Metropolis: Black Car

Here is the first chapter of my first book, "Metropolis", called, "Black Car". I created it after friends of mine were hit by a drunk driver in Oakland, CA an hour after I spoke with them. It was devastating and it seemed to all the affected people, on the victims' side, nothing worked. Nothing was in place to help the families, no one was assigned to manage the evidence, technology was not in use, and the assumption was the families would just give up and go away.

We didn't give up and didn't go away, but it shouldn't have been so hard.

This story is dedicated to my friends, Steve and Michelle Benjamin.

A black car races down a city street...

trying to beat a yellow light...

he makes the light and causes a collision...

there's a video camera in the intersection...

that recognizes the event as a collision and streams live video...

the video streams into 911 dispatch with GPS...

the system alerts city policy with location video...

emergency management gets the video and GPS data...

fire gets the call and response times are recorded...

the Sheriff joins..

cross-functional agency response is coordinated...

helicopter responders stream video and all evidence is assigned to the case...

triage activities are captured for medical records...

police interview citizens and record whatever is said...

police review video captured from intersection cameras minutes earlier...

police approach the driver of the black car.

EMS triages the woman t-boned by the black car...

police conduct a finger-to-nose drunk driving test...

EMS take the woman to the hospital...

and police take the black car driver to jail.

the system recognizes the other driver is ok, and reminds him to pay his parking ticket...

helicopter streams scene being cleared back to the command center...

911 dispatchers watch as the scene is cleared and traffic gets back to normal...

the injured woman receives proactive assistance with her medical and legal issues...

the system recommends a lawyer nearby who makes house calls...

she rests comfortably and waits for her lawyer to come help her with her case.

The driver doesn't have home internet so he goes to the courthouse about his case...

he used the eCitation system to check his case options...

he sees a lot of information has already been associated to his case...

the video of his finger-to-nose drunk driving test where he failed...

he sees his blood alcohol level test taken at the hospital...

he's given the choice to plead guilty, pay his ticket, and move on but he chooses to fight it.

The system books the court date, room, and times...

the court date arrives and the jury is assembled...

the judge pulls up all the evidence in the case on her ipad...

she projects the video of the failed DUI test and other evidence for the jury...

the jury quickly reaches a guilty verdict and the driver goes straight to jail.

The judge can see her stats on speed for clearing cases since they've been using the system.

The following section shows cell from the Black Car episode where technology is in place. If any of the cells in the story stand out as interesting concepts to consider using, you can pull them out to discuss learning more about it and see how you might use it in your real life.