Picking nits, yes, he got pulled over for the plate violation which then started the ball rolling downhill for him. Point I was making that an astute cop was doing his job and pulled the car over for the simple act of not having a plate. No, didn't know who he was interacting with because of it, but shows there are a few officers out there that do enforce things like plate violations. Caveat tyrannis.
CB-forgot about the plate readers. We looked at them a few years back but shelved the purchase based partly on 4th Amendment violation potential and probability of administrative error on the part of the DMV. Neighboring jurisdiction took them off all their cars for the same reason. We still like to do things the old fashioned way.
Big discussion going on about fixed plate readers - a bit different from the mobile readers attached to the trunk of cars.
The fixed ones just suck up data and store it - something that is a privacy concern. In Fairfax Co, VA, each reader captured about 3600 plates an hour and it just went into a database.
Mobile ones are slightly different as they can not only read a plate, but can flag it if it finds violations.
Clearly, if there is a vehicle violation (expired tags for example) then there is no issue in pulling the car over as the plate reader is only doing what a cop could do - just far faster. The problem arises when the violation is based on the owner (suspended license for example or a warrant) and the vehicle is pulled over for that.
The Supreme Court is looking at just that - because the cop on the street would have never been alerted to that violation had it not been for the plate reader AND there is no indication that the driver is the individual with the violation or warrant.
One of these days they'll add facial recognition to plate readers to identify both the car and driver and then there be new issues.
An interesting little factoid from Germany (that they may have changed it by now).
The authorities only have a short time period to charge a driver for some moving violations (red light and speed cameras for examples).
It must be noted that Europe, in general, uses far more cameras for enforcement that we do here in the US. In Europe, photo tickets will also cause you to accrue points - a difference from most (all?) states here.
The authorities would send the registered the ticket.
The registered owner would respond with "I wasn't driving there that day"
Authorities " who is the person in the photograph in the driver's seat?
Owner "not sure, hard to tell"
After a few back and forths (via mail), the time period will have expired and the ticket no longer enforceable.
What people would do is to register their car in their significant other's name, so the wife's car would be photographed with the husband driving.
.
