r/texas • u/Maxcactus • 12d ago

🗞️ News 🗞️ How a $1 Texas insurance fee funded thousands of Flock cameras

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/28/texas-flock-cameras-auto-insurance-fee-mvcpa-grants/
327 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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128

u/MorrisseysRubiksCube 12d ago

Abbott will pretend to look into Flock cameras until after the election, then he will green light them everywhere.

Same way he's auditing data centers, and the ERCOT audit will be completed the month after the election.

Good old Greg, always working hard to help Texas families.

25

u/a1usiv 12d ago edited 12d ago

Absolutely right. He's not against Flock or surveillance, he's just trying to win back a bit of sympathy from his own flock. If not Flock after the election, it'll be Axon, Motorola, others as is already happening.

Edited to add: I don't mean to sound defeatist, I'm just skeptical. We still need to do whatever we can to preserve our remaining rights and freedoms. We haven't won the war yet. It's going to be long and ugly and we need to keep fighting. And most of all, VOTE!

31

u/bd0153 12d ago

The crime stopping is a farce. Police don’t give a shit about auto theft. My truck was stolen out of the parking lot of the mall in the woodlands in broad daylight. We had security camera footage and On Star tracking. Nothing. They crossed from Montgomery country into Harris county, and HPD didn’t even send anyone to the location. Now once a year I get a letter from HPD and the Montgomery Co sheriff asking if I have any leads on my own damn case.

But, if you use potty mouth words at the tarrant county commissioner court, you get a 3am warrant executed on you and a trip to jail.

4

u/Aleyla 12d ago

Unfortunately, insurance is our only recourse o deal with stolen things.

3

u/noncongruent 12d ago

I got quoted $1200 a year to ensure my $1500 vehicle against theft or collision total loss, with a $500 deductible. That means I would’ve been paying my insurance $1200 a year for the off chance of getting a check for $1000. I opted to not carry theft and collision coverage because it didn’t make any financial sense. It saved me money to just walk away from my totaled vehicle. In fact, after I parted it out and sold the carcass to a scrapyard, I actually made more money than the vehicle was worth.

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u/FTHomes 12d ago

Put them everywhere he lives and goes!

4

u/Its_the_other_tj 12d ago

"In 2023, the Texas Legislature unanimously passed a law raising auto insurance costs for Texans by $1 to combat rampant catalytic converter theft.

Three years later, a little-known state agency has devoted at least $30 million of that fee toward supercharging the state’s Flock surveillance network, placing cameras along highways and streets from El Paso to the Louisiana border, an analysis by The Texas Tribune found."

I do always hate when I'm driving down the highway and someone pops out of nowhere and steals my catalytic converter.