Friends,
California State Senator Curren Price has put forward a bill to allow the DMV to study the emerging technology of digital electronic license plates. The technology being developed by a company in the Bay Area (without an actual working product or website that I could find—see: flags, red) called Smart Plate, would appear as a normal plate while the vehicle is in motion, but display ads while at a stop for over four seconds. That, or display Amber Alerts and other information that the DMV thinks you need to see.
To suggest that Senator Price is a brain-dead jackinape for even considering this idea dishonors those currently in a vegetative state. Can anyone seriously contend that an ad revenue stream can compensate for the loss of life caused by distracted drivers and fellow travelers driven to distraction in the first place? That the vehicle tracking mechanisms required to make this scheme work wouldn’t infringe on a driver’s privacy? That they couldn’t easily be hacked to display someone else’s number…
Hey, maybe they’re onto something.
– bob