Do you want to know why they are cracking down on wrongly spaced licence plates? It is for the new digital speed cameras, apparantly they have trouble reading certain types of licence plates.

 

I understand the new digital speed cameras read at front plates rather than rears (lots of happy bikers then!)and find it hard to deal with square plates (rather than the usual rectangular ones.

Hmm, d'you think Halfords might just be selling a few square plates in the near future?

Nick

 

Although this is the main reason for the crackdown, illegible number plates won't save you. Any that are unreadable by the computer are "flagged" and manually checked by a "human" operator. So there is NO escaping....

 

I think Halfords will also be doing a roaring trade in plates with the new regs in March 2001. The DVLA says all plates must use the 'Charles Wright' font:



More details:

 

Just to let you all know the police / DVLA are really cracking down on Miss spaced number plates I have been pulled twice in 24 Hrs and was very lucky to get away with it mine is T4L GO (should be T4 LGO) the cop said they have no choice now but a £20 fine and removal of the number plate i.e. you lose it !! so off to Halfords in the Morning and boring T4 LGO plate going on Bugger !!

TA L !!

On a better note I have know got the 1000 mile service out of the way and will be engaging rocket boosters soon !!

 

I bought a new plate last week. Whilst on the phone I had to agree to not mis-space or alter the plate in any way and when you receive the documentation the plaster all over with a warning of £1000 fine and possible confiscation of plate. - Not Good

L60N JC

 

Another thing the DVLA are doing/thinking of doing with regards mis-representing numberplates, is the '3 strikes & out' policy.

If the number plate is reported to them on 3 seperate occasions as being illegal, then they will withdraw the plate.

Not sure if this is actually happening at the moment, if its not, it will be before very much longer.

 

I guess I'm alright!!!

Andy Tang
T8 NGO (with correct spacings!!)

 

What bugs me with these numberplate reading speedtraps is that they do not differentiate vehicles. Therefore vehicles limited to 60 mph, those involved in most major accidents ie trucks will not be caught unless they exceed the limit set for cars ! - How ludicrous is that !

Also the obvious answer is to use false plates. The more the police rely on cameras to do the work, the less chance there will be of being pulled in your vehicle and therefore less chance of getting caught with the wrong plates on. This will mean that drivers are less likely to stop after an accident - and more likely to get away with it

Mick
P1 7URB - when I get round to sorting it out

 

Mike R

The police cannot "enhance" the number plate by any means in an attempt to read the plate. I seem to remember someone getting off on a technicality when the police "enhanced" the photo to be able to read the plate. It was deemed un-admissible as it had been tampered with.

 

I think what Mike R means is that the machines cannot read mis-spaced plates, or those in different fonts.

The vehicle being flagged for 'human' attention does not mean that the photo has to be enhanced, just that the ANPR computer can't read it and needs someone to do it.

 

Mick,

don't forget, HGV's are limited to FIFTY mph on dual carriageways (cars 70), and FORTY mph on single (cars 60) - so they can exceed the speed limit by a considerable margin and no be caught!

There has got to be some European Human Rights issue there - unfairly targetting a particular category of the population.

mb

 

Stuart,
Yep, thats exactly what I meant.

However, picture this. What happens when some bright spark can "hack" into the computers that this information is stored on?

They can change the plates to read anything (as they are a digital image) or even delete them from the system (that would be good ). I'm sure we will not hear the last of this, and someone could make a right little earner from getting people off offenses if it is a fully automated system....
Mike R

 

Ever heard of steganography? It's a method of hiding data in an image. One use is to hide a hash (checksum) throughout the image to show whether or not an area has been changed. The algorithms that do this can be implemented in firmware, and have been used by some forces successfully to prove the admissibility of digital images as evidence...

Dunno why I mention this. Someone may be interested. See

 

Mike

Good idea - Somebody out there must be able to do it very shortly? Lee, sounds like a job for you! - Discount for SIDC members

Mick