Scan Someone's License Plate and Message Them Instantly with New Bump App

Ugh....

This actually sounds sort of interesting. As long as they do it with voice activation stuff, I don’t think it’s that creepy at all – random people facebook me all the time – I kinda like being able to stay safe in my car when someone’s trying to say something to me and now I can do something if someone does something wrong, I like being able to report people when they sell me broken stuff on ebay and being able to yelp about getting treated poorly, seems logical that we should be able to do that where we are all the time, what is the number we call to send messages?

my parents actually met in a traffic jam. very cool idea :)

This sounds very unsafe. This seems to me like more of a distraction than texting in car.

I always wanted to be on the sending end of something like this.....but not necessarily the receiving end. I think it will work out better if the anonymity can be kept to a minimum. I think people will be less likely to abust the system if when seding they can be easily identified.

This is cool only if cars drive themselves perfectly. Anything less than that will kill people.

A few quick updates from the product team at BUMP.com * our smart phone apps disable texting when driving (so voice only), *we are creating a safety network for drivers to know when their car got towed, and to also report bad driving, (or good driving) or to send messages safely via voice. We are also working on launch of several other products and applications that provide voice solutions for safety.

We are also launching a consumer safety connection to amber alerts, earthquake, traffic alerts, free towing, and weather alerts in the system. We are working with a leading expert on road rage to develop product features that diffuse road tension, and prevent accidents. In our next release, we have a profanity filter, a speak-and-listen system, among many other safety features. Of course, a user can opt to “un-list” their plate and not receive any messages. Our nationwide phone number launches in October, where you can simply leave messages for any car, so it is, indeed, an 800-how-am-i-driving for the entire country – it uses speech recognition and is hands free. It’s a sort of Crowdsourcing for safety and marketing (users can choose to receive offers based on where they go).

It’s also important to note, that this is happening very fast. We’re just one of the companies in the space, and perhaps the first one you heard of – there are close to 20 other companies currently doing license plate messaging across the country – check them out, as well. (if you don’t want to dig, email me and I will send you a list). At BUMP.com however, we want to be the company to do this the right way, the safe way (we are the only one of the 20 companies implementing these safety features).

I sincerely want to listen and address our users concerns and change the product in every way possible to make it safe. Please, send me feedback directly to me about how to make our product offering more safe for our users, I will respond to you personally. Thanks again! mitch.thrower@bump-network.com

Looking forward to hearing from you,
- Mitch Thrower, Founder, BUMP.com

It is illegal to text while driving in my state.

There's a reason for that!

Carbook. I love it. I've always been annoyed at the fact that a species advanced enough to build automobiles is reduced to barking and protective coloration in the 10% of our waking time we spend in them.

Am I the only one who that is so ashamed of this pathetic appeal as the only way they can get anyone to pay attention to them!

"Look at Me! I'm the Coolest! Please send me an email!" is begging to get just what your asking for, attention, but not the kind your wanting at all! This is somebodies brain flash to squeeze money from an insecure and hopelessly personality deficit human being that it seems the entire nation has become.

Go ahead and sign up and then when you get the inevitable stalker who manages to hack into their database and get your Vin number, it is just one more hack into the DMV to get your address.. you will not get any sympathy from me ... and hopefully another person or two that still has some self respect.

Too far... Can someone say 'police state'? 'cause that's where I think we're headed.

PREPARE TO BE STALKED BY EVERYONE... or at least me...

"The creators seem to have covered several other bases, such as the problem of someone falsely claiming your license plate. You can go to the car’s profile page, flag it and enter your VIN number, and Bump will sort out the details"

So, now I have to actively watch their site to be sure someone else didnt enter my license plate into it???

And if they did, I have to put my VIN into their system?
(sounds like they may validate against DMV)

Hell no!!

What ever happened to our basic right NOT to be spammed, mailed, called, emailed, bumped, etc...without specific approval first??

Everything is now "send it to them before they create a 'do-not annoy' list"!

As far as I am concerned that borders on harrassment
and this new service doesnt help the situation.

I was just thinking about something like this recently, now I can finally tell that guy who has a busted taillight that he should get it fixed before a cop pulls him over.

haha this video is pretty awesome!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csq37RB1CFk

I'm all for new technology, but when technology and privacy clash, it's just a big no-no.

With over 250 million drivers in the U.S., what % would/could possibly claim their own license on this website in order to receive messages from strangers?

We don't give out our phone numbers and emails to strangers, but we're going to start connecting our license plates to our phone numbers and emails so people we don't want contacting us can start contacting us?

Let's look at safety. To send a message you need to use your cell phone to call in the plate or in the future, you might be able to scan in the plate. Regardless, either process would be illegal in most states if you're already behind the wheel and driving.

Let's look at how creepy this could be. Some guy sees a hot chick at the supermarket. So he follows her around for a bit and rather than talk to her, because he's too shy, he jots down her license plate and decides to contact her that way. So if she's one of the 250 million drivers that by chance has claimed her license plate on their website, she might get the message that some creepy guy is telling her she's cute. Of course, she's probably thinking what a loser he was or what a stalker he is - as he must have been watching her. Ironically, the owner of the car turns out to be her 75 year old, 350 lb grandmother who gets the message and wants to meet up w/ the guy.

Let's continue to look at how this service could be used to scam people. I've just witnessed an accident where a driver stuck another car in the parking lot of the supermarket, but he took off. I could be a nice guy and report the whole thing, but instead, I take down the both license plates and send both owners a message through Bump demanding money from one to keep the details quiet about the accident, and money from the other driver to give them details about the accident. Of course, this is extortion, but the point is that in just a few minutes, I can think of several ways this system could get abused for the purpose of scamming people and defrauding people out of their money.

That being said, I think their website and concept best appeals to lonely and desperate people. Those are probably the most likely to sign up for such a service, hoping someone might contact them. But as an educated, adult driver, last thing I want is someone contacting me out of the blue, via my license plate. If you've got something to say to me, say it to my face. It's time we stop hiding behind the web for everything we do. We're soon going to be a bunch of social introverts who can't approach anyone directly...only through senseless applications like Bump.

@nowayinhell - hahaha aren't you hiding behind the web with your ridiculously long rant. I could spend the time destroying each one of your sadly put together arguments, but I wouldn't want to offend an educated, adult driver like yourself even though the way you come across leads me to believe that you were that jerk the other day who cut me off. I wish there was a way that I could have told you that you need to watch your blind spots... oh wait there is :) catch ya on BUMP buddy.

It reminds me of foursquare in some ways which is neat, and this has many practical uses, however the stalker side has endless possibilities as well. I liked that they are already looking into these with fixes such as the VIN# to reclaim your plates.
This just seems dangerous as the next logical step (in my eyes) is the connecting to social networks, with GPS uploads. Newer cars have GPS, some anyways, which will make the step quite simple as the vehicle can auto-upload, and it makes for convenient tracking for parents. I see the issue with the information floating around being of identity versus location. (remember that movie in '08 "untraceable"? the part where he's in her car, not the overall movie message)

I somewhat like the idea of remaining anonymous on the road, and I rather think I'm not alone here.

TLDR, I doubt this gains much popularity.

This is embarrassing. Why do people feel the need to socially network on every level?

“We’re right next to each other on the highway, but we have no way to communicate, connect, and network,” as Bump’s Web site explains.

And I'd like to keep it that way. If I want to "connect", I'll do so...but you can bet it won't be with some non-driving idiot who's trying to run over me.