Your Triumph and the Law.

On Sky last night, 'Car Wars' (another 'Stop Police Action Camera' clone) , showed a sequence where the police car crew were commenting as they followed a perp, that though his number plate was easily readable by eye, the characters were invisible on their TV monitor! The monitor picture was shown at the same time, and although the number plate is often blanked in these shows, this looked quite different, not a blurred oval but as if there were no numbers and letters on a normal plate.

I've heard of this, seen it advertised,, but always thought it was a scam!
It DOES work!
And, of course, is completely illegal.

But HOW does it work?
John

John

Beware! What you see on TV is not always what you could see if you were there. I'm sure that you are aware of the very clever electronics that can make these special effects.

Also, what a video camera is capable of seeing/not seeing can be different from an infra read speed camera. I am not aware of any system that hides your number plate from an infra red speed camera, although I have seen several attempts at it.

Regards
Mike

Mike,
I would have assumed some electronic trickery - the number plate of a car is often obscured on such programmes by post event editing, when an oval of blurring appears across it - but this blank plate did not look like that.

It was not the appearance of the plate on my TV screen that made me believe in these coatings. No, it was the actions of the police officers in the patrol car that convinced me that there was some special coating on that car's number plate. They saw a distinct difference in the plate by naked eye and by video, followed the car discreetly, and then accosted the owner in a petrol station. I can't remember exactly what they then did, I think he was in possession of drugs or something.

If it was something else that caused their suspicion, they would have said so, that they recognised the driver of the car, it was on a 'wanted' list or behaving suspiciously. But they did not. It was the difference in the two views of the plate that made them suspicious of that car and driver, and they said so, on the tape.

If nothing else, these programmes impress me with the observation skills of police officers. Another case in the same programme was of a car with a '0' in its' number that had been changed to an '8' with black tape. That tiny detail led to the arrest of a gang that stole hire cars. Why should the TV programme go to the length of disguising not only the on-screen look of the plate, but to concoct evidence by misleading editing of the sound tape, to give the impression that the plate looked different by eye and by video?

I have NO intention to try to evade speed camera detection in this way.
It is that such a thing is possible, when I believed it was not, that fascinates me.

JOhn

John

I never intended to imply that you might be looking to evade any legislation, I know what an upright citizen you are.

As I said, I know of no number plate treatment that will evade infra red speed cameras, but tricking video is different. Whatever the driver was trying to do it clearly didn't work. It might have fooled the video, but that just made his car more obvious to the Police crew! He might have been better of not showing out in this way!!!

Can't help beyond that I'm afraid.

Regards
Mike

Nobbling the camera and cocking a snook at the police state is more fun, though! For most people that object to these police cash machines it's not about being a speed freak, just the principle of the thing.

Did you know that your car becomes completely invisible to speed cameras if you are traveling at the right speed....

20Mph... !

Top Gear tried this a few years ago......it was something like 178mph to beat the flashes! 20mph seems more realistic for my old Spitty......

There is a way to evade capture on Speed Cams:

http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/FzeR5Ni48KVZny/Resea...

Amazon are taking Pre Orders along with Windows Vista I think.

Wayne

Article is from The Herald !!

So what are you saying Nig?

You got a Lotus Elise, (nice car), to drive it everywhere at 20mph?

Have you fitted a speed limiter?

Just curious, in a tongue in cheek kind of way!

Rgds

L&195;&169;on

Section : Number Plates

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