Stopped by the WSP...

budgetzagato

budgetzagato

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Last night on the way back from the monthly FEN meeting I was stopped by the WSP as I exited the highway. Having not been stopped in nearly 10 years it gave me a shock.

He said my plate came up as sold, with no current buyer. I showed him my registration etc. He said that I need to check with the DOL about that and have a good evening.

I called the DOL today and they said what probably happened is the seller submitted his Report of Sale after I transferred it into my name. So it looks as if I sold it. What a stupid thing for the DOL to do.

I also have to ask, is it technically legal to run a vehicle plate without probable cause? Seems unlikely that the officer had a reason to run my plate. Being the relatively together person I am it was not a problem, but it bothers me some. :confuse2:
 
budgetzagato said:
Last night on the way back from the monthly FEN meeting I was stopped by the WSP as I exited the highway. Having not been stopped in nearly 10 years it gave me a shock.

He said my plate came up as sold, with no current buyer. I showed him my registration etc. He said that I need to check with the DOL about that and have a good evening.

I called the DOL today and they said what probably happened is the seller submitted his Report of Sale after I transferred it into my name. So it looks as if I sold it. What a stupid thing for the DOL to do.

I also have to ask, is it technically legal to run a vehicle plate without probable cause? Seems unlikely that the officer had a reason to run my plate. Being the relatively together person I am it was not a problem, but it bothers me some. :confuse2:
Click to expand...

Sounds like "car maker profiling" to me ;)
 
Yeah, it's legal. They even have cameras on some police cars that automatically scan for plates and alert the officer if there is an issue.
 
Pretty amazing technology. I was sitting in my car in a parking lot a few weeks ago, waiting for my wife to come out of a store. A Ga State Police vehicle pulled into the open spot beside me. Their were no cars parked immediately in front of us, but there were 4 parked in the next row, all with the back of the cars facing us. It didn't seem like the officer touched the computer in his car, but it began scanning the plates (all 4) that the front mounted camera could see. From the angle we were parked I could see the screen plainly as it pulled up registration and outstanding warrant information on each plate/owner. Apparently none triggered an alarm because the officer eventually got out and went into the nearby sandwich shop.
 
I read a fairly detailed article about the imaging technology in this frame grabber system. The original version was developed in England. Apparently, it can image, capture and of course process over a dozen targets simultaneously, while moving. That includes targets moving in the same direction or coming at it. The technology is similar to crowd facial recognition systems, except it looks for the shape of plates instead of human faces.
 
The Fiat club in the Houston area meets at the Memorial Park Golf Course parking lot. This past Tuesday evening while we were hanging out and BS'ing before going to grab a bit... a Toyota Prius rolled by with License Plate Recognition cameras laid out on it's hood. It had a sticker on the door that said something like Houston Park Police or something... I didn't get a good look, he rolled through too quick for me to get a good look, but that was CLEARLY what he was doing, casing the park for cars in violation of something...

Traffic-ELSAG-2.jpg
 
I got pulled over years ago going down the highway in a '66 Cutlass. I had just bought it and hadn't been to the DMV yet so just threw some plates on it. Cop behind me ran 'em and it came back registered to a Mazda 626, he pulled me over and said he should impound the car and send us walking, he didn't, but the wife started crying.
 
When we lived in Naples in the late 70's, our 76 Fiat 128 wore "AFI" plates... (allied forces Italy) like these...


afi_n-62529.jpg


We shipped it back in 1980... picked it up in Philadelphia... got on the interstate and blitzed down towards Va. Beach where my parents owned a house we were going to be moving back into...

As soon as we got off the interstate in Va. Beach less than 5 miles to our house, a Virginia Beach cop pulled us over 'for the funny plates' I still remember how pissed my dad was. He basically went off on the cop "Welcome back to Virginia after 4 years serving the country overseas!!!" trying to make the guy feel a little bit like a twit. I feel for all you folks living in that state... sheesh.
 
not really

it is a requirement (law) to display your registration plate at lest here in NC and i assume everywhere else
the plate is government property (no you did not buy it)
issued by a government agency
which allows them the right to examine it at anytime in any manner
as the officer is an employee of the entity that owns the plate

(i am not a lawyer and i do not play one on TV)
 
In the state of Ga the plate goes with the seller. So if I sold a vehicle the plate gets taken off at the time of sale and I keep it. I can then transfer this plate to a new vehicle if I choose.

