The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
Today’s question:
QUESTION: Do you think all cities should have license plate readers scattered throughout town to help deter crime, and/or help catch suspects when they commit a crime?
Talk about it.
I do not see any reason why not. I have nothing to hide/fear.
@Jack Twist – I share your affinity for constitutional rights. I also understand them quite well.
License plate readers in no way infringe upon anyone’s Fourth or Fifth Amendment rights. It is axiomatic that people traveling on a PUBLIC highway in registered vehicles enjoy no expectation of privacy with respect to their license plate.
It doesn’t matter or make a deference when the license plates are covered or the auto stolen.
Licence plate readers aren’t enough. Phones should be tracked and people should become chipped. Then social media scores could be applied. I don’t see any reason why not. Only criminals have something to hide
If the auto is stolen the police can get an alert. It happened in Danville, the police went to the area of the detection, spotted the car which was parked in front of a house where those driving the car were burglarizing it. They busted them.
The readers should also flag ‘blank’, covered plates and send an alert, in WC they would have gotten a ton of alerts the night of the retail theft ring hit Nordstorms.
Agree.
had a hit and run on I-80 a few months ago. I took pictures as the vehicle’s fled, swerving through rush hour traffic and driving along shoulder.
The plates didn’t match the vehicle, so I couldn’t make an insurance claim. The cops wouldn’t do anything but file a report.
Who benefits from the plate readers but an already swollen and festering bureaucracy?
All cities should make up their own minds based on local conditions, values, and budgets.
Once the word is out, criminals will cover their tracks. Criminals steal cars, steal license plates, remove license plates, and/or cover their license plates. Criminals don’t obey the law. However, there will always be that dumb criminal who uses his own car with his own license plate.
On the plus side, license plate readers aren’t discriminatory, and nobody can claim they were racially profiled.
Yes, with the enhanced gene collecting/reader modules & facial recognition scanners.
Why? We do not need to have local governments, or federal, monitoring our activities, and this is precisely the direction it would go. Plate readers will not deter crime, but they may deter crime prosecution (everything else seems to). They may help catch suspects, but I would estimate not that much, and regardless, crime is not prosecuted much in this state. So, my response-no.
…. no problem – unless somebody has something to hide
I would just be happy if the Sunvalley Mall :
A) was moonscaped
or
B) has cameras plus license plate readers at all entrances/exits
Absolutely.
Yesterday evening two cars were racing on 980 and dangerously weaving through traffic. Classic look: no license plates, limo tint, lock plug punched out of the trunk etc. etc. I know these fellows were obviously about to turn their lives around, however they were putting all of us in danger.
So yes, plate readers are fine, because they only discriminate against criminals, and that’s just dandy.
Not sure how the large cities could deal with so many. Smaller towns could put them on entry/exit roads. In any case, will have to deal also with stolen, covered, or altered plates.
The government has created an environment so conducive to crime that people are begging for mass surveillance. Almost like that was the plan all along
You have a good point. I always thought cameras were intrusive. Now there are streets and highways where they are a necessity. On day we will all need a body cam.
Considering the quality of California Public Education, license plate readers are going to be essential!
Yes, but then you need to prosecute unlike the moron DA’s in many jurisdictions in CA…
100 years of car punkery has proved it’s not lack of technology that propagates the runaway increase of crime…it’s failure to arrest, incarcerate & prosecute to the full extent of the law.
I read that Bethel Island installed a license plate reader on their bridge…. that’s the only way to drive on or off that island.
If any bad guys want to do their nefarious deeds on Bethel they’d better use a boat.
Personally, I like the idea of LPR’s.
It’s a valuable tool for the Police.
I’m all for helping the Police.
All that’s needed next is a DA who follows the Rule of Law.
And a governor who doesn’t set convicts free with abandon.
If they did, it would absolutely infringe on the liberal democrat given rights to to be a wanton criminal, to breaks laws, and to be a threat to the safety and security of communities.
The plate readers are a good idea, but like others have opined when plates are removed, stolen, or covered it becomes useless. I’d like to see more aggressive enforcement and traffic stops around the Bay Area when regarding those vehicles I mentioned above, but the ACLU, Diana Becton, and Judge Treats
why not, that way they can track the cars, specially the stolen ones, that run stop lights, so the tickets can be sent to the owners of the cars….see where I am going with this? Concord has record car thefts, and reading the license plates of the cars that are stolen, and sending the tickets to the owners a month later, wont help the victims of these auto theft crimes.
Years ago, some a-hole stole the plate off my car. I received about 10 Benicia bridge toll violations in the mail, and it was a nightmare proving my innocence. Some of the people at FasTrak are idiots,…just like many of our lawmakers.
I can only imagine the potential problems, if on a larger scale, with cameras and plate-readers in every city.
You(we) elected these Demosocialists, now you have to pay the price. 108RS
The Evil One
No, we don’t need plate readers, and no, I don’t want to live in a perfect world.
Replace Nob Hill with a 99 Ranch Supermarket with a food court too.