California police use tire noise to combat sideshows

Two Bay Area cities are testing technology aimed at tracking and alerting police to incidents, according to Flock Safety, the law enforcement technology company behind San Francisco’s 400 new license plate-reading cameras.

The new device uses AI technology to listen for specific types of tire screeches, distinguishing between the sounds made during a sideshow and, for example, a sound about to ram into the car in front, said Holly Beilin, a spokesperson for Flock Safety.

The sensors are “able to distinguish when there is a persistent sound of screeching tires and other noises that may indicate side effects, and can alert law enforcement agencies with a very high degree of accuracy,” Beilin said.

Flock officials declined to name which cities are using the sideshow detection device or comment on whether other cities have discussed adopting the technology.

Jeff Cretan, spokesman for Mayor London Breed, said San Francisco would consider expanding the use of Flock devices.

“We have a great partnership with Flock,” said Cretan. “Their automated license plate readers have been a gamechanger and we continue to evaluate their products in our city.”

Sideshows, the unsanctioned stunt driving events that have long roiled Bay Area communities, have recently come under increased scrutiny as lawmakers impose harsher penalties on both drivers and other participants.

It was not immediately clear whether the Flock Safety technology was used to disrupt sideshows, or when it was installed.

City leaders have faced criticism for years from residents fed up with local side issues, saying officials aren’t doing enough to respond to the unruly and often dangerous events.

Although San Francisco’s current license plate readers don’t record audio, Beilin said Flock’s new sideshow detection technology could work well alongside the cameras.

“If an officer cannot immediately arrive on scene to record the license plates of the suspect vehicles involved in the sideshows, (license plate reader) cameras can provide that evidence so officers can then take action,” Beilin said.

Several other Bay Area cities are already using Flock’s license plate readers to help police make arrests, including Oakland, Vallejo, Richmond and Fairfield. The company said this month that more than 5,000 communities in the US are using its technologies.

While local police and city officials have praised Flock’s cameras as a high-tech crime-fighting aid, the devices have raised concerns about possible violations of privacy rights.

In a federal lawsuit filed this week, the public interest law firm Institute for Justice alleged that the ubiquitous “dragnet” created by the cameras violates the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches.

The lawsuit names two residents of the Virginia cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth as plaintiffs. They claim that the installation of the cameras makes it impossible for them to travel around the city by car without their movements being recorded by the system.

In a statement in response to the lawsuit, Flock said that “license plate readers do not constitute a criminal investigation because they take photos of cars in public and cannot continuously monitor the movements of any individual.”

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