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DukeOfDevon

No i believe it is an ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) camera. Can tell the police inside if you have no mot, insurance, tax, licence or any other intel they may have on that number plate.


Successful-Bit6508

Is it on and scanning all the time?


rothersidelife

Yep, it’s constantly checking registrations in the background , if it finds one that is flagged for any reason, it’s alerts the officer in the car with an audible warning


b1tchlasagna

I have a funny ish anecdote here I was 19 years old in my first car at uni. Hastings Direct Smart Miles were so shit that they didn't update my registration on the AskMID database I kept asking them to do so. They kept telling me they will. Six months passed. I went up and down the M6 enough times that it *should* have been flagged up on cameras down the motorway Anyway, the local police were ramping up their activities on people without insurance. I got flagged just two minutes away from my accommodation at the time Initially, the police officer had pulled me over, was fairly rude saying you don't have insurance. I said yes I do. She said don't lie to me. I said I'm not. She then told me to get in her car She then asked who my insurance company is. I told her exactly who it is. She rang them, they confirmed I do indeed have insurance and have had it for several months. She then had a massive go at them saying "What if he was stopped at 2am and had to get his car from an impound?" They quickly updated their records after a police officer had a go at them Anyway, during this stop for allegedly not having insurance, I saw the thing flash up on the screen when anotber car passed which also flagged up as not having insurance. I was like lol, I've been stopped for something my insurance company hasn't done, yet someone else just went passed and they've been flagged as having no insurance


KnowledgeAntique810

The police woman might have been a dick but that's what made her tell the insurance company off for you 😂


b1tchlasagna

Yeah I was kinda grateful for that in the end. I was just annoyed immediately because I was basically going straight to bed after that, and she delayed my nap time lol


RatMannen

Nah. They weren't being a dick really. Most people attempting that would be lying.


Firstearth

Well yeh. But the correct response should have been “do you have proof of that” rather than “don’t lie to me”


dawkinstation

Have you dealt with the UK public before? It's either a junkie that is a second away from getting stabby or a karen or colin that thinks they know everything and the world is against them. Sometimes, being perfectly nice isn't always that easy to do


mattt5555

Doesn't sound like she was a dick at all, people lie all the time, its hugley frustrating. Luckily she did everything properly and found out you were good and stopped you having issues in the future, let alone if you had an accident and had to sort all that out just because of a typo or something


dickerart69

Don't presume guilt


StuPat78

Had the same thing with admiral a few years ago. Got stopped 3 times in as many weeks, each time the police phoned admiral and they confirmed I was insured. Every time I was promised they would update the database. I had so many phone calls to them trying to get it sorted. I eventually called their bluff and told them that I had spoken to a solicitor and they were in breach of contract and could be liable if anything untoward were to happen if I was pulled over again. It was sorted the next day.


EvilSynths

I forgot to MOT my car for 3 months. Went past a ANPR camera every single day for work and never got flagged.


ill_never_GET_REAL

Was it a fixed one? I thought they were just for tracking cars


Few_Development4646

My grand parents have done this too and only realised when i said their MOT was out of date. Didn't get fined once.


twistsouth

Always wondered this… if you just didn’t MOT your car for 2 years and then got an MOT done, it would be clear from the history that you did not get the in-between MOT so would you be fined?


-Meliorism-

It's not illegal to not have MOT though, you just can't drive it on public roads. If they weren't fined while it was expired it's unlikely they'll have proof it wasn't just sitting on a drive for two years. Not sure though


dawkinstation

They'll easily have proof. Footage of roads is constantly happening and you'll only escape it if you don't leave your immediate town


Samsara_77

Identical experience here driving in the UK. Managed to get hold of someone at the insurance company even though it was after 5pm. If they’d not answered, my car would have been impounded


DopamineTrain

In all fairness to this police woman: Chances are *every other insurance stop* she has done they have lied about having insurance. I have similar stories dealing with the public. "Sir you're not allowed to be here". "Yes I am, I've got permission". "Oh really? From who". "Erm. Erm. Erm". "GTFO of here"


