Safe Speed Forums

Ok, its pretty clear that we all hate speed cameras, and pretty much everything that goes with them.

but so far I havent heard much about the subject of number plate readers, well apart from the spin that the police print.
Based on the little I know about them, dare I say, I cant see too much wrong. I will put my thinking about them below and if I am missing the point then look forward to you guys enlightening me.

a) They can check on tax and insurance. Obviously people driving without insurance have no place on the road and NEED prosicuting!
No matter what we think of tax its a fact of life, and if a car is taxed this provides some indication of weather the car has an MOT.

I dont think I need discuss how much safer the roads would be if ALL cars had MOT and insurance!

b) If somebody goes past one of these vans in a stolen car then the chances are that they will get caught. which has to be a good thing for those unfortunate enough to have thier cars stolen.

c) Real criminals!
I assume that if a car belonging to someone such as a murder suspect or anyone wanted for any serious crime would be pulled as a matter of course to see if it was the supect driving.
According to this article in the leicester mercury there have been 500 criminals/roadtax dodgers/uninsured drivers arrested since the introduction of ANPR's in the county.

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=132407&command=displayContent&sourceNode=132390&contentPK=9250014#

I know this is probably spin and the numbers will no doubt be massaged to win public favor, but on the surface it seems to be a "good thing"

Those are my "for" arguments
I'm wracking my brain trying to think of some credible against arguments but I can only come up with two.

1) The whole issue of big brother watching us, but if your not doing anything wrong then you dont have much to worry about.

2) They can be mistaken for mobile speed cameras.
This would have to be my main complaint against the APNR. If drivers cant identify them at a glance, and most of them wont be able to, then they will cause the same distractions and assosiated dangers that speed cameras do.
Eg: sudden braking, loss of drivers attention to the road rather than whats parked near it, etc.

But lets face it, as I stated at the begining, most of us belive that speed cameras are wrong and should ALL be removed. If that happend then the second of these problems would no longer be an issue.

Which leaves only the fisrt objection, but I can live with that, in fact if I woke tomorrow to learn that all the speed cameras had been replaced with ANPR's, I KNOW that I could drive "safely" from one end of the country to the other without fear of persicution.

Those are my thoughts so far, and based on them I have no real objection to ANPR's...but then again, I dont know that much.

what do you guys think to them?

I'm seriously worried about ANPR.

The real bother is that ANPR promotes all manner of registration fraud, and especially number plate cloning and number plate theft.

Surely criminals will soon decide that ANPR needs to be defeated, and the easy way to defeat it is to steal or clone another vehicle's number plate.

I predict a constant rise in false registrations, and a gradual loss of control of the entire registration process. This will be very bad for road safety and very bad for law and order.

Mark my words!

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

I stand corrected.

I would never have thought of that myself, my mind just dosent work that way. Not saying that yours does, but clearly you have more experience in these things

thanks for enlightening me

Happens already, how many cars driving into the "Congestion Charge" area have "Cloned" plates. Seems that Ken's boys just persue the cars with the number plate despite the driver proving they were in Aberdeen (Or anywhere else) at the time. I forsee the police turning up fully armed on some Old Granny's doorstep soon after an armed robbery mainly due to these "labour saving" devices.

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Life in the Air Age isn't all the Brochures Say...

Just to clarify another point: whilst it may be immoral and illegal, driving without tax or insurance doesn't actually make the roads dangerous. They are both essentially financial issues. Whilst driving without an MoT may mean a vehicle is more dangerous, it pales into insignificance compared to the consequences of the driving errors that automated systems simply cannot detect.

I am very cynical about the whole ANPR thing, as not only does it encourage the type of fraud Paul mentions, but I suspect it has only really come on the scene in order to stop the other government revenue collection schemes from being defeated by people using fictitious number plates.

We are now being sold this on the basis that it represents a huge improvement for road safety, but in reality I suspect it's 99% about revenue, and any slight road safety benefit will probably be more than offset by the diversion of officers away from "proper" traffic policing that might reduce dangerous driving.

