Safe Speed Forums

Bradford has had almost all of it's CCTV cameras linked to ANPR for about a year. It's fantastic, we are now a crime free area. Old Grannies stroll through the park at midnight without a care in the world, we leave our cars and front doors unlocked 24 hours a day. Fluffy bunnies hop up to us and eat out of our hands.

*wakes up*

Sorry, I seem to have been dreaming there.

The problem I see with ANPR is that the more you use it the more incentive there is for people to use cloned registrations. A smart criminal will simply walk around the local supermarket carpark once a month and collect himself a few identities. As long as he doesn't use the same one for too long he has nothing to worry about.

Simple really. If you have an uninsured car (which belongs to you) you're trying to sell, provided I have your permission to 'test' drive it, I can drive it around the block. The problem comes if I agree to buy it - then it's MY vehicle and it would therefore be excluded from cover. When buying cars the way the wife and I get around this (indeed how we went to get my present car)...

I had the test drive with the owner's permission. Liked it, made an offer for it and paid for it. Mrs F then drove it home (because she can drive a vehicle "not belonging to her....."). I 'swapped' my policy over the following day, cashed in the old car's tax and stuck it up for sale on the drive.

But you do need a mate / friend / spouse to do this.

Some forces have ANPR cams in their traffic cars. Lancs have. e (Cumbria) are looking to go down that line soon. this I believe would remove some of the concerns expressed, eg. JTs point about the inefficiency of ANPR operations.

My worry about ANPR is threefold;

• I'm concerned that it becomes a tool we rely upon over and above our 'sixth sense' . ANPR can only work properly on quality of data input. We have to introduce the information into the system in the first place. GIGO!
• The encouragement for criminal vehicle users to clone their vehicles. This is not yet happening to an appreciable extent. We really don't know by what percentage that might increase with the increase of use and awareness of ANPR.
• Hypothecation!

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

Oh yes. But it isn't just cloned registrations. It'll give many an incentive to avoid the registration process completely. All sorts of methods come to mind...

Entirely false numberplate
Deliberate digit transpositions on numberplates
Stolen numberplates
Car registered to accommodation address
Car registered overseas/offshore
Deliberate errors on registration documents
Car registered to false or dormant company
Companies set up as holding companies to hold car registrations
No registration documents returned
APNR defeating mods to numberplate (dark bolts change characters etc)
Covered over numberplates (crisp packet glued to front numberplate for example)
Missing numberplates (Officer, I wish to report a theft!)
Broken numberplates

I have a feeling that it's completely endless - or rather it would be if the registration process wasn't threatened with complete disintegration. That's what I believe ANPR will do for us.

Oh, and of course the real terrorists and serious criminals will be in whiter than white hire cars.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

My policy says I am insured to "use" another vehicle, not just drive. I did bit of research and found that "use" is the time from when you take possession of the vehicle to when you relinquish it, eg. hand the keys back. Therefore if you borrowed a car to visit Auntie Ethel it would be covered while you get out to refuel, and it would be covered parked on the road while you were in Auntie's house.

*However* I would be very careful about driving a car in such circumstances. At the very least I would re-read my policy and possibly call the insurer to check.

Gareth

Most of these extensions are RTA only. No "normal" cover whatsoever, and designed to provide legal tide-overs. I would be extremely wary of any journey of that nature.

Now - for the past two years i have seen an ANPR van accross from my work, with at least two or three traffic cars/ two or three motorbikes and additional resources.
Now whilst this is admirable- we cannot get a car /bike stopped for no tax/ilegal use etc at any other time.
It seems that this is set up to catch those with no tax - the crime is not paying road tax - ie the police are beng used as tax enforcers, not law enforcers.

I'm afraid that just isn't going to be possible as there are far too many "variables" to take in to account (eg, somebody driving the "other" vehicle on their own insurance, motor traders who can drive anything, etc).


To be honest with you Ian, both you & I already know that any "real" criminal will make sure their car is briefed up to the eyeballs before they even think about going on the road (so ANPR won't help you there).

As far as the "silly" criminals go, once they realise that ANPR is being used where they travel then I suspect that they will be only too happy to clone their vehicle (after all, what difference will one extra offence make to the multitude they are already comitting?).

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

It would use a spatial matching algorithm. One car cannot be at distant locations at similar times. Whenever a spatial constraint is triggered, the real owner is given a new plate. The bogus one is registed on a criminal list, which coppers in the field can use operationally.

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I stole this .sig

And if the original owner doesn't want to new plate? What if he's on his fifth new plate this year? He might be getting a tad pissed off.

And what happens when there are more cloned or erroneous plates than there are Police officers? How far away is that? I'll place my bet we're close to it already, and 20 times past it already if you also count errors on the DVLA database. (Over 20% of DVLA records were in error according to a PA Consulting report.)

