New tech scans license plates with ease

[William769]

LEE COUNTY -
Big brother is watching you on Lee County's roads. Deputies are using state-of-the-art cameras to fight crime. Our Paul Gessler took an exclusive ride with the auto theft unit.

Auto theft is just one example of crime that the new technology is designed to stop. But it will also tip deputies off to something as small as an expired registration.

Driving through the Lehigh Acres Walmart parking lot Wednesday evening, the new software did in 15 seconds what deputies say would have taken them 15 minutes – scanning dozens of license plates.

"On any given day, you're going to sit there and put in 20-30 tags and not get anything, whereas this one will constantly do it," said Deputy Scott Persing, with the Lee County Sheriff's Office.

http://www.nbc-2.com/story/15161150/2011/07/27/new-tech-scans-license-plates-with-ease

[MineralMan]

1. Ha! So that's what that unit is. The other day I saw an

almost unmarked police car in St. Paul with two of those mounted on either side of the car's trunk. Looks like they're doing parking lot passes, looking for stolen cars, I guess. I wondered what that was about.

[SoCalDem]

2. and the robot never asks for time off to have a baby, or needs medical insurance

or threatens to strike, or calls in sick..

faster maybe..effective probably, but as more robots do work of people, more people get laid off.. a conundrum

[MineralMan]

3. Here's a story about these units being used in Minnesota.

St. Paul has several of them, it seems:

http://www.startribune.com/local/east/118546124.html

[William769]

4. Thanks for the link.

[slackmaster]

5. The San Diego PD was testing that a couple of years ago. I got pulled for registration...

...that was expired by one day.

The officer was polite and did not cite me, after I told him I'd already mailed in my payment and was waiting for the new sticker to arrive. (He probably already knew that the DMV had received its money.)