md2000
April 19, 2011, 2:00pm
41
Marc_Xenos:
I heard a somewhat similar story about a guy driving past an automated monitoring station when the camera flashed his picture. He was certain he was driving within the speed limit, so he drove back around to check it out, making absolutely sure he was under the limit. The camera flashed him again. Convinced he was dealing with a defective monitoring unit, he made yet another pass, this time going ridiculously slow, all to provide evidence in court of his innocence. Sure enough, the camera flashed his picture. Twice more, just for fun, he passed by the camera in slow speed, laughing openly at the camera and even flipping the finger as he passed it.
Sure enough, the following week he received five tickets in the mail… for Failure to Use a Seatbelt.
(Yes, it’s very likely to be one of those apocryphal stories. How does an automated system determine whether you’re using a seatbelt?)
I heard the other variant, and since neither radar nor road sensors can tell if you are wearing a seatbelt, it’s total BS.
I could see it happening in Australia, since it’s down under, so the seatbelts would hang upward and the buckle would be visible…
Gedd:
I don’t think an automatic scanner would catch it, but I’m pretty sure that the make, model, and color of your car are in there with you plate numbers. Unless I’m really lucky the odds are a cop would notice that my plates that are registered to a green minivan don’t look right on my friend’s silver Audi TT.
Generally people use plates from a car of the same make and model.
Either one they’ve seen on the road, or they trawl ebay / autotrader / forums to find a similar car.
Often the way the crime is discovered is the owner of the cloned plate getting a ticket for a town they’ve never visited.
How they do it in the hood: don’t have enough money for a work truck? Steal a newer decent looking but not fancy one. Buy insurance on it. Drive the truck where you need to go. When you get pulled over for not having tags show the officer your insurance and tell him you just bought the truck. Not foolproof but works enough that people actually do it.