Uninsured drivers caught with ANPR? What a bad joke that is. First of all it's the driver that needs insurance not the vehicle. But we just don't have the police resources to get anywhere near the numbers of uninsured drivers. At the last count the average uninsured driver gets nabbed once in 6 years. He gets a £200 fine and 6 points. His points have expired before he's next caught. The Greenaway report suggests that uninsured drivers are gowing FASTER than the police's ability to deal with them. So pretty soon it'll be 10 years.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

A quick stop and check can sort that out, often no stop needed, a quick look at the car as it passes often tell's you there's no need to stop.

We then have to rely on normal policing skills. In a years time I'll be driving a traffic car with ANPR looking out the back. I'll only pay attention to it when it identifies a registration of interest. It doesn't prevent us from suspecting that a car is being driven by 'Big Vern' and his team. In these circumstances the car is not the object of interest but the occupants. That's just one reason why I'll routinely stop cars with 'privacy' windows.



I'm stolen vehicle examiner. I routinely check cars for cloning. It's really not that common yet as a routine evasion tactic.
I'm quite comfortable with the proposed method of use of ANPR in patrol cars. As trafpol we have to guard against becoming over reliant on them to provide us with easy pickings. If we can do that I think ANPR will help a lot.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

He could clone his old plate and take his chance! I’m in favour of scrapping the antiquated number plate system (which doesn’t work well, for the reasons as you say), and replacing it with ubiquitous monitoring using a massive amount of cheap internet technology, digitally signed certification and automated data collection.



See above - you are right! Motorists haven’t yet invested enough in their record keeping systems to make them effective. Add that to the true cost of motoring, which is far higher than drivers realise.



That is a flaw in the current law and system. There is no resolution process for quickly determining the status of vehicles and drivers. That is a requirement of new record keeping systems, not an argument to keep crappy ones that are easily exploited. Again, add that to the true cost of motoring!



That’s right. The current manual registration system is broken. The US Government has given us a fillip by making everybody use biometric passports in the near future. Now that we have the wind in our sails, let’s carry on - we know the technical solutions for advanced record keeping systems, so let’s get to it! Recent history shows that one thing is for sure – we are not going back to the manual systems used by Dixon of Dock Green!

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I stole this .sig

If history only teaches us one thing, it is surely that when we are faced with a simple problem the complex solution isn't usually the right one!

The right solution to the problems of adherence to the regulatory requirements of vehicle usage is to simplify the system, not to add further complexity in the form of flawed technology.

Abolish road tax, as it has no functional distinction from fuel tax in any case. Abolish the requirements for independent third party insurance and set up a similarly funded central compensation board, again funded from a fuel surcharge. A similar system is already in place to meet uninsured third party claims, it would simply be a case of extending it and altering the funding. If you want fully comprehensive cover then its up to you to go and make your own arrangements.

At a stroke we would eradicate all insurance and tax dodging, and save the massive costs of administering the current flawed systems. And there would be no need for all Basingwerk's Orwellian schemes.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

If you are proposing that we go to work on a bike, I’m right behind you on that one! We need more bike lane space, and less road space!



Youths do not go without insurance because the system is too complex. It is because they can find no company who will risk taking them on! No company risks taking them on because they drive badly, and so their insurance is expensive. That part of the system works – the free market is rejecting poor risks, and that is good for other road users. The part which is not working is the certification and recognition parts of the system, and that is where digitally signed certificates, automation and detection can transparently improve the roads.



I prefer the current arrangements, because I live in the country and I need to go a long way to buy food!



No way, JT – I’m not forking out to pay to allow poor drivers and bad risks on the road - that would be bad for safety. Try another idea, which keeps the poor, risky (and expensive to insure) bums on the bus, where they belong. Sell them electric buggies, scooters and old Austin 1100s to practise in until the make the grade, at which point, an insurance company would be glad to take them on at an affordable price. Or put the driving age limit up to 40! That would solve congestion, too!



Hmph!

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I stole this .sig

This sounds suspiciously like you are actually arguing with yourself here, given the support I'm sure I recall you giving elsewhere for "pay per mile" funding based on yet more surveillance...

You seem to believe that the only way to tackle bad drivers is to indirectly regulate them off the road "by proxy", ie by effectively delegating the process to Insurance Companies. This has several clear flaws, notably...

1. It has little effect on wealthy bad drivers. Somebody will always offer them insurance if the price is right.
2. It adds to the problem of uninsured driving
3. It makes greedy Insurance Companies the final arbiters of who should be allowed to keep driving.

I don't think that's good for safety.

A much better system would be one where the Police were freed from the drudgery of having to detect tax and insurance dodgers and could concentrate on detecting bad drivers.

