Flock Cameras Violate Highway Safety Standards As Well As The Fourth Amendment
We've dropped a lot of virtual ink about Flock cameras collecting a great deal of personal information beyond just license plates, as well as law enforcement misusing that information or just getting it downright wrong. It seems that many of the poles supporting this hardware violate not only our Fourth Amendment rights, but also highway safety standards, reports The Guardian. That makes them a physical hazard as well as a Constitutional one.
Most people don't pay much attention to the hardware that holds up signs on the side of the road, but the Federal Highway Administration describes in explicit detail exactly what is, and isn't, supposed to be there. It defines a clear zone as "an unobstructed, traversable roadside area that allows a driver to stop safely, or regain control of a vehicle that has left the roadway." Race tracks call this a runoff area, and their purpose is the same — to let a driver regain control without crashing into anything solid. FHA's sign support standard "requires all roadside sign supports in the clear zone [...] to be breakaway, yielding, or shielded by a barrier or crash cushion." I experienced this firsthand during my early years of driving. I got cut off while exiting a highway, locked up the brakes due to an old car and inexperience, and mowed down the yellow warning sign where the off-ramp split from the main road. I was surprised at how easily the sign gave way, and that it didn't even damage my car when I knocked it down. This was all by design, and it worked perfectly to keep my old Pontiac and me safe when I was run off the road.
That's not the case with the black poles that Flock is installing their equipment on. This screenshot from an ABC13 Houston report about poles getting cut down shows the base of the pole stuck straight into the ground. There is no hardware allowing it to break if it gets hit. Close-up shots of the cut pole itself show that it is thick enough to be unlikely to bend, either. While such intentional weak points could make it easier for vandals to take them down, they are vital for safety if and when cars hit them by accident.
Rules for thee but not for me
"There are a billion different people looking into the top part of the cameras [but] nobody's been looking at the bottom, and the crashworthy elements," said Steve Eimers to The Guardian. Known as the Guardrail Guy, Eimers is a registered nurse who turned his attention to roadside safety after losing his daughter in a crash with a guardrail in 2016. More recently, he has started documenting automated license plate reader camera installations that do not meet state and federal regulations. He does not single out Flock, either, as this video criticizes both a Flock and Axon camera installed next to each other, which is strange in itself. The Flock pole has no breakaway protection at all. The Axon pole does, but at more than 11 inches above the ground, the section sticking out of the ground would tear out the undercarriage or EV battery of any vehicle that hits it. Eimers shows many other examples of this on his TikTok.
@realguardrailguy Flock on the right and Axon on the Left This is very DANGEROUS.
Naturally, Flock denies installing poles that violate highway standards. From the Guardian:
"We do not agree with the premise that Flock regularly installs poles in violation of federal, state, or local safety requirements. The appropriate pole type and installation specifications depend on the roadway, speed, location, jurisdiction, and requirements of the relevant transportation or permitting authority," says Paris Lewbel, a Flock Safety spokesperson, who noted that the company planned to undergo a review of camera pole installations across its network.
Observations by Eimers and others show a different story. In another video, Benn Jordan points out a Flock camera that, in addition to not letting him leave his house without being spied on, appears to have been just stuffed into the ground. It has no concrete base, which Jordan says is required not only for a nearby road sign, but also a private mailbox. Perhaps because Flock serves law enforcement, law enforcement chooses not to enforce these laws for equipment it uses. Regardless, the laws of physics apply equally to anything you crash into, no matter who owns it, what it's used for, or how it's stuck into the ground.