[godelski]

IANAL

Flashing your headlights to warn others of cops or anything else is generally considered free speech. IIRC, this has been ruled on several times in pretty high courts.

So double check with a lawyer, but I'm like 99% confident there's nothing illegal about these types of Apps. I mean Waze has been doing it for years and even Google maps notifies you about speed traps.

If some new ruling makes it not free speech, we're in danger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlight_flashing

[lupusreal]

In the UK during the early era of cars, the Automobile Association used to send boys out with bicycles to warn drivers about speed traps. This was challenged in court, obstruction of justice or some such, so the AA simply inverted the scheme. The boys were now told to always salute cars to signal that everything was okay, but wouldn't salute if there was a speed trap ahead. It was reasoned that the law couldn't compel the boys to salute. Apparently they kept this up for a few decades, before eventually deciding that speed limits were generally reasonable.

[belorn]

If you drive around in EU then be aware that the law is different depending on the country. Schweiz for example do not allow to use or sell databases that has the location of speed cameras. In Germany you are not allowed to use apps that warn you of it. You are also not allowed to use your car lights to warn other drivers, but you can use hand signals. They are however allowed in other places like Belgium, Neitherlands and Spain.

Here is a list (but I can't say how accurate it is): https://lizhiguos.com/driving-aids-and-speed-camera-warnings...

[pjmlp]

As someone that lives and works on the DACH region, you just have to listen to German and Swiss radios, they do tend to point out radar spots, regardless of those laws, so dunno how they get their permissions to do so.

[notahacker]

Now you get the warning on your satnav...

[ndriscoll]

I use OsmAnd and it alerts me to pedestrian crosswalks. My wife uses google and it alerts her to speed enforcement. Interesting difference in priorities.

[overfeed]

What are the benefits of crosswalks alerts? Usually, there are lots of signs leading to, and at the crosswalks. This is the opposite for fixed and mobile speed traps, they'd rather it be a surprise to drivers.

[lupusreal]

The benifit is adding another layer of safety to reduce risk. In the swiss cheese model of accidents, each safety measure is a layer of swiss cheese, which has holes through which accidents may go through. But if you stack up a lot of cheese, the accident has to thread a path through several different holes and that is less likely to happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

[bluecalm]

Idk about danger. There are countries with better functioning democracy and personal freedom than US that make it illegal to use an app that warns about speed traps. For example Switzerland. In multiple other countries you also can't flash your headlights to warn about police presence on the road.

You can have a reasonable system one way or another. I would take Swiss regulation over US one any day personally.

[account42]

Flashing headlights gets people to drive more carefully and within the speed limit, thus you are not helping someone commit a crime. However if you help someone avoid being lawfully detained this might make you complicit in their actions and the courts could very well decide differently. Intent very much matters here.

[haswell]

Using this line of reasoning, let’s imagine for a moment that a car speeding 20mph over the limit sees someone on the other side of the road flashing their lights and slows down in time to avoid a ticket.

Hasn’t the light flasher helped someone who was breaking the law avoid detection?

And isn’t the intent of the flasher to ensure that people who were breaking the law have enough time to stop doing that long enough to avoid detection?

> However if you help someone avoid being lawfully detained

Obligatory “I am not a lawyer” disclaimer, but the people who make posts on this app have no contact with the people the app ostensibly benefits. If the app helped targets of ice find willing drivers in the area to help them escape to somewhere else, that’d be one thing since there is now a direct relationship with a person and the accused and direct action on the part of the app user. But I don’t see how this app is materially different from posting speed traps or DUI checkpoints on Waze, an action that has absolutely helped people avoid lawful intervention by police.

[ndsipa_pomu]

The light flasher has merely persuaded someone to stop breaking the law. Whether or not the lights flashed, the police would not have been able to detect prior speeding, but merely detected speeding near them.

An analogy might be to have a sign in a shop warning thieves of CCTV - the purpose is to prevent theft and is not considered to be helping someone avoid detection, although it does also do that.

[account42]

Speech that indirectly results in someone committing more crime is not the same as speech that directly incites someone to commit more crime.

[cmiles74]

We’re saying that “intent very much matters here” but when we are talking about people flashing headlights to warn others of a police-manned speed trap, we focus on the effects of the action. Isn’t the intention of the person flashing their headlights (in many cases) to help people break the law? That is, people see the signal and slow down while passing the speed trap only to increase speed once past, evading detection.

This looks much the same to me as people warning those around them of ICE activity.

[zdragnar]

Nobody flashes their headlights with the intent that someone will speed up. Driving at night, you're not even able to determine whether oncoming traffic is speeding.

It is literally telling someone to obey the law, because the law is watching.

[bee_rider]

Maybe they’s why people post on the app too, to remind folks to have their documentation in order.

[zdragnar]

If you have the app, you likely don't need the reminder. You're either evading ICE or helping other people steer clear of ICE.

Police notifications on GPS don't really give you much notification to turn off onto a different road or to avoid them, at least on freeways, which is the only time I've seen them.

[koverstreet]

Fondly remember 20 years ago when I was doing over 100 on a highway in northern Alaska and all the _cop_ did was flash his lights at me to tell me to slow down.

Times sure are changing

[Brendinooo]

In Pennsylvania the court ruled that flashing your lights to signal isn’t illegal but it is dangerous at night. So presumably it’s fine during the day, or perhaps one could signal by turning headlights off and on instead.