New police technology to catch drivers breaking the law
A NEW police radar which identifies number plates from 100m away caught 17 drivers in Drysdale yesterday.
The system uses a camera and optical character recognition software to capture an image of a vehicle, find the number plate within the image and convert it to a text string.
Sergeant Dave O'Connor said the Automated Number Plate Recognition system was used to detect unregistered drivers in Drysdale with officers stationed further ahead to pull cars over.
"It gives you an immediate result on whether the vehicle is unregistered, whether the owner of the vehicle has a licence and whether there is an interlock device in the car," he said.
Police checked 2300 vehicles for a total of 17 offences, including 14 unregistered vehicles, two motorists driving whilst disqualified and one driver was penalised for failing to display P-plates properly.
One man was arrested on a warrant while another driver was found to be drink-driving.
"It is pleasing to see most people were found to be doing the right thing but it is still disappointing to see some people are showing a blatant disregard for the responsibilities for driving a motor vehicle," Sgt O'Connor said.
