Number plate recognition police cars deployed in SA
September 23, 2009 by Alborz Fallah
As part of a trial for an interesting new system, South Australian police have begun using patrol cars fitted with a camera system capable of instantly reading and analysing number plates of cars driving past.
The Automated Number Plate Recognition camera system will automatically run the number plate of cars through its system and tell the police whether a car is not meant to be on the road, be it unregistered, uninsured or even stolen.
The idea is to take the element of random checking out and have all cars passing by checked, allowing police to better catch offenders. Additionally the technology can be used to catch criminals by linking known offenders to certain number plates that were spotted in crime scenes.
“As a vehicle licence plate is read by the camera, the image is displayed on an LCD screen visible to police officers and an audible tone alerts police if a registration number plate matches a vehicle of interest,” Assistant Commissioner Killmier said.
As a vehicle licence plate is read by the camera an audible tone alerts police if the number plate is flagged for any reason.
Only four cars will be fitted with the system during the trial period which runs until the end of the year after which it will be determined whether more cameras will be installed. Victoria Police has been trailing a similar system since May.
Print it: 
This is probably a good thing as it will get real cop cars on the road (rather than revenue generators) and also remove the dickheads who don’t care from the roads.
agree supercujo,
i’d much sooner see a warning given instead of a fine for say speeding,and throw the book at the unregistered,uninsured,idiots out there…
well this is gonna be a pain in the butt isn’t it
Why? Because you cant drive around unlicensed anymore???
Pay your rego and you have nothing to worry about!
It’s effectively $50 a month to keep a car running legally, and many are reluctant to pay that much only to see quite awful roads.
very true..the quality of the roads are so crapppp
If you don’t like the roads, don’t use them.
This is the best technology to come from the boys in blue. If they can get this mainstream, then maybe all the REAL hoons will be taken of the road.
This could be a great asset to the police. Though it could lead to people making fake plates, as to my knowledge, the plates are only read by the camera and if they are fake, though actual plates from someone else they wont get picked up.
I assume the fake plate be determined as unlicensed? The only way to get around it is to use/steal some other cars number plates.
The ’someone else’ would have reported their plates as being stolen, it would then pick them up.
This is just the tip of the iceberg! Wait for the camera that has face recognition!
Put the driver’s face in the unregistered, uninsured car, speeding.
Actually, apart from compulsory third party personal insurance which is part of registration, there is no law stating that a car must be insured. Where on earth did CA and some respondents get that idea? I mean you would have to be screwed up not to have insurance but there is no Police Check that you can do to determine whether a car is currently ‘insured’ for Third Party Property or Comprehensive or any derivative thereof.
I thought Victoria was already rolling this out
Yeah, and SA has already trialled this several times in the past 18 months. Looks like somebody from the Labor govt is out for some cheap publicty with yet another re-announcement.
Thats great, but how about putting some funding towards getting rid of violent thugs roaming the streets and people taking a pi$$ in bus shelters in broad daylight.
This technology has been around for years in Europe. Try to keep up Australia, no wonder you have some of the worst driving and vehicle standards in the Western World.
Exactly. Get with the times, Australia. I saw this technology in action on Fifth Gear several years ago now, and it was already being used in more than a testing capacity.
I remember seeing something in the news recently where they were doing this in NSW, but were using stationary units instead of in-car systems.
A few years ago I walked past a stationary one set up (in NSW), about 1.5hrs later there was more than 12 vehicles (cars, vans and utes) parked up with number plates removed, suckers. Good to see some people donating to consolidated revenue.
BTW, theives now steal/target number plates off similar model and colour cars to reduce their ANPR detection. Monel pop rivets, anti tamper screws, s/s nyloc nuts and bolts are good ways to reduce number plate theft.
ANPR has been used in the ACT for a few years now. I drove past one once and was amazed to see, like swampdawg, a whole pile of cars that had obviously been detected and stopped.
It’s a very good idea. Road safety statistics (the real ones, not the made-up government ones that blame everything on speeding) say that drivers who drive unregistered cars are much more likely to drive drunk or drugged, drive dangerously, and have more accidents which are of greater severity. Drivers of unregistered cars are also much more likely to be unlicenced or driving while suspended. The American term scofflaw comes to mind.
I read ages ago that they had this fitted to certain police choppers
A few high intensity infra red LEDs mounted in the plates would probably blind the cameras to the plates.