Pa. State Police randomly scanning license plates

    Pennsylvania’s State Police will begin photographing license plates at random to track down stolen cars. A federal grant has provided funding for trunk mounted cameras on a number of state police cars which take pictures of license plates.

    Pennsylvania’s State Police are photographing license plates at random to track down stolen cars.
    WHYY’s Tom MacDonald reports. [audio:100315TMCAM.mp3]

    A federal grant has provided funding for trunk mounted cameras on a number of state police cars which take pictures of license plates.

    State Police Spokesperson Lieutenant Myra Taylor.

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    Taylor: What they do is automatic scans of license plates and we have internal software in our mobile offices inside the vehicles that will alert us should the vehicle be stolen it is quite frankly helpful because gets bad guys off the road, stolen vehicles recovered and we get them back to the rightful owners.

    Lieutenant Taylor says the cameras can read license plates if the patrol car is moving or stationary, and have been very successful in finding stolen vehicles.

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