John
 
Probably open to interpretation, as any law is...

Kevin B (Asheville said:
doesn't the scanning cameras go against that whole probable cause thingie?
Click to expand...

But my understanding is that if you are throwing it off in public, the police can use any means they want to look for it, or take a closer look at it.

In this case, you are throwing off the photons reflected off your license plate. I don't really think it has anything to do with the plates being gov't property.

There was a case here in TX where they used an infrared camera to look for the heat signature of people using halide lights to grow pot in their attic. They busted a farmer and he tried to get off on a technicality. The ruling was pretty much, "you were exposing the heat signature to the public so we can look for it". The camera was on the street, not his property.

Now something that is not "public", such as your electric usage patterns (it would spike for 16 hrs a day or whatever with the halide lights) would require PC and a warrant.

Pete
 
Fixed...

At any rate it's fixed now, they issued me a "Report of Sale Retraction" form to keep with my papers. Seems silly.

Being somewhat together, it's not a big deal for me, I don't fret too much about being pulled over. But as a lawyer friend suggested long ago, it's just not good to involve the police in your life too much. So I try to keep a low profile and not create opportunities for police interaction if I can avoid it. Meaning checking tailight function and so forth. Even so I was told by a passerby I had a brake light out in the Vanagon the other day, so you really have to be vigilant.

Due to the excessively loud exhaust on the Scorpion, I try to drive it gently most of the time.
 
Pete Whitstone said:
But my understanding is that if you are throwing it off in public, the police can use any means they want to look for it, or take a closer look at it.

In this case, you are throwing off the photons reflected off your license plate. I don't really think it has anything to do with the plates being gov't property.

There was a case here in TX where they used an infrared camera to look for the heat signature of people using halide lights to grow pot in their attic. They busted a farmer and he tried to get off on a technicality. The ruling was pretty much, "you were exposing the heat signature to the public so we can look for it". The camera was on the street, not his property.

Now something that is not "public", such as your electric usage patterns (it would spike for 16 hrs a day or whatever with the halide lights) would require PC and a warrant.

Pete
Click to expand...
The grow house cases have been overturned on appeal. Law enforcement can no longer use a technology that "enhances" the naked eye to "see" inside a building.

Now, the tag readers, they have been determined not to be an enhancement to the naked eye, but just automation what an officer sitting there could have seen.

The technology actually was developed for paid parking garages. They would drive through the garage every night and record the space every car was parked in. This allowed them to do several things:

  • Figure out your fee when you "lost" your ticket
  • Find your car when you can't remember where yo put it
  • Locate stolen cars abandoned in the garage
 
Interesting, I had not heard of the overturn...

tim5055 said:
The grow house cases have been overturned on appeal. Law enforcement can no longer use a technology that "enhances" the naked eye to "see" inside a building.
Click to expand...

That surprises me. The reason being, they did not "see" inside the building. They looked at the heat signature above the roof of the building, clearly on the outside.

Pete
 
Pete Whitstone said:
That surprises me. The reason being, they did not "see" inside the building. They looked at the heat signature above the roof of the building, clearly on the outside.

Pete
Click to expand...
But we are talking about judges....

I think the reversals started in the 9th Circuit in CA, but not so sure in my old age...
 
I try to be silly viligant with lights and stuff too... haivng lights out is just inviting a cop to pull you over to try to find something. The last two times I've been pulled over it was over a tail light being out, and a rear license plate being out. The cop was clearly just looking to make a 'contact'... which is what I've had several cops tell me they do have quota's on. Not a ticket quota, but they did have a number of 'contacts' they were supposed to make. It's the reason that when they pull over a car load of kids, they generally ask each kid in the car something... 3 kids... 3 contacts in one stop.

I think the license plate recognition systems are just a thin thin step away from cops walking up and asking for your papers.

After all, if your not breaking the law, what are you worried about?:wall:
 
For your own good....

This type of advanced technology used on the general public, along with improvements to the self reporting home toilet paper monitor, keeps us all safe, and of course in the hands of local government, keeps them in the money.


I feel so protected.................


Vincent dba enzo mac
 
Parking

The parking tech is such that it scans the plate and notes the position of the vehicle so they can tell if you you are exceeding the parking time for that spot. Pretty slick.
 
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