Or maybe I'm just being too cynical...

My understanding is it's hardly anything to do with road safety, rather it's to do with tracking and catching criminals around the country. I'm quite happy that police are doing more drug dealers, organised crime and the like. As it's said, if you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about.

As for the cloning issue, it's bound to happen, although I have reservations about the doomsday scenarios predicted by some media. In percentage terms, I'm sure it'll be a small blip on the overall crime statistics.

One way to tackle this is of course the government's plan to "chip" cars in the future so they can be uniquely identified. Yes, it's big brother, but then again I don't know about you but I have no plans to go on a major crime offensive at any point, so I don't feel myself threatened.

I hate that sentence!

Presumably, if you genuinely believe that invasive technology is allowable since you personally don't plan on doing anything illegal, you wouldn't mind it if the government sanctioned CCTV in every home videoing everything you do every day? After all, if you're not planning on doing anything wrong, it won't affect you, will it?

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Carl Prescott

BIG RANT MODE ON!

"The police are doing more drug dealers?"

Hah! Tell that to the puss cat who lives in Brunstromia! The Chief CONstable there is so busy persecuting motorists that he cannot be prat@rsed to catch the drug dealers! In fact - his solution is to legalise the stuff!


The puss cat who lives in North Wales is my wife's cousin. Like myself - she is a medic. She specialises in nervous system disorders - some of which caused by the drug which this pretzel in Wales describes as "not very dangerous"!!!!!

You are "not bothered by Big Brother aka STASI tactics?" Wife lived in Leipzig for 3 months. She also spent 6 months in Moscow. Try living with the knowledge that you are being constantly watched. Makes you feel "criminal" even when you are nothing of the kind! Wife admits that experience was unnerving!

You want the police to "chip" cars!

What about freedom? Think of the upset it would cause in households. Itemised bill drops through letterbox stating each road you have driven on! OK - so I have good strong marriage - but what about those married to neurotic, jealous types? It can cause unnecessary suspicions if you got lost on a strange road! Followed to the supermarket, your shopping analysed? Every movement you make! It is called TAGGING and that is what they do to criminals! What next do you want - kev ? CURFEWS!

We had a COLD war for years because this is NOT the way we wanted to live our lives! Our grandparents fought the NAZIS because they did not want this kind of meddling and erosions of personal freedom!


You would not "feel yourself threatened by all this?" Try living it mate! My wife has! Another of her cousins has! One member of the family got stranded when they built the Wall as well! We even know the chap who fled the East Germany in hot air balloon back in the early 80s because of the nightmare life in East Germany!

You want that kind of life? Go to North Korea (and other such places!) Then come back and tell us what being "watched all the time" felt like! I am sure you will change your tune!

(rantmodeoff now! Had tough day! )

Edited for odd typos!

gosh mad moggie , it was a bad day,

In my view, for most middle of the road people, kevs first shot at it was about right, doing nothing wrong , then nothing to fear.

The big BUT, is where they go once they have the technolgy. that is a debate for a freedom of individual type of forum .

The real problem is there is no chance of selling this idea to us lot, why ? because its been promoted by the mad mullah , and he has lost all credibility with those of us who have understood his mis management and abuse of all things connected to speed cams and traffic.

so if anyone out there works for govt, and u think this technology is needed, get rid of mad mullah features, wait ten years for us to get over the shock of it all(him) , and then try.. See how we feel then ok ?

rgds
bill

ps paul how can we get spel chek on here.. ??

Whatever the intention, be it catching tax dodgers or some hidden agenda, I don't think we want this sort of stuff because it is yet another encouragement for the Government to cut back on manned traffic patrols, which in turn then leads to poorer driving standards and more fatalities.

If we got the feds back out on the road keeping an eye on drivers I reckon this alleged surge in tax & insurance avoidance would stop again. Folk only do it because they think they can get away with it if there are no trafpols watching them. Which is also of course why they think they can get away with drink/drugged driving - can ANPR detect that?

