Vanity Plates Confuse Red Light Cameras
[From Red-light camera should capture right car with right plate :: Naperville Sun via Instapundit and Gapers Block ]
Consider the plight of this senior citizen who received a red light camera ticket for a car that wasn’t hers.
After many phone calls, insisting this was not her vehicle, nor was she anywhere near the location indicated, she was instructed to protest the ticket at the Daley Center.A protest filing fee was paid. Three appearances were required in traffic court. Each one became more frustrating than the one before. It seemed the protester was not innocent before being proved guilty but quite the contrary. It became obvious that no representative of the court believed the story.The third appearance finally got the court’s attention because the license plate was produced as evidence, and although it did match the numbers on the plate, it was not identical to the plate on the photo.After all the dust had cleared and the expenses were paid by this tenacious senior citizen, including time, parking fees, tolls as well as anguish and distress, the case was dismissed.It was dismissed simply because, after investigation by this lady, it was discovered that two vehicles registered in the state of Illinois can have the same identical plate number. The only difference is that one is a vanity plate.
This story is a marked contrast to the piece on RedFlex in the Tribune a few weeks ago. It described the process for ticketing cars:
Once through the lobby, visitors come upon a half-dozen or so violation reviewers, who watch every single 12-second video clip and still image that comes to RedSpeed showing a possible violation. Because drivers regularly trigger the cameras without a violation occurring—often by stopping just past the stop line or stopping abruptly after speeding—it’s up to the reviewers to determine whether they think there’s a violation.If they think not, the file gets purged; but if they believe a citation should be issued, the reviewers send the information to a senior reviewer. If that person agrees, the file gets forwarded to the respective law-enforcement agency, which decides whether to issue a citation.
This story points out a disconnect between the process of identifying a license plate and confirming that it matches the vehicle description associated with the license plate. Part of this is a technical problem. It was reported last year that the tollway Ipass cameras couldn’t detect vanity plates properly. Apparently, this is also a problem for red light cameras. The second is a bureaucratic issue. It is well known there is a problem with vanity plates. 25% of the plates in Illinois are non-standard. Why aren’t there measures in place to prevent this from occurring? Here is a graphic from the Daily Herald on vanity plates.
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