Road spies

From the Autoblog, 'Malta encourages you to spy on your neighbor':

Narcs, stool pigeons and tattle tales, this is the post for you. Malta has a program that allows drivers to text message reports of vehicles suspected of not meeting emissions standards to the government. Of the 15,000 or so reports received via SMS, over 200 were called in for further investigation, and many of them indeed failed emissions tests.

As invasive as this sounds, I kind of like the idea, actually, as long as people promise to pull over and do it. Remember the old “Call 1-800-44-TRASH” to report litterers? What if they were to also set up a 1-800-U-R-DRUNK number to text in drunk drivers? Of course, I get so pissy at people who cut me off or wait until the last possible second to acknowledge the fact that the lane they’re in exits that I’d probably text them in even though they’re perfectly sober...

A civic duty: SMS 5061 1899 by Martin Scicluna