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On Tuesday, one of the largest LPR manufacturers, ELSAG, announced a major upgrade to "allow investigators to search by color, seven body types, 34 makes, and nine visual descriptors in addition to the standard plate number, location, and time."
Such a vast expansion of the tech now means that evading such scans will be even more difficult.
For years, Ars has been reporting on automated license plate readers (ALPRs, or simply LPRs)—a specialized camera often mounted on police cars that can scan at speeds of up to 60 plates per second.
Those scans are compared against what law enforcement usually dubs a "hot list" before alerting the officer to the presence of a potentially wanted or stolen vehicle. All scans are typically kept in a police database for weeks, months, or years on end.
These devices are now in common use by cities big and small across the United States, as well as many countries around the globe, including the United Kingdom. Police at the upcoming royal wedding in London will use LPRs to monitor unauthorized vehicles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @05:09AM (2 children)
Its a wonder the cars last more than three years or so in that kind of salt.... kudos to the corrosion engineer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 20 2018, @05:33AM (1 child)
I believe GP exaggerates some. Although, not as much as some might believe. There were several bad winters in Pennsylvania, when I was growing up, when almost all cars were faded out pretty badly. And, in that environment, cars do rust out quickly. You might have a five year old car, that was ready for the junkyard, if you didn't wash frequently during the winter. That was before Zeibart and others came out with fairly reliable undercoating. Auto bodies in good shape, imported from the southern or western states were valuable, with or without a decent engine or transmission. Times change, though. Today, with all the plastic and aluminum used in cars, rust is less of a concern. Winters seem to be milder, requiring less salt. And, the internet provides a cheaper, easier means by which a Pennsylvania car owner can purchase body parts, or even entire bodies to transplant a perfectly good drive train from a worthless body.
Haven't lived in PA for decades. At a guess, I would say that cars probably reach 7, 8, 9 years before they start falling apart badly. If you live near Lake Erie, with the lake effect snow, it's worse than most of the rest of the state. If you live over by Philadelphia, it's better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @10:53PM
The generation of my family before me grew up in snow country but I've rarely been out of The Sun Belt--especially not in winter.
I checked the assertion with the all-knowing oracle and it showed evidence of some truth. [google.com]
There's a particularly apt image from quirkcars.com.
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