Bumper taps - parallel parking

Anything done in public is fair game for being recorded by a camera. There is nothing illegal about taking pictures of people in public.

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I didn’t mean to blow the dog whistle on this topic but really, in this day of everyone having a phone that records voice and video and can be uploaded for the world to see, seems to me this is an invasion of privacy even though you are on a public street. Is the inside of your home or auto the only place that you can have an expectation of privacy? Even the police can record your license plate and location but they cannot distribute that information to the public. How is it that a nobody could record your location on their phone and put it on Youtube then? Obviously I do not know the answer but seems to me we need some new regulations on publication of what should be private activities. Outside of regulations on stalking, a person can really undeservedly ruin someone’s life by pestering and recording normal activities if they are bent on revenge. Safe at home.

It may seem that way and I kinda agree with you
but this has been addressed by the Supreme Court
and their ruling clearly said that if you are in public you have no expectation of privacy.

I believe it was audio recording that required the 2 party consent, no?

Sound is the key in MA as well which has very restrictive laws regarding illegal wiretapping- https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law#:~:text=Massachusetts’s%20wiretapping%20law%20often%20referred,by%20telephone%20or%20another%20medium.&text=This%20law%20applies%20to%20secret%20video%20recording%20when%20sound%20is%20captured.

They were phone conversations.

The key word in the MA wiretapping law is “secret.” It’d be tough to argue that a security camera was secret unless it was deliberately hidden.

And even with that key word, MA is notorious for abusing the law - they’ve arrested drivers for having dash cams before when the dash cams catch the cops doing something they shouldn’t. It was only in 2018 when the MA supreme court ruled that cops have to stop arresting people for filming them being bad cops.

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Unfortunately, I do remember her :frowning_face:

I guess we just need to rely on the courts to determine when it is harassment or stalking. The thing is sound bites and video can be very unreliable evidence but everyone seems to think if they film someone, that is some great evidence. Not necessarily the case like eye witnesses. It’s hard for people not to draw unfair conclusions for what they think they see. Luckily I’ve never been stalked since high school but I think we have gone too far with all the camera bugs.

Relax, you are in no danger of being a target of the paparazzi.

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Yeah not worried about myself but others.

As we would say during our very competitive school yard basketball games, “no blood, no foul”.

You are not an idiot and inconsequential bumps happen all of the time and not just with parallel parking. The car owner was notified and while a bit of irritation is to be expected I see no reason to get bent out of shape when admittedly no damage was found. It seems to me that anyone who parallel parks should expect something to happen at some point.

Long story short, but years ago an 89 year old man trying to parallel park where I lived accidentally pushed the throttle to the floor and continued shifting between DRIVE and REVERSE the entire time while never letting up on the throttle.

When all was said and done, the damage included a badly busted up curb (a high one at that) , seven damaged cars, and 5 parking meters. At one point his Buick jumped that high curb and started raking everything in front of him. After all of that the PD didn’t even cite him for one violation even though he came very close to running a few people down.

Good grief

Somebody should have immediately taken his keys and thrown them off a cliff.

And they should have taken his driver’s license and fed into the shredder

DMV should have been notified immediately that this guy was to have his driving privileges revoked on the spot

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Heh heh heh. There are laws. Some younin’ patrolman thought my 88 year old dad should be evaluated. So he had to take his driver’s test for the first time in his life after probably logging a couple million miles on the ground as well as flight time. They never had tests back then. We went out driving to hit the points and procedures the partrolman would be marking off. He passed. Even had to back into an alley between snow drifts which I never had to do. Pass your test, good to go. Leave 'em alone. We’ve had this conversation before so others will disagree.

In addition someone that demented is a danger to themself and others and should probably be evaluated to be admitted to an elder care facility.

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No offense to your dad . . .

But did the young patrolman see your dad do something . . . in regards to driving . . . that led him to take his actions?

I’m not saying to retest everybody above a certain age

But there need to be some kind of consequences, retests, evaluations, etc. for somebody that did something so ridiculous and dangerous as the story @ok4450 mentioned

Such a person won’t go to sleep and wake up the next morning a perfect driver

Not going to happen

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If you contacted an SUV with your compact sedan with enough energy to make the SUV move visibly in security footage
 it wasn’t a tap.

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Evidently a rainy foggy night and he made a wide turn.

Now of course you never know exactly who it was. Anyone can report anyone else, even your neighbor, but it was also possible it was someone else. Older drivers tend to do things a little slower and don’t react as fast, but hey the law is the law and if you pass the test, get off my grass.

You could easily make noticeable movement of a car on a security camera just by pushing it with your hands - especially if its parking/emergency brake isn’t enganged, which it likely wasn’t. But if the bump was light enough there was literally zero visible damage to the paint, then no harm done whatsoever.

This was just sortof a wakeup moment, just be more careful parking. Lesson learned. Ain’t a big deal.

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