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And yet, if your car gets stolen thieves don't even bother putting fake/cloned plates on it most of the time - police could in theory look up where the car was
by gambiting 2y ago
And yet, if your car gets stolen thieves don't even bother putting fake/cloned plates on it most of the time - police could in theory look up where the car was last seen using ANPR but either they don't have the time or they don't actually have the ability.
>>Because of how effective this is for catching even fairly minor violations like failure to pay road tax
It's not really, I don't believe so anyway. Keep seeing posts from various police forces around the UK about so-and-so car being stopped, no tax since 2022 for instance. And I'm like....ok great, but how come it took you 3 years to find them??
- lazide 2y agoTypically cars get stolen for temporary-ish use - to commit a crime somewhere, go joyriding, to strip for parts, etc. It might only be on the road for 2-8 hours. Maybe a day. To catch someone during the window of opportunity it would make sense requires a lot of things to happen in quick succession - the owner needs to notice, a report with all the necessary details needs to be entered, and they need to go by a reader - and an officer needs to follow up in a timely fashion before the ‘lead’ goes stale. Sometimes departments will have their acts together enough that it’s possible, but usually they don’t. Police departments are part of the government too, after all. Most of the time if the car is found at all, it will be found days later abandoned on the other side of town, or on blocks. The ‘best’ often have an officer (or 2) obsessed with catching stolen cars, and some of them will catch 10-12 in a shift. It’s genuinely impressive watching them work.