We have a perfectly good system readily available to keep the bad drivers from bumping your premiums up, in fact we have two: one is to have traffic patrols observing their driving standards and dishing out tickets as they see fit. Persistently bad drivers lose their licences. The other is to investigate the causes of accidents and prosecute people accordingly, with the same result.

And wouldn't it be a good safeguard to know that if the worst came to the worst, if the banned driver did ignore the courts, took to the roads regardless and caused a futher accident, that the standard insurance scheme would cough up for the innocent victims of his crime without question. (Remember of course that the system would be "third party only", so there would be no question of his being able to claim).

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

I gave up being a slave to consistency long ago. But today, I think that townies should pay more than me because they have more public transport options. That could be done by making "pay per mile" funding more expensive in congested cities.



There are fewer wealthy bad drivers, so the problem is less. The coppers can watch out for them.



I can kinda see what you mean here – but it is not insurance that causes uninsured driving, but lack of insurance! I think?!?



Insurance companies operate in a competitive market, which creates pressure to keep costs low, so it doesn’t matter if they are motivated by fear and greed – everybody is. They indemnify drivers against claims of negligence, so that drivers can pay their way when something happens. I like the concept of making people pay for their own damage.



Insurance can identify classes of crappy drivers and ban them even before they get behind the wheel! Youths, drunks, speeders etc. all get a drubbing from the insurance companies based on the chances of causing trouble on the roads! People with clean licenses are subsidised by the loosers, providing a clear incentive to improve.



No, it would not be a safeguard, because that very policy would let all the youths, drunks, speeders and crazies etc. back on the roads to cause more havoc in the first place! The idea has to be to detect risk, and identify the perps, not give in at the first hurdle, especially when the ID, satcom and roadside RF monitoring technology etc. is practically the next thing on the agenda, after cameras, and when current record keeping systems are in disarray.

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I stole this .sig

Cotswold - I would like to shake your hand! You are evidence personified why the general majority on these forums are against scameras and for trafpols!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

So in the sweeping world you inhabit all youths are crappy drivers and should therefore be banned, yes? Well even if that really were the case then surely the right solution would be to delay issuing them licences until they are older, rather than dangle the carrot of a licence in front of them and then tell them they can't afford insurance.

Of course what actually happens in the current regime is that the sensible conscientious majority of new drivers get fleeced by insurance companies, whilst the reckless minority simply don't bother, on the basis that they aren't likely to get caught, and that an accident "won't happen to them". And you think this is a good solution?

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

penalties for getting caught driving without mot etc....... dont make me laugh

a quick internet search revealed this

http://www.kenilworthonline.co.uk/ViewA ... eID=801950

from which this little gem came

Peter John Given, 29, of Bury Road, Leamington, was fined £120 for driving without a licence, driving without insurance and driving without an MOT certificate.


well i dunno about you but it costs me more than £120 quid just to tax my car

Insurance: I've mentioned this before but I will do so again.

As a kid, when I went for my 1st car (having had bikes for 4 years with insurance) I was told I could not have an NCD on my 1st car because it was a different sort of vehicle; but when challenged with "Would you load me if I had endorsements for jumping red lights?" I was told yes, even though they are different types of vehicle.

Just for the record, I have never had an accident caused by me in my 25 years on the road. As a motorcyclist, I was the victim of a driver not looking prior to doing his U-turn (I was nearly 20 at the time)... And I have been his up the arse whilst sat at lights twice! (once at the approach to Blackwell Tunnel from the North, once sitting at the lights on the roundabout between the A2 & M25, waiting on the roundabout to come north).

With regard to insurance - both drivers who hit me up the arse (as long ago as the late 1980s) had no insurance. The 1st bloke gave me £300 if I didn't call the police... The second I ended up trying to sue to cover the costs of the staved in boot.

If these people had had minimum 3rd party insurance, I would have been far happier that I am even to this day about this.

People say (as a week argument against putting road tax on fuel) that the tax disk shows it's insured. Uh Uh. What's to stop me taxing my car for August 1 when my insurance expires on August 9th???? Fancy me hitting you on August 10th if I were irresponsible??? Surely it's better to have a tear-off (round, if it has to be) counterpart to the MoT certificate to be displayed in the windscreen?!?!?!

Put the tax and minimum 3rd party insurance on fuel - that way everyone actually has it.

And as for the me, me, me comments about Why should I pay for kids' insurance??. In principle this may be a great argument - but here in the real world where people do (and don't do) what they should and shouldn't, if you get hit by an uninsured driver who writes off your car and your car is worth a lot of money and you can't afford to replace it yourself, then surely the time to want a change to "community insurance" is not when you're banjaxed.

More coppers should be on the roads to weed-out the miscreants; tax and insurance on fuel, exceeding the speed limit on its own to be an offence ONLY if considered to be inappropriate speed by trafpol.