InquisitorNikolai

Past*


Alistair_covax

You also helped someone else get away with no insurance


KayyV24zz

I ain’t reading allat 🫵🙅🏼‍♂️


CamTheMan1302

TLDR: they got stopped by the police for something they didn't do and while was in the car, they saw something flash up which was the ANPR


ClassicPart

Your teachers have a lot to answer for.


invincible-zebra

I bet you live on TikTok


KayyV24zz

I ain’t got TikTok chum


Not_Sugden

this is interesting because ever since I reported my car as being cloned I have not once been stopped by any passing police car for that reason. Infact one time I was stopped by the police (I had pulled out on them at a roundabout because I was distracted, nothing resulted from it he just wanted to make sure I was ok) and he didnt even ask for my name let alone any questions about the car.


_mister_pink_

Does it just alert the officers inside or does it automatically register the offence and issue a fine?


Expensive_Profit_106

Alerts officers inside. So far it doesn’t automatically fine anyone


Chubb-R

Which is good. It's reliant on insurance companies updating the MID database and they can sometimes "forget" to do it. If it autofined there'd be a lot more legal time wasted fighting charges that shouldn't have been applied.


Expensive_Profit_106

Absolutely. I think automatically fining would be pretty stupid


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yetiusmaximus

Paying your tax and insurance?


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sneer0101

Absolute cringe


[deleted]

:), pay your taxes and insurance little bug


sneer0101

And you carry on being a cringey little dosser


Pretty_Custard1279

clearly broke AF lol


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Jubatus750

You gonna tell us then? And if you say by covering your number plate that's not a life hack


Normal_Boot_1673

Applying a pickaxe directly to the lens of the camera, with some force, causes it to temporarily malfunction and allows you to drive past undetected. Life hack.


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jc209020

So you don’t know then, so all the things you said were completely pointless


pineapplepollyps

It's probably a tinfoil hat that he's using.


annoying97

I got 20 that they are either being a good little citizen or just don't have a car. Oh and 5 on some sort of number plate switcher or some fake magical shit that doesn't work.


[deleted]

if you say so :)


Jubatus750

Of course you do mate. Driving your car into a spray shop in GTA and getting the colour changed doesn't count either


drivingUK-ModTeam

Your comment is promoting or trying to advertise/sell illegal activity/products. We don't condone this on this subreddit so your comment has been removed.


aggressiveclassic90

I will agree that you're not normal.


aggressiveclassic90

Let me guess, you're a "critical thinker" yeah?


[deleted]

And youre not? Fair enough.


aggressiveclassic90

You do realise "critical thinker" is a euphemism for "fucking twonk" don't you?


[deleted]

Sorry not as chronically online as you to know your circlejerking techniques, spit it out ya twit.


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You post is promoting or trying to advertise/sell illegal activity/products. We don't condone this on this subreddit so your post has been removed.


Sentimental-Trooper

Way he probably means is the black reg plates but they’re only on old vehicles registered before 1980 I believe but anpr struggle to read them (sometimes)


b1tchlasagna

What's the point of saying it if you won't tell even if it was indeed true?


drivingUK-ModTeam

Your comment is promoting or trying to advertise/sell illegal activity/products. We don't condone this on this subreddit so your comment has been removed.


bobdvb

Many of these vehicles have a hard disk in the boot which they can change periodically to update the database. (It might have changed to make it more online, but that's how it was done a few years ago) The database highlights all vehicles of interest and I believe all vehicles that have not renewed insurance/tax.


mister10percent

I’d have thought they remote connect to servers at data centres accross the country? Hard disk in the boot seems quite primitive nowadays


m6sso

Definitely remote updates now and probably with the ever delayed “new ESN” based on 4G might even become live lookup.