What would make sense is some management of the information that is already available. If the DVLA / DfT could sort out a reasonable database system they ought to be able to track whether any given registration number currently holds a valid insurance certificate, tax disc and MoT. So if Plod is following a suspicious vehicle he should be able to find out whether it is taxed, insured and tested before he even thinks about stopping it. There's no need for any additional technology, just build some better systems to cope with what they already know, and get the Police back out on the roads looking at cars. The road safety spin-off alone would be worth the investment.

jt said,

What would make sense is some management of the information that is already available. If the DVLA / DfT could sort out a reasonable database system they ought to be able to track whether any given registration number currently holds a valid insurance certificate, tax disc and MoT

JT they can cross dvla and insurance.. no mot no tax disk,

"" good morning ""

bill

Hmmm, I think you're taking it a bit far aren't you? What makes me laugh in situations like this is that you automatically assume that the police (or to use Orwellian language, "the State"!) actually care what you do if you're not breaking the law. They don't. Believe it or not policemen are normal people who have normal lives. They honestly don't want to break in to your house in the middle of the night and drag you out of your bed for playing your radio too loud whilst driving. I fully support measures to catch people who break the law, and yes that includes speeding (although as I have said whether or not that is happening at its most efficient just now is up for debate).



I also think there is a massive misunderstanding in what camera programmes and ANPR are about. They are "hypothecated" systems. To spare all the gubbins, basically that means self funding. Therefore, they largely aren't using traffic policemen to do this as they can bring in retired police etc. to do this. It means that, contrary to the myth and rumour in the media and on this site, traffic patrols are still out there! Indeed, without these programmes you would see much less police presence on the road as current threats means that it's all hands to the deck in terms of anti-terrorist measures. These schemes have basically saved the traffic police departments, not ruined them as some zealots would have you know.

And finally, the data protection act prevents the police from cross-referencing all your car info. Silly, but there you go. As a man who pays all his dues, again I'd be happy for this to happen. It really wouldn't be as bad as people think!

Kev,

I agree that right now the Police aren't particularly interested in monitoring everyone, but I suspect "the state" might be. And yes, putting electronic tracking tags on cars IS Orwellian, in the extreme. "The State" wants systems like this as it gives them the perfect means of easily extracting as much stealth taxation as they wish, whilst hiding behind the banner of crime prevention, or road safety or whatever.

Speed Cameras are a perfect example of this. Under the pretence of road safety they collect revenue both directly (by the surplus the operators make) and indirectly (by funding local initiatives that ought to come out of central funds). Just look at the disastrous effect this has had on road safety, do we really want to encourage more of the same?

The argument that SCP's and ANPR mean more traffic policemen on the road is ridiculous. Traffic Police numbers have been decimated several times over during the reign of the camera, and any new "big brother" initiatives are only likely to make this worse.

Not sure where on this site it is "rumoured" that there are no traffic patrols out there? Would you care to substantiate this claim by pointing us at a specific statement? Your argument is starting to look very much like the familiar vague rhetoric we hear from the Speed Camera Partnership People themselves.

Kev

Why am I reading comments from BiB themselves on another forum to which they regularly contribute that there has been a reduction in trafpols?Cannot be a myth if the cops themselves are saying this! Must be truth in there somewhere!

Why have I read reports in various newspapers that there are less trafpols out there? You say it is rumour? I say -" my eyes have definitely not seen as many out and about as I used to!" And that this cannot be co-incidence!

Colleague treated a woman the other day. Her car had been broken into whilst she was inside the car! He smashed in her window, cutting her. Stole her bag. Police could not be prat@arsed to see her - apparently! She was treated for cuts and shock! She even had to drive herself to A&E! (My colleague did not let her drive back home though!)

Another motorist turned up in colleague's department today with severe bruising after being shunted up the rear-end. Again - he said police could not be bothered to turn up - despite clear case of careless (and perhaps even "influenced" driving!) Ironically this incident happened in front of a red light scam - but heck they were not speeding and it failed to pick up the bad driving anyway!

