Police Just Guessing When They Can't Clearly Read License Plate In Red Light Camera Photos

from the close-only-counts-in-horse-shoes,-hand-grenades-and-red-light-tickets? dept

Fri, May 28th 2010 9:14am — Mike Masnick

We recently wrote about a guy "caught" by a redlight camera who had to decode the numerical codes on the photos sent to him to prove he didn't actually run the red light. It was disturbing enough to find out that police were sending motorists tickets when they obeyed the law, but reader Brent points us to an even more problematic situation. Apparently, at least some police are simply taking guesses on license plates if they can't read all the letters correctly -- and they're sending tickets to the wrong people because of it. The police in the story insist that if they can't read the plate, they won't send a ticket, but the reporter covering the story shows at least two cases where that's simply not true, and where it seems clear that police just took a guess -- sending tickets to the wrong parties.

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Filed Under: guesses, redlight cameras

23 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 9:17am

"where it seems clear that police just took a guess" - so are they in fact taking a guess, or is the reporter just taking a guess that they are, and now you are making the same guess? pot calling kettle, can you hear me?
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 9:25am

Re:
TAM doesn't actually bother to read/view the story. How completely shocking.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 9:30am

Re:
I replace your reality, and substitute it with my own!
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 9:48am

Why not go for maximum revenue enhancement?
Here's my idea.

Instead of hiring qualified enforcers of the law to do data entry, why don't they just offshore all the human parts, and then run it through an automated phone tree?

The proposed tree would work like this:
>> Press 1 if you'd like to set a court date.
>> Press 2 to pay the fine. A $4.50 telephone convenience
>> fee will be added to your ticket.
>> Press 3 to speak to an account specialist.

If you press 3, you'll be transferred to a keyboard jockey in Mumbai named "Bill". "Bill" will insist that the picture sent with the ticket, is your car. They will tell you your white car is actually black because of a reflection in the lens. "Bill" will not budge, and instead try to get end the call within 90 seconds to meet his daily call center goals.

It's genius because you get the same result, and the municipalities also collect an extra $4.50 from the 90% of the suckers who don't dispute it.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 10:03am

Re: Re:
wrong. i did. while we are looking at a single still, it is clear there is a video. did they also look at the video or other still shots to determine the plate? did they make a typo? saying it is a guess is, well, a guess.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 10:10am

Re: Re: Re:
"There must be more to the story!" - Typical TAM response whenever he is wrong.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 10:18am

just don't respond to the tickets
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 10:20am

"did they also look at the video or other still shots to determine the plate? did they make a typo? saying it is a guess is"

Is there some kind of special video that isnt made up of a series of still shots.

If you get the vehicle make, model, color, and plate wrong; and they are not guessing, suggests a much more fatal flaw in the system.
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minijedimaster (profile), 28 May 2010 @ 10:34am

Re:
All the red light camera's I've seen were just that, camera's, not video recorders. You can tell because they use a flash when the picture is taken.
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 28 May 2010 @ 10:34am

Re:
Or are you in fact taking a guess that the reporter is just taking a guess that the police is taking a guess?
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Hulser (profile), 28 May 2010 @ 10:43am

Re: Re: Re:
did they also look at the video or other still shots to determine the plate?

Yes, there was a video, but wouldn't you think that the police would select the best still image that clearly identifies the license plate rather than some random blurry image from the video? This is of course only my opinion, but if the police can't find a single still image from the video that identifies the licence number, then the ticket shouldn't be issued.

did they make a typo? saying it is a guess is, well, a guess.

While I agree in principle that you can't rule out the possibility that it was a typo, based on the quality of the still, I'm guessing that the reporter's guess was a good one.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 10:58am

Re: Re: Re:
"It is clear..." is a much more compelling phrase than "It seems clear...", which you complained about earlier; "seems" is a wishy-washy, full-of-doubt word, but "is"... well, that's pretty factual now, isn't it?
Don't MAKE me tell you what you make of U and ME when you ASSUME....
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BulmaRO, 28 May 2010 @ 11:39am

they should try
it may take more work but.. here in mexico when we register the plates for a car.-. they take the brand, the color of the car and the type.. like seddan or stuff similar.. then they must.. if theyre guessing the plates at least check if the plate theyre ticket-ing matches with the car registred to the guessed plate,.. its not fail proof but a little bit closer to accurate, that as always.. its just my opinion.
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NullOp, 28 May 2010 @ 11:50am

Tickets!
Arrogant Bastards!

Once again I urge anyone who catches the cops pulling this crap to sue for TRULY BIG BUCKS! Towns and cities understand money and if their own stupidity costs them they might cease and desist.
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technicallyspeaking (profile), 28 May 2010 @ 12:04pm

Not a habit
I am quite certain that this is an isolate incident. Cities with red light cameras are under so much controversy these days id doubt that any city or PD would guess as a matter of record.
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ismelladitty, 28 May 2010 @ 12:14pm

Re: Re:
Actually they do take running video too. Just search on Youtube for red-light running and you'll see video streams taken from enforcement cameras.
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The Devil's Coachman (profile), 28 May 2010 @ 12:17pm

Re: Not a habit
And your certainty is based on what? A guess? Based on what? Nothing at all? Right! I imagine you must have done really well in school, basing your certainties on guesses when taking tests. Was 2.0 a commendable passing grade in your school? Oh, and I would also think that your expressed "doubt" also confirms the legitimacy of your certainty. Wow, you are a master of Self-delusional Logic. Well done. Now, begone!
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ismelladitty, 28 May 2010 @ 12:19pm

Re: Not a habit
I'm not sure it's even that. There smells like there's more to this story we're not getting. I'm hesitant to believe even an "isolated occurrence" would...ugh...occur. I know they have video capture and it was likely pulled off that too.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 12:26pm

Re: Re:
@minijedimaster

You can tell because they use a flash when the picture is taken.
====================

Oh great, the only thing more dangerous than someone running a red light is that same someone doing it blinded by a flash...
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 1:39pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
the stills are often taken with a very high resolution camera and flash, timed to get the best angle possible under normal circumstances. the video runs in part to show the actual offense occuring, if it goes to court. the video is often not of as high quality as the still image. however, the video might be enough to help to seperate out the issue.

a typo is a possiblity. consider that in a 1 year period, the report was made aware of only 2 cases, against untold thousands of tickets. i would have to say that if heart surgeons had a success rate like this, they would be considered gods. heck, mike has a lower accuracy rate on his posts.

most importantly, the report is guessing that the police are guessing, and now mike is guessing that the reporters are right. too bad the title suggests definitive proof where none exists.
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Lachlan Hunt (profile), 28 May 2010 @ 2:42pm

They're supposed to be able to narrow down partial matches by looking up the make and model of the vehicle that is registerred to matching number plates.

For the case illustrated in the video, they should have been able to find a set of partial matches based on the visible digits "7598 ?S". I assume they can also determine other information like the state in which the vehicle is registered based on the design of the plate.

They can then find all the vehicles that match those criteria, then narrow it down by the type of vehicle. So it's hardly a guessing game. It just seems like in this case, that last step somehow went a bit wrong. I guess maybe the offer who sent the ticket confused the description of a trailer with that of a semi-truck.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2010 @ 2:55pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Police Just Guessing" - please point out the conditional in that statement.
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Any Mouse, 28 May 2010 @ 5:42pm

Re:
Actually NOT a good idea. At least in Ohio, failure to respond to a red light camera ticket will result in your vehicle being booted.
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