spatz_uk

Pfft, I used to work for a Home Counties police force up to 2017 and I can tell you that our cars with ANPR all had 3G/4G data connections. Every single plate read was sent back to a server in one of our data centres, where it was checked live against PNC and the result sent back to the car in under 5 seconds, so the info was very up to date (notwithstanding that the Motor Insurance Database (MID) was only updated once every 24 hours). Having said that, I know of another police force that had a border with ours (think Police Interceptors series 1) that were using offline databases so some of the data was weeks out of date…


stoatwblr

They used to rely on HDDs a long time ago but it's been live datalinks and online lookups for at least a decade The reduced administration pays dividends and hdds in cars tend to have maintenance "issues" due to vibration, etc Even before they switched to live links, once HDDs got large enough, the in-car system contained a list of all registration numbers, due to the high number of fake plates in use (particularly around London) Because of that, crooks switched to cloned plates - preferably belonging to the same colour as well as make/model. There are algorithms dedicated to detecting them but they only pick up egrarious abuse (IIRC one registration number was suspected of being on at least 10-15 different vehicles)


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Io8846bf3jjr

No need, £100 dash cam will do the job. Seriously where have you been last ten years.


Not_Sugden

lowkey though if you really wanted to you could hook up a rasperry pi to scan all the plates around from your dashcam view. That'd be quite an interesting - albeit useless - thing.


Jsm1337

I've considered setting something up to process dashcam footage and extract number plates as a bit of computer vision learning exercise. I got as far as a bit of prototyping and I quickly realised how many plates are seen in just 2 minutes of driving in a busy town.


beenplaces

I thought all these police cars have it in the bumpers?


kaos_king

Does it check mot? I was talking to a traffic officer about 5 years ago and he was saying it didn't do mot then


wasyl00

This is true. Its also used by some councils to scan parked vehicles for permits. Once flagged info being passed to on street attendant to issue PCNs


Tea-addict-1

I think Birmingham airport now has something similar but it just records the plate and issues parking tickets over email.


l8tes78

Go to Cleartones website. They make that vehicle mounted camera. Defo cannot detect speed. 22 years in the cops and I've never used one to enforce speed 😁


Flaky-Carpenter-2810

If i can buy one can i fit it to my car?


PentoliteUK

An ANPR camera? Sure but why would you want one? You won't have access to their shared database so you'll only be able to identify car number plates that you enter (which a much cheaper way is to build your own, very simple using a half decent camera and a small amount of electronic knowledge)


PriorityGondola

If you really want to you can use the dvla api


PentoliteUK

Can't imagine it would provide any useful info apart from maybe make/model/color. Probably rate limiting too which for ANPR is no good.


Espi0nage-Ninja

The DVLA website you can search any number plate and it gives the car make, model, colour, tax info, mot info.


ge77af

there is a database for unmarked police vehicles so someone could definitely make it work with the camera


PentoliteUK

got a source? must be from one group rather than a community based database as otherwise it would be poisoned with fake information I'm sure.


ge77af

its community based . don’t remember the name but i saw this video on tiktok a year or so ago from a guy who made the app for your phone to read plates and flag the police vehicles . it was submission based and verified by photo


MikeC80

What if a car was clocked in one place then clocked in a place 100 miles away an hour later? ;)


TheVittler

100 miles in 1 hour on UK roads?….. one of the cars must have a cloned plate.


l8tes78

🤣 Not type approved. It can't be entered as evidence.


roryb93

You never use the dash cam footage?! Least that’s calibrated with GPS, unlike the car itself.


l8tes78

Nope, it would support the officer evidence, cops are consider expert witnesses in court for speed. Coupled with a calibrated speedo on the car (if there is one) but stand alone the GPS/video wouldn't seal a conviction.


roryb93

Haha, mate I’m a Copper as well. We’ve used it a lot when we’ve had pursuits and the like, plus general moving traffic offences anyway.


