Uuummmm....What is this?

trailjeepman

trailjeepman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2005
Location
Raleigh, NC
Passed this chic on I-85 near greensboro today. She had these cameras mounted and pointing out both sides of her rear windows with the windows down! Two of them on each side. One pointin level and one pointed forward and angled down. They look like what I've seen on police car trunks. License plate scanners/cameras.

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I have No knowledge of such cameras, but many cities use rolling camera cars, for property evaluation. And where do the pic come from that Goggle & others use, in "Street View"?
 
Glad I saw this post this same lady came into my apartments on a Friday night around 11:00-11:30 about 2-3 months ago! We couldn't figure it, what's funny is she was parked in a vacant house at the top of the road and I watched her pull out with parking lights on when a certain person came by and pulled into our apartments, he went in and she came by, then she pulled out right after him and followed him further down the road until he pulled into the known drug house. At that point she turned around and havnt seen her since!
 
I LOL'd at the Johnny 5 responses. That's the latest generation Mobile Plate Hunter-900 camera. I designed it. And yes, that is most likely being used by a repo company or possibly an unmarked/undercover police car.

http://elsag.com/

Edit: OP, I see that you are in Burlington. Burlington PD actually just bought a couple of these camera systems.
 
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FrontPorchFab said:
I LOL'd at the Johnny 5 responses. That's the latest generation Mobile Plate Hunter-900 camera. I designed it. And yes, that is most likely being used by a repo company or possibly an unmarked/undercover police car.

Edit: OP, I see that you are in Burlington. Burlington PD actually just bought a couple of these camera systems.
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Yes I have seen them somewhere but can't remember if it was here in town or somewhere else. Thanks for the info. It was just strange seeing a honda with them in it. I'm sure it was repo. There's no way that girl was a cop. Lol
 
rodney eppes said:
I have No knowledge of such cameras, but many cities use rolling camera cars, for property evaluation. And where do the pic come from that Goggle & others use, in "Street View"?
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Google has a fleet of cars that drive the streets and take the photos. They're pretty easy to spot, as they'll have a mast about 5ft tall attached to the roof rack. They'll also be wearing Google livery.
 
trailjeepman said:
Yes I have seen them somewhere but can't remember if it was here in town or somewhere else. Thanks for the info. It was just strange seeing a honda with them in it. I'm sure it was repo. There's no way that girl was a cop. Lol
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FWIW, I've never seen a cop car mount the cameras that way either. I designed a 'covert' system for undercover work, but the cameras are completely hidden. You would be suprised at the makes and models of cars I have put these in. As far as I know the Burlington PD just has the trunk mounted version on two of their crown vics.
 
JMOliver said:
Glad I saw this post this same lady came into my apartments on a Friday night around 11:00-11:30 about 2-3 months ago! We couldn't figure it, what's funny is she was parked in a vacant house at the top of the road and I watched her pull out with parking lights on when a certain person came by and pulled into our apartments, he went in and she came by, then she pulled out right after him and followed him further down the road until he pulled into the known drug house. At that point she turned around and havnt seen her since!
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Could be repo or cops building a case against someone. Alot of times these cameras are used to track the whereabouts of certain individuals, especially if the police are trying to take down an organized crime ring of some sort.
 
FrontPorchFab said:
Could be repo or cops building a case against someone. Alot of times these cameras are used to track the whereabouts of certain individuals, especially if the police are trying to take down an organized crime ring of some sort.
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So....does the system just read plates or is it doing facial recognition as well? Seems that two of those cameras were pointing face level.
 
trailjeepman said:
So....does the system just read plates or is it doing facial recognition as well? Seems that two of those cameras were pointing face level.
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It just reads plates very quickly and with a high degree of accuracy, no facial recognition. The side facing camera is to read plates from perpendicularly parked cars and the forward facing camera is to read rear-mounted plates on the road and plates of parallel parked cars. Both can be achieved with a single camera that is properly installed, so it looks like someone was 'upsold'. The cameras have a pretty wide field of view, but the one pointing to the side was probably aimed higher to target SUV and truck plates.
 
Yeah.... you'd know if it was the google maps car. Ive seen a couple of these around the S. Charlotte area lately.

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RobMcBee said:
Yeah.... you'd know if it was the google maps car. Ive seen a couple of these around the S. Charlotte area lately.

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I saw a car with one of those on it's roof the other day in Lexington, but it wasn't painted up like that one. Just looked like someone attached the big dildo on their personal car (or a rental). Who knows - it's Davidson County... perhaps they thought it was a big deer cam.
 
ManglerYJ said:
I saw a car with one of those on it's roof the other day in Lexington, but it wasn't painted up like that one. Just looked like someone attached the big dildo on their personal car (or a rental). Who knows - it's Davidson County... perhaps they thought it was a big deer cam.
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I've seen a couple on unmarked cars as well.
 
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