nine million. The robots are also equipped with rotating chests and surveillance cameras that record the flow of traffic and send real-time images to the police station. These are second generation robots designed by a Congolese association of women engineers. Although the humanoids look more like giant toys than real policemen, motorists have given them a thumbs up. 'There are certain drivers who don't respect the traffic police. But with the robot it will be different. We should respect the robot,' taxi driver Poro Zidane told AFP."
Obligatory (Score:2, Funny)
I for one respect our new robocop overlords.
Re: (Score:2)
They'll respect robocop if robocop has the handgun from the movie to back him up. Otherwise, he's just another obstacle to knock out of the way.
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While the whole "robot" aspect is just style, I think the main point to respect is that they have moving low-light cameras. So the robot may not come and arrest you for a major violation, but the police might.
Anyway, while it's a bit gimmicky, I think it's just so great to see such a stereotypically 3rd world country supporting people learning engineering in that manner. DRC is the last place on earth one would expect government funding for an association of womens' engineers making robots. Maybe some day t
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I think it's just so great to see such a stereotypically 3rd world country supporting people learning engineering in that manner.
On the other hand, I think it's disturbing that 3rd world engineers are making the more developed areas of DRC, like the ones with giant robotic cops, look like they're living in a futuristic dystopian police state. The concept of having a towering robotic overlord giving me instructions and watching my every move doesn't sit that well, and I'm not from bumfuck nowhere, DRC, where substantial portions of the population believe in sorcery and animism. They just added a cop lookalike shell to things we'd cons
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Read TFA, it is already the job of the police there to "chase motorists who raise civic awareness":
"But Kinshasa governor Andre Kimbuta said that while the machines could regulate traffic, they were no match for real policemen who could chase motorists who jump red lights and raise civic awareness."
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And the Earth Stood Still.....today.
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Where's Roland when you need him? (Score:1)
Warren Zevon - Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner [youtube.com]
That's nothing (Score:4, Informative)
South Africa had similar ones for AGES. List of South African English regionalisms [wikipedia.org], Image search [google.co.za].
They still can't be bribed, though. New version needed, perhaps the government will issue a tender for that.
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This applies even when the traffic lights are in conventional form.
WARNING: Irony module not installed correctly. Type "WHOOSH" and press Enter to retry.
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How are these better than traffic lights? (Score:2)
Re:How are these better than traffic lights? (Score:4, Funny)
Robots are way cooler than traffic lights.
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proof that robots are cooler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_QsY7govq0
i want one in new york!
Re:How are these better than traffic lights? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Its africa (Score:5, Insightful)
Traffic lights requires a certain level of societal discipline , a willingness to follow rules and common sense. These tend to be in short supply on that continent.
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Which, incidentally, has nothing whatsoever to do with the economic woes of that continent.
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That's an extremely ignorant and ethnocentric way to put it.
The issue is that they have a completely different driving culture [wikipedia.org]. In the west, traffic control devices are so old that they were originally human operated signs [wikipedia.org] because there was no electricity to operate them. They are as old to us as the automobile itself, meaning that all drivers in the West started out using traffic signals in the form of signs and, later, lights. There has never been a generation of drivers who did not have foreknowledge
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"In Africa, they have learned to expect a human figure to dictate flow of traffic"
Oh please. They're not bloody children. We had cops before traffic lights in the west but we sussed them out.
"They won't understand some funny looking street lights"
Now who's being ignorant. They understand perfectly - they just don't give a shit.
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And, as is often the case with online debates, both you and the person you are refuting are only partly right (I would argue that the GP, while not very politically-correct, is probably more right). I lived in (East) Africa for almost a year, and have had an interest in learning about cultural differences. Effectively, what this boils down to is whether the culture in question has respect for the rule of law, and in general, a lot of Africa doesn't. You could argue quite effectively that a lack of "respe
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Why have traffic lights when you can have a robocop which has red, yellow, and green lights? They probably went with the robocop traffic lights to save money, as they cost [theguardian.com] 1/2 to 1/8 what regular traffic lights cost [pekintimes.com].
Robot-shaped traffic lights (Score:2)
I don't get it. What's wrong with using traffic lights?
These are traffic lights. Traffic lights with cameras attached.
They're just traffic lights in the shape of robots. Which is pretty cool, when you look at the pictures.
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I don't get it. What's wrong with using traffic lights?
Dead or alive, you're stopping at this intersection!
Let's hope it goes better than Troposhere 5 (Score:1)
Re:I don't follow (Score:4, Funny)
Dare you to dis ED-209 !
Pipedot had this article a year ago (Score:2)
Was just reading where astronomers have seen a supernova event twice now due to gravitational lensing which allows the same image to take four different routes to our eyes.
This must be the same thing happening then, because I first read about the Kinshasa traffic robots on http://pipedot.org/ [pipedot.org] a full freaking year ago.
http://pipedot.org/story/2014-... [pipedot.org]
I'd like to scream "Dupe" but rather I'll scream "Missed it by a mile." WTF, Slashdot, this is like archeology these days. This news dates back to March 2014.
Re: Pipedot had this article a year ago (Score:2)
If you read the article you would have seen that it is about the new robots that they have installed. It even talks about the original two (the ones talked about in your article) and the upgrades with the new models.
Third world traffic rules (Score:3)
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I spent some time travelling for work to Mexico City and after about 5min in traffic I was amazed that there aren't more accidents. I wasn't surprised when a few days later the car I was in was involved in a minor accident. I'm definitely glad that we were using a van service and not renting our own cars.
I also wasn't sure which I saw more of - dogs walking around with missing appendages, or original-style VW Beetles. And every 5th car seemed to be one of the latter.
Enforcement (Score:2)