You may indeed be lucky enough to live in area where there are lots of trafpols! Cannot say I live and work in such an area. Simply do not see that many cops patrolling!

So - where are these trafpols you say are freed up by scameras? Not a rumour on any site! This is actual comment by "Very very observant chap who has not seen them out and about - but would like to" Whilst we are about it - where are they in Lancs and Manchester? Accidents on the rise there - caused by drink and inattentive drivers - some in defective cars! Do not reply that they are sorting out Bin Laden and his followers - because we all know they are not! Do not tell us that more trafpols are on the roads sniffing out these terrorist cells because we know they are not - because we simply do not see them out and about - and we should be seeing them! They are certainly not visible on Manchester's roads - and I was working down there today! ( And - er - about terrorist attacks - potential or otherwise - am also in "involved and consulted profession" - so I more or less have more idea than most as to what our lads are doing to protect us!)

Also about retired cops --- Have relations who are BIBS! We have CID and uniform within this family of completely wild cats! The uniformed lot have told us that they quite like being called in on their so called "rest
days" to look at scam footage! Nice bit of overtime!

They also disagree with these scams! The Durham based one says trafpols are there - but you know Durham is a sensible place and only has one fixed scam! The trafpols there do use mobile lasers though - but they target more "appropriately!" according to our guy over there! Another two in the Met! Again - starting to show common sense over the scam issue! And the others in Northhants where, alas, according to them (and they are cops!), common sense is figment of their Chief CONstable's imagination!

And no, I do not think we are "taking it a bit far" to compare today's reliance on scameras and potential dodgy use of other "technology" with the STASIS. Like I said - you have not experienced it! I did when I was courting WildCat! Her room was bugged (proven by whining microphone on radio-cassette player - and fact that she actually found the device in the room!), and she did get followed around a lot during her stay there! I've met the relative who got stranded there in the summer of 1961! Some of the tactics used today everywhere within the UK have strong similarities. Sadly - this comes under the guise of "political correctness!" - but if you analyse it closely and carefully - amounts to the same thing!"

"Police do not care what you do so long as you are not breaking the law?" This is comment which "makes you laugh?" My wife did not break any laws whilst in USSR and GDR - but this did not stop their interest in her very innocent movements!

Well mush - like I said - when you have experienced the sort of life some of our acquaintances did in GDR and USSR - you would view any kind of intrusion like this with same kind of suspicion! We are even wary with our own folk who are BiBS

Do not want car micro-chipped in any way! Would not solve problem. If car was stolen - I would receive bills just the same - based on current and previous experience this family has had with DVLA and their non-records! One car had number plates nicked. They were cloned - and we keep getting Congestion charged! We live in Cumbria and were certainly not in Red Ken's country on dates in question. Cops do know about this! DVLA has been told about this! They will not amend their records! You think a criminal will not develop means of cloning or nicking the micro chip from the chassis? Of course they will - and this will create more problems for the innocent victims of crime!

Do not want all my movements watched in any case! Have nothing to hide - but want to retain my right to privacy at all times! Do not see why cops, or rather, the government should access this information. They already have enough methods of gleaning all they need to know about me and my family! Sort of practice definitely open to abuse by the authorities (the STATE). You say "it will not be that bad!" Of course it will! Sort of thing which lends itself to abuse! You think we will never get a power crazed chap in senior office? Take a good look at the characters we have in authority at the moment!

And what about the day when letter giving all your movements drops through the letter box? How do you explain to your wife that you happened to be driving through dodgy area on business and were definitely not seeing that TART! (or even the Toy-Boy ) Oh, and that sicky you pulled the other day in the company car --- TUT! You really want that? The problems it would cause within people's normal personal lives could be highly damaging! (Not that I advocate nor approve of the above practices - but they are part of human behaviour - harmless in themselves but could become harmful, invasive and interfering, should that kind of information become "public knowledge")

Data protection act? Laws can get changed - and there are no guarantees that information will not be cross referenced and used in more sinister way. Hunting serious criminals does mean "cross referencing" will take place. Given the number of mistakes made - we will all be "fair game" for total State control of our lives!

