that's alarming.  they are potentially collecting a lot of data on
people's comings and goings and who is in the car both driving and
otherwise most likely.  a system very, very prone to abuse.  here in the
U.S. we don't collect road money that way, we collect it as a tax on
gasoline at the time it is sold, basically no easy way to cheat (unless
you are a farmer with fuel tanks in which case the fuel for your farming
doesn't have the road and highway tax added to it, though illegal it's
often used in cars as well).  california has gone one step further,
rather than worry about uninsured drivers there is a state tax on
gasoline used to provide insurance for all cars.  these are basically
good solutions, other than the problem of different vehicles getting
substantially different fuel economies and therefore tax rate per mile
driven, still it's more fair than most government systems.

Howard Winter wrote:
>
> On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 13:33:49 -0600, Robert Rolf wrote:
>
> > And the latest toy is  $100k van equipped with TV cameras and image recognition software that checks license
> plates for status as 'stolen'
>
> I'm sure it isn't that expensive here in Britain - a lot of Traffic Division police cars now have
> always-running numberplate recognition systems that send look-up enquiries by radio for every car in view,
> including passing the other way.  It flashes a message on the screen to the crew when something dodgy is
> detected, including a "WhooWhoo" sound (like a police-car siren) when an arrestable offence is flagged (stolen
> car, car owned by a suspect in some serious crime, reported hit-&-run etc.).  They seem to be catching a lot
> of crooks like that these days!
>
> Last week I saw a roadside setup with two cameras on a tripod, connected to a small van.  No speed-measuring
> equipment, but one of the things it said on the van was "Report car tax cheats" so I assume they were looking
> for cars that hadn't had their annual road-fund licence paid.  The two cameras were angled differently, one
> looking down at the plate, the other straight at the windscreen, presumably to get evidence of who was
> driving.  There have been adverts on television saying "we only need to check our computers" on this very
> topic!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Howard Winter
> St.Albans, England
>
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