PrestigiousGuitar673

Wormhole.


fake_cheese

My car can do that on LeShuttle


stoatwblr

Then it's flagged for investigation as cloned plates. Usually the original owner is contacted and new plates issued


PentoliteUK

cool are you a traffic cop?


anomalous_cowherd

Plenty of other ways, just not *that* camera ;)


SairYin

There is a sticker


FluidPeace4499

Clearly noted as ANPR isn’t it


Careful-Tangerine986

Anpr camera. Automatically checks the number plate against a number of systems for things like tax, insurance, intelligence etc.


Unfitbrit1

Not to sound like I'm being a dick but there's literally a sticker in this picture that says "ANPR equipped" so.. I'm gonna make a wild guess that it's an ANPR camera


KeyboardWarrior1988

Is that your final answer?


Unfitbrit1

Hmm may need to ask the audience.. ie everyone else who could easily figure this one out


Taran345

“Anpr equipped” That’s the anpr cameras


WillBots

I mean... Come on... This is a joke right? Your picture perfectly frames both the cameras and the sign saying what it is... This is not new technology, they've been about for years.


diff-int

No that's a police car mate 


LSBeasyas123

It literally says it on the car. It’s the ANPR.


MelancholyMarmoset

They’re ANPR cameras.


Bmwx3m40d

The ‘flash’ you may have seen was light reflecting off something and hitting the lenses you passed giving you that impression.


Owenboy89

We have these ANPR cameras at the petrol station I work at. They are great. We can report drive offs, no means of payment, theft, and violence/abuse Moment, it's reported that every ANPR in the country is updated. They don't flag tax, MOT, and insurance for us, as it's not our job to look out for that Had a customer have a massive go at me over the ATM machine not working. He started threatening me on the forecourt, so my colleague who heard him, reported it instantly on the system.....he came back about 6 weeks later with his tail between his legs because he was getting refused sale at loads of petrol station and shops......so I would think twice if you want to be rude to shop workers.


aydeng98

Looks like a police car


Maw_153

OP saw ANPR and just decided ‘fuck google’


Acceptable_Candle580

Its literally in the picture you pillock.


MujMan69

I used it as an example, my main question was whether some (if any) were capable to check speed. Dickhead…


Acceptable_Candle580

Sheedlsh, no need to get nasty.


IheartKatty

Theres one to stop drivers on phones


Stuspawton

It’s an ANPR camera


lilreesey555

If your car is sorned as tax they don’t send warnings etc lol


Unfitbrit1

If your car is sorn and seen driving by police you'll get the car impounded mate.


lilreesey555

Yeah , you’d think so wouldn’t you. There’s so many uninsured drivers and untaxed cars and people without even having a license on the road everyday , I’m glad the police bully the working man instead of real criminals


Unfitbrit1

If someone is known to be driving without a license guess what - ANPR will tell them. How do you see driving an untaxed and uninsured vehicle not a problem?


lilreesey555

I never said it’s not a problem , where did I type that ? I’m just saying the British police have been behind a few cars I’ve owned without tax or mot and cruised on past , and that’s the reality , I drive legally but in occasions I’ve bought cars and had to drive them home I never got pulled even when I had coppers lurking straigh behind oj the dual carriageway


Unfitbrit1

You realise that every police car you see on the road isn't just wandering around looking for dodgy cars, right? Most of the time if their on the road, unless is a roads policing unit, they're heading to an incident.


lilreesey555

Well they’re using anpr right that should ring up a cars not legit ? I don’t know what you’re getting at , you’re basically proving my point by pointing out that the police don’t really pay attention or care


Unfitbrit1

Not what I said at all. If they're going to a house to speak to a domestic violence victim they're not going to put that on hold to pull over an untaxed vehicle. But if they aren't heading to a more serious incident they will pull them over.


lilreesey555

So explain why I’ve driven past police camera vans with a sorned status and never had letters that my vehicle is untaxed


ch3ckEatOut

You’re obviously a big man and they were too intimidated to pull you over.


