-
Oct 10, 2007 9:16 am US/Eastern
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
Police Cameras Catch More Than Toll Violators
by Mike Schuh
MARYLAND (WJZ) ―
The state of Maryland is owed more than $3 million by motorists who plow through toll plazas without paying.
Mike Schuh reports a new way of catching them is helping to find other crooks, too.
Of all the people traveling on Interstate 95, what if those who cheat the state out of toll money stood out?
Until now, an officer would find probable cause and pull over cars or randomly run tag numbers, and occasionally find someone who had a backlog of unpaid tolls.
But now, every day, thousands of cars are giving up their owner's secrets.
"There are roughly 1,300 accounts that we classify as chronic toll violators," said Bill Henning of MDTA EZ-Pass.
That means they owe more than $1,000. On each side of the cars there are two cameras and a regular camera. That's what may catch them.
"My car is an auto license plate recognition system," said MDTA police officer Bill Perry.
His cameras read license plates. They instantly alert him if the owner owes tolls.
"Right before I can read the plate, and determine what state it's from, this has captured the characters and run it through the database," said Perry. "I think I've scanned 8,500 tags a day."
That's versus 100 or so manually entered on an eight-hour shift.
Even in tunnels where it's hard to read plate numbers, the camera has no problem.
"It makes your job easier," said Perry.
In 29 days the computers returned 10 hits, but only two have been for toll violations. The others have been a pleasant surprise.
"We've recovered eight stolen vehicles, and we've gotten two chronic toll violators," said Perry.
How well is this working? They're ordering three more and they should be in by the end of the month.
The systems cost $22,000 each.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)