The Problem: 1. Cops can’t be everywhere. 2. When people do illegal activities almost causing an accident, you need to find a non violent way of venting stress. 3. Driving is an un-natural way of interacting with others. When you drive other’s are de-humanized, because there is not way to communicate with them besides flipping them off. 4. If people saw all the stress that they cause other’s when they drive recklessly, maybe they would drive more carefully.

The Social Invention: We should create a website where people can complain about drivers. They should be able to post comments on websites, organized according to people’s license plate. People could post date, time, and location of the event, and the law that the person broke. The average driver would probably only get a post a year. But really bad drivers could get a lot more. People could say something like, “I’m driving with my new baby, and you cut me off, and turned right after you cut me off. You could have killed me!”
-- myclob, Mar 06 2005

I've been considering this for a while now, although I wanted police intervention for bad drivers - maybe ten posts a year means a driving ban. Problem is, what's to stop people using it as a form of revenge? You could easily bomb one driver from several email addresses just because they were going out with your ex.

Is there a point in having a site like this without teeth? Maybe. People might log on just to see what people had said about them and be chastened. Or ignore everyone. I'm rambling now, I'm going to go. Have a bun.
-- wagster, Mar 06 2005


Ah, a website run by curtain-twitchers. Oh well, I don't care, coz I can't drive, so have a bun.
-- froglet, Mar 07 2005


//If people saw all the stress that they cause others//, something to your idea there.
-- mensmaximus, Mar 07 2005


Gallagher (an American comedian who went out of style about 20 years ago) had the idea that drivers should all have dart guns that shoot little flags for shooting at the cars of offensive drivers. The cops would pull over the cars which had large accumulations. This sounds like the web-erized version of that idea.

I don't like this idea (either version) because it is too vulnerable to the same sort of popularity politics that one experiences at high school -- attractive people would still ultimately have more freedom to be rude and crass without penalty than the general population, and ugly/unpopular people would collect darts/comments just for being ugly/unpopular.
-- Soterios, Mar 07 2005


many religious - universities have this system. My own particular experience with the "silent referral" tell on your neighbors without having to face them in person - was Not at All pleasant.

What you are describing leads to children ratting on parents, and neighbors on each other often for imagined slights or a desire for revenge.

No Thank you!
-- elfling, Mar 07 2005


This is a variation on many similar ideas that have been posted here for the last few years. Most of them have been deleted for redundancy but I am tempted to leave this one here as another example upon which to claim redundancy for the inevitable similar ideas of the future.
-- bristolz, Mar 07 2005


//and ugly/unpopular people would collect darts/comments just for being ugly/unpopular//

Has anyone else noticed a slight prejudice within themselves towards certain other road users? I try to be polite to all and usually am, but I have noticed that BMW drivers tend to get slightly less kindness from me than others.
-- wagster, Mar 07 2005


wagster -

somebody once told me that mercedes cars come with 'Built in Right of Way' Maybe BMW's do too.
-- elfling, Mar 07 2005


//prejudice within themselves towards certain other road users?//
I find myself prejudiced against other drivers.
-- brodie, Mar 07 2005


This site would be of zero use to the police because it would contain a large quantity of accusations and no way to prove that they were true, without recourse to either onhand officers, or traffic cameras, both of which exist and function reasonably well without this website. The site will be of zero use to other drivers unless they are checking the number plates of each car against some in-car wireless gizmo showing the site, in which case it will be they that will be driving dangerously. Finally, as entertainment, it will be of zero use, being nothing more than the passive aggressive bleatings of nervous drivers and road hogs.
-- calum, Mar 07 2005


I agree that "this site would be of zero use to the police". It would mainly just be a way to vent frustration, and see how many people were mad at you.
-- myclob, Mar 11 2005


Somebody is already doing this. I don't believe it's scrupulosly - scrupolusly...very well kept up to date, but it's searchable by license plate number and area.
-- normzone, Mar 17 2006



random, halfbakery