An automatic license-plate reader that can scan 500 license plates an hour looking for stolen vehicles underwent its first field tests by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department last week.
Using character-recognition technology developed for the Italian Post Office to read postal addresses, four robot eyes in the course of one night queried more than 12,000 license plates, recovered seven stolen cars and resulted in three arrests.
Two of the arrests and one of the recovered stolen autos came about when a police cruiser with a plate scanner pulled up outside an L.A. parole office. A pair of parolees rolled up in a vehicle that was immediately -- and automatically -- identified as stolen.
"Criminals are not real smart," said a report of the field test. "Their P.O. (parole officer) came out and saw all the commotion and told us the parolees were his. After relaying the fact they were in a stolen car, the P.O. -- on the spot -- said, 'They're violated.'" ...<More>
http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,67864,00.html
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