Cameras to Record Car License Plates

I understand they have it in California. You run a red light, it takes your picture and the computer mails you a ticket. Kind of scary in a Big Brotherish kind of way, but probably also necessary. Cities just don't have the money for police to handle traffic, what with the rise in violent crimes. A related anecdote. They also have these cameras in Arizona. The husband of a friend of a friend was on a business trip in Texas, driving by himself. Or so his wife believed until she got the ticket (car was registered to her) showing her husband and her best friend running the light in Arizona. I guess I should say ex-husband as that is how she found out he was cheating on her.

We have the cameras here in Bakersfield California and they are to give out speeding tickets. At least they are here. If you are beyond that white line when that light turns red, instant picture, and instant several hundred dollars worth of ticket is mailed to your front door. It's a little scary. I try to be extra careful at the stop lights that have the cameras. I just don't want to take the chance of getting a ticket since I'd have to sell the car to pay it!!

The System sounds great, about having a computerised system to moniter particular areas, but it has more loop holes than advantages. if u think the criminal way u too may see the loop holes clearly... for e.g. forged licenced plates, or may be in rainy seasons the licence plates become all muddy, the error introduces in the capturing the picture, the processing and memory overhead etc...

Hmmm interesting. I can see that being very helpful in fighting crime issues, like stolen cars, or kidnappings, abductions, drunk drivers etc. I will have to check and see if any of the cities in our San Diego County have installed those, we have the RED LIGHT camera's and I can tell you those are some expensive tickets. They start at a mere $384! OUCH OUCH, but I can tell you people quit thinking they are special and they don't run that light any more. Thanks for the info.

The city I live in has started putting cameras at a lot of major intersections. But our cameras are to catch people who run red lights. I haven't heard anything about them taking pictures of license plates just to run them through a crime database. But who knows. I don't normally stay up to speed on these kind of things unless it's brought to my attention. But I think our cameras in my city are great for what I know they do. It seems to be cutting down on some of the accidents.

That is amazing, technology is just shocking. Our area doesn't have this but I wish it did. It sounds so helpful and would do a great job for the police force.

I think it is an invasion of privacy. Big brother getting way to involved in our lives. Alot of big cities have done this for years. The city I live in started installing them about 5 years ago. America is no longer a free country. It is sad, to many laws that don't make any sense, and more and more of our freedoms are getting taken away. No one seems to care, because it is in the name of protecting Americans from terrorist. I know Americans can protect ourselves for terrorist, we don't need to lose more and more of our freedoms to do that. The heros on flight 93 proved that. I think the American government under estimates the American people.

that is soo cool....i mean my country recently started using cameras...and now this new thing has come up...really great it would be...if ppl obeyed all the rules

Wow, I think that is great. No they don't have that here but they sure could use it in Portland,. One of the problems is a lot of time these creepy people steal license plates and put them on their car when they belong to someone Else's car. But it sounds like a really good deal. If they can just catch one pervert that way I would think it would be worth it.

Cool! It's so amazing how technology works. And that's so vigilant of your government coming up with this solution for criminal problems and using your funds rightly. I haven't heard of this one yet here in our country, and yeah I hope our government officials would come to think about this to cut down the criminal cases we have here.

There are talks about the same kind of system coming in here in Ireland. All Garda cars will have these cameras on them and once they read you licence plate, if your insurance, tax etc is out of date, it will start beeping in their car and they can then pull you over and give you a ticket.

I HATE it! more privacy and freedoms lost for the sake of "health and safety" It is as though "Health and Safety" is the religion of the new millennium. Yes, we live in a very small community surrounded by small communities (less than 2500 here, less than 1100 in the surrounding towns) and the cameras are everywhere. I do not trust the motive for these devices, I think the health and safety issues are excuses

It is an interesting idea, and perfectly legal, as long as they have a set policy about what to do if there is a problem with one of the tag numbers, and they follow it. The license plate of your car, as you drive down the street is there for the public to look at it, there is no clearly unconstitutional act in what they are doing. The only problem I have is that they are likely not set up to uniformly deal with any cars who have a problem, based on running the tag. In general I think it is a good idea but would want to look at the success others had had with it before suggesting any jurisdiction get one. Espically looking at how successful they were in uniformly dealing with problem tag numbers.

We have a whole bunch of these in my city and their ok I guess. They really make you think twice about going through any lights when they turn yellow. But after we got them there were news stories about how they were giving out most of the tickets in the poorer parts of town. And news channels had pictures of city workers getting caught by them (even the mayor) and getting the tickets thrown out. So its not really fair in that sense. But Im sure it makes the intersections a lot safer.

As far as I know our city dose not have such a system in place. I would welcome such a program if it would reduce the crime and ade in capturing criminels.

AS the population grows and people don't believe that the laws apply to them, new measures are need to stop any kind of crime from running red lights to finding stolen cars, finding kidnapped children, and the catching those not insuring their cars, and illegal tags, and expired tags is going to be needed. The time that is spent on chasing these small petty crimes takes the police away from the bigger criminals. I for one think they are necessary. Yes we do seem to be losing freedoms but when we stop thinking about others we will need more laws to protect not only our selves but others. What amazes me is that the cost of this technology is not higher than it is.

I am not aware of any however they seem to be flawed and some that have been caught on camera, at least the car was, have fought it in court. People do speed and there has to be something done about them however the camera with picture taking and issuance of tickets is not exactly what I think should be done. We will be getting more cameras in our lives as time goes by.

There are always cameras around the town where I live to monitor crime happen. I think it is good because it forms a means to stop the outlaws from breaking in houses or hurting innocent people.

Our city has had it for a couple of years now. It has been very controversial though. I do not drive, however I can see the benefit of such a thing. I see nothing wrong with it as long as the system is not abused.

This is the new innovation toward crime fighter it is really good for other and simple innocent citizens . i actually apperciate all those who participate them in . camera is them most authentic prove and crime whic canot be denie . police will got big very big help out by these new form of securities . and citizens got reliefe out of crimes