safeplate spay

[sjp63]

They were selling this numberplate spray at Goodwood yesterday, showing footage on a laptop of a numberplate being flashed by a spped camera and the image being unreadable. Does this work? They claimed that its legal and it had been independantly proved to work....anyone?

[splodge s4]

I bought a can recently at the Bristol car show, paid £15 for it, when i tested it with the digi camera you could read the plate as clear as ever, but a Gatso flash is so much brighter so causing much more glare, the truth mate i dont know if it works or not but for £15 i thought what the hell!

[smeggy]

sjp63 said:

Does this work?

Gatso/truvelo – likely
SPECS (or other ANPR) - maybe (IR illuminator also flashes) but doubt it
Mobile (Laser, radar) – definitely not

sjp63 said:

They claimed that its legal

I thought there was something in the regs saying it’s an offence to treat a VRM in a way that obstructs a car’s registration number…………





Found it:

www.dvla.gov.uk/public/press_releases/2004/p_release_6304_1oct04.htm

"A registration plate must not be treated in any other way which renders the characters of the registration mark less easily distinguishable to [the eye or which would prevent or] impair the making of a true photographic image of the plate through the medium of camera and film or any other device"




>> Edited by smeggy on Monday 27th June 11:41

[mcflurry]

Doesn't work.

My sister works as a civvy for the police. As part of cross training the dept went over to the Scamera partnership. It took less than 10 seconds to read such a plate.

[g_attrill]

smeggy said:

I thought there was something in the regs saying it’s an offence to treat a VRM in a way that obstructs a car’s registration number…………

You are correct, I saw the stand too and just assumed they were just blantant lies. It's pointless to argue with such people, all they care about is selling the stuff, and from what I could see they were selling a LOT.

I had a discussion with another chap selling the stuff at a different show. He said he had a meeting with his company barristers who said it was legal - I said they perhaps they meant it was legal to *sell* and that was all he would really care about. Then again he said that at another show the people on the police stand bought more than anybody else.

What I don't understand is why nobody has actually been prosecuted for using this stuff. Perhaps it is so ineffective that they just adjust the image to make it visible and send the NIP, ignoring the fact that this stuff was being used?

Gareth


>> Edited by g_attrill on Monday 27th June 13:08

[cptsideways]

I've seen some tests a journalist did on it & it works but not in the IR range, I think they were trying to sort that out though