Safe Speed Forums

1. Does it work
2. Is it legal

Or, is it a too-good-to-be-true scam??

If you believe it does, then I have a bridge for sale that you may be interested in


Any device that is designed to obstruct a numberplate is illegal, regardless of whether it works or not.

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

Their site says it works and they also say it's legal as it does not interfere with the actual cameras.

Of course their site will say it works, they want your money.
The self same crap was being sold years ago for £20 a tin, it turned out to be nothing more than a £2 can of hairspray. All of the so called "wonder sprays" have been tested to destruction, and absolutely NONE of them work.


You don't need to tamper with a camera to face a charge of "attempting to pervert the course of justice"

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

I've heard that the spray is totally ineffective. While it may reduce the clarity of a number plate when viewed at an angle, it certainly does not prevent detection by a roadside camera.

I seem t oremember reading a test once whch showed it working from a particular angle but not from another. Ithink it just depends on how the light catches it. Also, I think the plod can look at the negative of the photo and that sometimes shows the number up anyway. I wouldn't risk it to be honest!

g_atrill posted on pepipoo a promotional photo demonstrating the effectiveness of such products from a website selling these VRM treatments. From the small highly compressed, low resolution, low dynamic range promotional photo showing how the characters were ‘hidden’, he was able to extract and show some of the details from the VRM – says it all really!

It is illegal to alter your plate such that any from of enforcement camera cannot read it (can’t be bothered digging up the relevant legislation), analogue or digital, visible or IR wavelengths.

One of the UK camera sites tested one spray and found that it increased contrast making it EASIER to read the plate !!

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Also their photos demonstrating it's effectiveness are highly questionable and misleading. They are testing it using a 50W flash, from a shorter distance and directly behind, and probably using a very long shutter speed. This is so different to how a Gatso operates as to be meaningless. The Gatso uses a 250W flash (not 500W as they claim) and a fixed 1/1000 sec shutter speed, from a greater distance and at an angle, meaning that the reflective properties must be astounding to actually work. I suspect most of the reflections in their tests are directly off the plate itself and appears overexposed.

Gareth

I think I can help here - I have arranged a demo weeks ago with this very subject in mind!! I just treated a portion of my plate to demo the properties in daylight, and by flash - straight on and at an angle.









I think you'll agree that you can read the number every time - although it does reduce the contrast somewhat, and a dirty plate might just finish the job.

Incidentally, the web address below the plate is peculiar - it is silver when viewed head on, and difficult (near impossible) to see, but at an angle, it becomes a deeper and deeper blue or purple colour.
It's eye catching for pedestrians because they see it change as they walk past.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

from my angle i have noticed a particular car in a particular area with a rear number plate readable to the naked eye but not readable via the viewfinder it appears to be covered in a film of some sort, what it is i do not know

lets just say investigations ongoing

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now retired

So, one is assuming that certain plates are not readable when viewed from an angle? Perhaps those sprays do work afterall.


Whats to stop the subject of this investigation from stating "oh, officer, the plate was like that when I bought the car" ? If he or she were ever to be questioned over this phantom plate.

Cameras which use beam splitting to direct light to the CCD AND the viewfinder/rangefinder/metering optics, polarise the beams by virtue of the fact the light is bounced off a flat surface within the prism.

If you put a polarised film in the optical path, whose plane of polarisation is at right angles to the direction of the beam slitter.... Voila - partial or near total "extinction".
Is the plate black when viewed through the camera?

_________________
Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Digital cameras (especially the unattended variety) rarely have prisms prior to the imager; the data from the CCD can be used as the viewfinder as well as real-time metering controlling the electronic shutter or apeture (common for pro-sumer digital cameras).


I think the LTI Lastec video system uses polarising filters to aid driver identification (takes out reflection of the sky from the windscreen), so there’s a possibility one could add a polarising filter over the VRM and effectively turn it dark. A perfect angular match is needed, a few degrees misalignment from whatever that particular video system is set to will undo your efforts and could even result with a visit from the dreaded inspectors!

Here's some interesting info found via Google:


Link

Buy Glass Beads
Specifications: as described
Quantity: small initial sample to test
Price terms: to be agreeed
Offer Post Date: 2004-6-30
Offer Expiry Date: 2005-1-26
Packaging: urgent despatch by airmail

Need microscopic highly reflective glass beads no larger than 80 microns for adding to aerosol spray cans to providw a highly reflective surface to hard plastic panels which will reflect back to a strong light source.

Company:
Oxford Scientific Developments Ltd
Country:
United Kingdom
State/Provice:

City:
Oxfordshire
Address:
34 Seacourt Road Botley, Oxford , Oxfordshire ( United Kingdom )
Zip:

Phone:
0044- (0)1865-725429
Fax:
0044- (0)1865- 201414
Homepage:

Connecter:
DavidPollard

Thanks for the pics - very interesting, was it SafePlate you used? I spoke to the chap who sells "Photoblocker" at a show and he didn't come across very credible, more like a Del Boy guy, all mouth. He claimed it was legal and his solicitors had cleared it and didn't know about the Display of Reg Marks Regs, so I suggested perhaps his solicitors had said it was legal to *sell* (which is probably true) and he "mis heard" it. The plates I saw had a slightly rough surface but weren't obviously reflective even when viewed opposite very bright sunlight.

The next-best thing to using a real Gatso would be to get a professional photographer to take a photo using a camera at 1/1000sec and a 250W studio flash positioned on a stand at the correct height and angle.

Gareth

Not sure what it's called - the product info. was deleted - but it is produced by a firm called ONTARACK in Canada as far as I remember.

A customer fetched it back and showed it to me because he heard I was interested in speed cameras!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Sounds about right, cant have this heinous criminal threatening the cash flow (ahem, I mean lives)

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

If it does, it will bring the introduction of digital ID forward by a few years!

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I stole this .sig