Police in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia have just completed a trial of license plate recognition technology and are planning a widespread rollout of the technology in Vancouver. It consists of a camera mounted atop a police car that looks up license plates, checks them against a database and alerts the cop at the wheel if the car is "suspicious". The technology can look up about 3000 plates an hour and they apparently find that they are overwhelmed with the number that turn up as being suspicious - about one in fifty. In my opinion, this technology will no doubt be used in the future in conjunction with speed and red light cameras to catch criminals more quickly.

In Des Moines, Iowa, KCCI's Geoff Greenwood tests whether products that claim to keep licence plates out of the lenses of red-light cameras really work. In this story we also discover that products that block vision of your license plate can get you a ticket as well if you are caught by police. If you watch this in-depth video of PhotoBlocker spray and License Plate covers you will see that they do not work. Click on the link to watch the story.

Red light cameras are going up all over north Texas, and hundreds of motorists are getting citations in the mail each month for running red lights, but one intersection in Plano has seen a significant minor accidents increase in the past 6 months as people slam on their brakes. This is fairly consistent around the country when camearas are installed.