Ford Files Patent for Robotic Police Vehicles

Imagine the joy of receiving a ticket in the mail for running a red light or speeding.  All of the financial burden, and none of that pesky personal interaction.  Besides, if there are any extenuating circumstances that led to your infraction - wouldn't you rather take time off and drive to the courthouse and make your case to the judge anyway?  It seems that Ford Global Technologies wants to take that a huge step forward by bringing the Automated Police Vehicle in to play.

According to techxplore.com, Ford filed a patent for a system that would not only watch how you drive, but would send an automated "pursuit" vehicle to ticket you.  Not that you'd be pulled over, the chase vehicle would theoretically get close enough to wirelessly connect with your car to determine if it is being driven autonomously or manually, if there is a malfunction, and hundreds of other pieces of data.  It crunches all of this information and "decides" whether or not you should get a citation.  That citation is then sent wirelessly to your vehicle!  Progress!