Traffic cops in in New Delhi, India have begun issuing traffic tickets based on images uploaded to their Facebook page by tattletale motorists. There are so many posts police have two full-time staffers combing through submissions, hunting down legit violations.
New Delhi's a city of 12 million people with 6.5 million registered vehicles. A huge population for just 5,000 traffic cops to patrol and naturally most traffic violations go unpunished. Well now the force has a new asset in the form of Facebook. Motorists have taken to posting images of traffic violations on the Delhi Traffic Police page and giving descriptions of the incident. If the staffers determine the image (or occasionally video) is evidence of a violation and there's a number plate visible they issue a traffic ticket.
The unintentional program has been a boon for business and turned New Delhi's motorists into tattle tails. So far the police have been monitoring the Facebook page since mid May and issued 665 tickets, with an amusingly disproportionate 50 tickets going to police officers caught being bad. We can't say we're for this kind of policing, but it's certainly clever. [The Car Connection]