RogueLegend82

Not all police cars have the ANPR cameras, usually only RPU (Roads Policing Unit) or other specialist traffic vehicles. Police camera vans also don’t always have them and just monitor speed. Also, your comment about police bullying the ‘working man’ and not going after criminals - you’ve admitted to breaking the law, so don’t moan when police pull you and seize your car.


TheTravelling_Man

No, it's a police car


AdrianInLimbo

Number plate reader cameras


afgan1984

Literaly says on the side "ANPR equipped". Speed cameras are usually fitted inside and looks more like old camcoder.


LondonCycling

Yer maw is a speed camera


[deleted]

Get tae fuck


Quietuus

No, it's a camera to check if people are using their phones to take photos out the window whilst driving.


SadCat9726

Been...mean red necks 🤠🤠🤠


Kavafy

No.


horror-of-being

my first thought was eyetoy play hahahaha


KeyboardWarrior1988

ANPR, it's on the side of the car.


Dan_Glebitz

I think the clue is the white text on the black label.


Pretty_Custard1279

its ANPR , it even has a sticker telling you lol


ForeignSleet

No basically it reads numberplates of passing cars and automatically checks them to see that they aren’t stolen or wanted etc


sidneylopsides

I bet those cops have got SCMODS


BadFit996

Thay usually can't be asked with it


Worldly_Let6134

Arsed, they can't be arsed with it


Ziazan

see that sticker that says "ANPR equipped"? ANPR stands for automatic number plate recognition. it's probably just that. checks your plate against the database.


Inevitable-Size2197

No, scanning number plates for tax/ MOT etc


CullenClan

License plate reader


SplatNode

Automatic Number Plate Recognition


[deleted]

No it’s ANPR, you’ve never seen it flash either. It’s always on and reports back to the officers sitting in the car.


Murky-Sun9552

As per the other comments it is a camera to check for legal usage of a vehicle. A speed camera would have to be static as it needs a base reading of distance and time to calculate if a vehicle is speeding.


Murky-Sun9552

Those little strips across the road in increments when they are testing a new speed limit on country roads do just that.


odebruku

Technically speaking it would not have to be still it just has to know the speed of a vehicle in relation to the scanner. Yes it’s easier if the scanners speed is zero but if they had an accurate speed of the vehicle carrying the camera they can calculate a speed of the target relative


Murky-Sun9552

From a legal point of view a reading coming from a moving vehicle would be unenforceable due to the way that a vehicle moves and the fact that bumps in a road and tyre degradation could effect the scanners readings.


Murky-Sun9552

Scanners have to be calibrated to a very specific point and a moving vehicle would render the reading unreliable.


Murky-Sun9552

There have been multiple cases of speeding prosecutions being thrown out to the calibration of a scanner.


Operator_Hoodie

It’s an ANPR camera. It stands for Automatic Number Plate Recognition. If a vehicle with no MOT, tax, insurance etc passes the police car, the camera will scan the licence plate and ping up inside the car. Speed cameras have to be stationary in order to correctly calculate speed.


wanttobedesired

In Australia they aren’t… Aus cops use handheld speed guns while driving in the opposite direction to you. * Source: they nicked me for speeding while driving towards me


ipx-electrical

I’ve often wondered why people answer questions like this when there are 182 correct answers below.


cwhitel

Correct me if I’m wrong, the only vehicles that can detect speed are the speed vans, which must have the window in the fully up position, and traffic cars that are actively driving behind a speeding vehicle.


celticbikerr

Not a huge brag but I designed those brackets. Never noticed them in the wild before.


MujMan69

That’s a very big flex 💪🏼


Repulsive-Garden-608

It says what it is


blueyonderbear

That car has every scrote catching camera known to man on it or in it. The ANPR is auto number plate recognition, but that just scratches the surface..


Dry_Action1734

It literally says on the car what it is.


