THUNDER BAY – New licence plate recognition technology is paying immediate dividends for Thunder Bay Police.
Weeks after the equipment was installed in a dedicated traffic unit cruiser, Const. Sal Carchidi was on patrol when an alert warning started going off.
“In one unique case yesterday it identified a validation tag which had expired in 2005. Further investigation showed the actual owner of that vehicle had since passed away,” Carchidi said on Tuesday, outside the Thunder Bay Police Service headquarters on Balmoral Street.
“It resulted in a male being charged with driving while suspended, driving without insurance, using improper plates on a vehicle and of course, the expired plates from 2005.”
The $30,000 technology, which has been used locally by the OPP for a number of years, gives police an extra set of eyes on the road, with the ability to scan upward of 3,000 vehicles per hour.
In most cases, passing plates are scanned with one of three infrared cameras mounted atop the police vehicle and nothing is found to be out of the ordinary.
It’s helping police remove a lot more drivers who shouldn’t be behind the wheel off the road. Connecting to the Ministry of Transportation database, it can help identify suspended drivers or those with potential outstanding warrants, vehicles with no insurance attached or expired plates.
Before the recognition equipment was installed, police would have to be looking specifically for an infraction, or have a tip that a driver might be disqualified.
Acting traffic Sgt. Tom Armstrong said the system gives police a reason to pull over a driver to see if something more might be amiss.
“Suspended drivers I would say is a fairly significant issue, something we encounter very regularly in our normal day to day duties,” Armstrong said.
“This just helps to identify (them) even more. A lot of traffic stops, you might stop them for a different reason and learn that the driver is suspended. This will tell you when the registered owner is suspended, if the registered owner is driving and you can now stop that suspended driver from driving that vehicle.”
Regardless of the reason for suspension, whether it’s demerit points or being caught driving while impaired, it’s a fairly serious offence, Armstrong said.
Being caught driving while ineligible can lead to fines of up to $25,000, and, depending on the offence, could result in vehicle impoundment and even time behind bars.
“This can help us identify these things and take these drivers, who have been deemed to not be fit to be on the road, to allow us to identify them and stop them,” Armstrong said.
Officers can pre-set the camera to focus on passing or parked cars. When the alert sounds it’s up to police to determine whether or not to initiate a traffic stop. Carchidi said the public would be surprised at how often the alert goes off on Thunder Bay streets.
“It’s definitely identifying the suspended drivers and those people with warrants who may have flown under the radar, because of it’s immediate response time – where before it may have taken you 30 seconds to a minute to run the vehicle and run the registered owner. Normally you’re acting on some information for that,” Carchidi said.
“This is doing it for you and giving you that information.”
Only information deriving from potential offences will be stored, with the remainder of data and images purged from the system.
