Paul:
Let’s go to Laurie now who’s in Wheeler’s Hill and wants to talk about speed cameras.
Laurie:
Oh yes, hello. I wanted to talk about red light cameras in particular.
Paul:
Okay; go for it.
Laurie:
I was recently in court challenging a red light camera and it occurred to me that, would I have the right – I know this sounds a bit crazy – would I have the right to call the speed camera to cross examine as a witness?. Now I know that’s silly and can’t be done but in law how does that work? I mean the police have a witness which is a robot, do I have the right to challenge the robot in court?
DW:
Yes: but you can’t really put any questions to it. There are processes for making sure that the equipment has been maintained.
Laurie:
Yep.
DW:
So if you were to look at the Road Safety Act and some of those regulations, there is a reference as to how often they must be tested. There are references to the very precise identification of the red light cameras concerned. So they’re tested and calibrated.
Laurie:
Now I am an electronics engineer myself and I know very well that computers fail. You’ve probably experienced any number of times where your computer freezes up for no apparent reason.
DW:
I always put it down to operator error, Laurie.
Laurie:
Okay, well I can assure you as an engineer, it’s not always operator error.
DW:
Yes.
Laurie:
So am I entitled to therefore call for logs? Do they keep logs? Am I allowed to look at circuit diagrams and programming information?
Paul:
That’s a big one, isn’t it? If you want to challenge it.
DW:
Well, let’s assume there are a thousand of these that have got all of the same programming lines and all of the same circuit boards.
Laurie:
Yes.
DW:
It’s a percentages game. We’ve got a thousand of them and you want the error logs generally or the error logs for this machine and let’s say that we get to the point that there might be a one in a million chance or one in 500,000 chance that the machine failed or didn’t work properly at the time that you went through the intersection.
Laurie:
Yep.
DW:
I’ve got to say I’m not sure I’m satisfied. You haven’t created a reasonable doubt. You’ve created a remote possibility but not a reasonable doubt that the machine wasn’t functioning properly at the time it took the picture that’s of concern to you.
Laurie:
But you wouldn’t know that until you examined the machine. Would I have the right to insist on examining the machine?
DW:
I think there’s been a couple of cases on that and the answer to that question is no. They’re entitled to rely upon the accuracy of the certification and inspections that are done periodically.
Paul:
So you knew that, Laurie. Sounds like you’re trying to get off on a technicality, mate. Did you go through the red light or not?
Laurie:
Yes and I did get off.
DW:
Well congratulations, Laurie.
Laurie:
But doesn’t this lead to the argument that we’re trusting robots instead of human beings?
DW:
Yes, but do we not do that every day?
Paul:
Yes.
Laurie:
No, I’m very sceptical and I don’t.
Paul:
Well you’ve got the right to challenge it in court, if you want to go that way.
DW:
What you could do is try and buy one of the machines and then go through the process of analysing it line by line for code, looking at the circuit diagrams, looking for errors. But you’re still going to have exactly the same problem. On the day that you went through and they took your picture, can you create a reasonable doubt?
Paul:
Laurie, we’ll leave it here, thanks very much for your call. And we’ve got plenty more waiting.