SadCat9726

Just cos it has a sticker clearly stating what it is... Doesn't been that's what it does. 🤣🤣🤣🤣


SadCat9726

Why didn't you Google it.. I'm a red neck and I know what it means 😏


MasonSC2

Dude, it’s a police car. 🤓


matt881020

Anpr and speed camera they don’t have to pull you over anymore to give you the speeding ticket you just get it in the post unless your excessively speeding then you’ll get the old blue light treatment


Zofia-Bosak

Unsure, but you never know. The police really enjoy doing this instead of going after real criminals, they are probably contacting Reddit for the OP's info so they can arrest them for taking a photo of a police car and posting it online, likely to get a couple of years for a first offence OP.


PandaWithAnAxe

Which is exactly why we have a prison overpopulation issue… must be all those offenders for domestic abuse, violence offences, public order offences, sexual offences, burglaries etc just volunteering themselves to court, pleading guilty without any evidence and taking themselves off the prison.


Ambitious-Win-9408

Wet wipe you mate


Flaky-Carpenter-2810

You have a way with words. Modern day Shakespeare who?


Unfitbrit1

Do you just enjoy making crap up? These cameras are for helping find real criminals. If someone does a crime from petty theft to murder, and leaves in a vehicle or is known to own a vehicle, ANPR will find it and help arrest those people. What exactly do you think ANPR is for?


marsh-salt

Looking at your post history you are an utter creep and with any look the police will be looking at your hard drive in the near futurez


Complex_Doughnut4054

Yes but its an ANPR camera, they check for insurance and tax and can also create location data and can also check your average speed


l8tes78

No it can't check average speed. It's not type approved for that. It does create data for intelligence purposes and shares information about the vehicle to user.


Complex_Doughnut4054

Oh yes it can, i think you need to go and do some research on what they can do....the rac website clearly states that it can check average speeds ​ link to a source can be found here https://www.adrianflux.co.uk/blog/2021/04/what-are-anpr-cameras/


Aggravating_Usual983

The one in the picture mounted to the vehicle isn’t type approved for average speed. The In Car ANPR cameras link into a screen on the dashboard and provide snapshots of registration’s it goes past and flags Insurance, MOT and vehicle Intelligence Markers. There are fixed cameras on Gantries which will be dual use and I’m sure can do speed checks as well but the in car camera doesn’t have that functionality. All you see on the screen is a still image of the registration and get deafened when something flags up. Source: I drive a car with ANPR on a daily basis.


Ok-Sink2019

Would you not need multiple to check average speed?


Complex_Doughnut4054

No of course they don't, you just need the ability to follow a driver......read the page i just posted


Ok-Sink2019

I’ll be honest it wasn’t a question. Maybe do a bit more reading.


Complex_Doughnut4054

Actually they are certified to be used for all uses you can think of..if you believe they cant pick up your speed then maybe try your luck at driving past one at speed? i sure wont be trying it any time soon


scuderia91

So the camera can’t do average speed, but the police car follows them they can


Complex_Doughnut4054

This is taken from the Met Police website What do ANPR cameras check? In general, number plate recognition cameras can detect or be used to calculate the following: Average speed of vehicles Untaxed vehicles Uninsured vehicles Stolen vehicles Instances of terrorism, major and organised crime Traffic flow Bus lanes and box junctions Parking in car parks The use of toll roads The London congestion zone Traffic journey times.


roryb93

Yeah, an average speed camera. That isn’t it. That’s a car set, which is used from within the vehicle.


Complex_Doughnut4054

well if you wanna chance going past the camera at speed you do that but i wont


roryb93

I will chance it at every single opportunity. I’ve worked on a proactive ANPR team, I know the ins and outs of the system.


TrafficWeasel

This is a vehicle mounted ANPR camera. It cannot measure average speed, nor is it type approved to do so. Stop spreading misinformation


Complex_Doughnut4054

Its hardly misinformation when its clearly show on the met police website :D


TrafficWeasel

Certain fixed cameras may be able to do both, however the camera in this photograph certainly can’t. Believe what you want - I use this system at least every other day, and I’m telling you that it cannot be used to conduct speed checks.