I'm with Mad Moggie. Widespread use of ANPR could so easily be the thin end of the wedge. I worry that it could be used to lead us all into this insane chip & track by satellite idea that some are so keen on, which is about as instrusive and Orwellian as we can get. I would object to any system that tracks my movements regardless of my activities. The usual argument of "if you're doing nothing wrong then you don't need to worry" simply doesn't cut any ice at all. If I'm not suspected of doing anything wrong then why am I being followed? If it is suspected that at some vague unspecified time in the future I may do something wrong (also vague and unspecified) then the same could be said of the other 60 million people in the country, and there is little alternative but to track everybody. Once that happens we stop living in a free society. We're told that it could be a wonderful way of charging drivers per mile, yet the reality is that ANPR is completely unnecessary for this. A child could work out that high mileage drivers already pay more than low mileage ones because of fuel taxation, and short of stealing fuel there is simply no way round the system. All of us are effectively paying by the mile already and have been doing so for years. Any ANPR or other tracking system is obviously redundant, so you've got to question the motivation for putting one in.

There are only two justifications for ANPR that I can live with. First is a temporary system that would be used as part of the security arrangements for a particular event and then removed when it was over. I saw such a system in Surrey last year when some govt bigwig was meeting EU colleagues (or something) at a posh hotel. I understand the police set the ANPR stuff up a few days before and packed it all away as soon as the junket, I mean conference was over. It was all very visible, and best of all, it looked like they might have had to borrow a couple of Talivans to operate the gear out of (BTW, not knowing the area I thought this _was_ a speed crackdown at the time - well, police vans with doors open and tripods with black boxes on pointing up and down the road, what was I supposed to think? I didn't find out what it was really about until a few days later.)

The second is a toll system I saw in Australia. You keep what they call an e-tag in the car so they can pick you up going on and off the tolled sections and bill your account. If you're not a regular user you can phone up and pay for a single journey by credit card. If the system finds you haven't got an e-tag the ANPR checks your number plate, and if you didn't phone up and pay in advance they send you a fine. Basically it's similar to the London congestion charge with a bit of electronics thrown in. But the ANPR is used only to catch people who haven't coughed up, not for seeing who's going where. Frankly I doubt such a system would work here, as the traffic is much lighter there so the roads can cope with those who want to avoid the tolls. I also doubt the abilities of the powers that be to resist the temptation to abuse such a system and raise even more evenue out of us.

ANPR is currently an excellent system for "denying the criminals use of the roads" as they put it, but when every police car has a camera hooked up to ANPR and covert vehicles are placed to monitor traffic the criminals will simply start cloning cars like mad, leaving a very small number of hits for people with outstanding warrants etc. and people who have forgotton to re-tax their car.

This could cause extra hassle for the honest motorist - they will get kengestion charges, speeding tickets and possibly even more hassle - for instance if the cloned car did something *really* bad the true registered keeper will be the first person to get their door busted in one morning.

Gareth

"Kensgestion charges", haven't heard that one before. That'll keep me chuckling for while.

I work for halfords and since the new law came in where you need all this documentation for simply getting new plates (which curiously came out after congestion charging wasn't getting enough money because of cloned cars), i make at least 5 sets of plates a week for people who have had their plates nicked.

before this law came in i can only remember doing it for a couple of people ( who reckoned it was pranks by kids ).

before anyone flames me i am nosey enough to find out why i am making plates for someone - usually it's for trailers!!

Like others have already said, comments like these are complacent.


At the risk of being trite, I would remind those of you who think you have 'nothing to hide' of the following:


As you may have noticed, this is not the original "Then They Came for Me" concerning the Holocaust. Sadly, many people today are unable to relate to that, but this version, modified by Stephen F. Rohde, although American based, does have some relevance for us today.


Kaz

The original, as said by Pastor Martin Niemoller in 1968, was:

"When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church, and there was nobody left to be concerned."

Regards,

Peter

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed