Accused toll-evader rigged license plate?
In high school, I knew a guy who wired a dashboard switch to his car's license plate light so that he could turn it off during nighttime "getaways" when he was out causing trouble. That's not as tricky as Orlando Payano, who the Transit Authority of New York and New Jersey accuse of rigging his tractor-trailer's license plate so that it flipped up when he sped through camera-equipped toll plazas without paying. Payano, charged with toll evasion and "license plate destruction," denies the allegations. From the Associated Press:
The Port Authority said driver Orlando Payano ran a cable from the license plate to the dashboard cigarette lighter inside the cab of the vehicle.Disappearing license plate (Yahoo! News)
Pulling on the lighter flipped the plate under the truck.
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I'm amazed this is the first time i've seen an example of this in real life.
i've wanted to make such a gadget ever since i was a kid.
CPT. TIM @1, totally. Should be on Instructables.com!
David P. you need to add a question mark to the title of this post. The guy says he didn't do it.
Hope the fine is relatively significant.
Sometimes "sticking it to the man" is simply just not paying your fair share.
KENMCE @3, Yes. Fixed. I meant to do that when I made the post. Thanks!
How very 007
...He was living up to his last name: "Pay-A-No"
:-)
I seem to remember something like this in an episode of the old "Knight Rider" show. KITT was able to switch his license plate from "KNIGHT" to something random to avoid the cops.
So...when I retrieve my newly baked muffins from the oven, I'm actually "destroying my stove"?
I remember when I was a kid, one of the older kids in my town rigged his license plate in the same way.
He also somehow got hold of a... smoke cannister? Or whatever one calls what an ultralight pilot would use to leave a trail of smoke in the sky. He had that under his seat with a hose out to the back, and with a twist of the valve, he claims he could fill the four lane stretch of I-95 that passed near our homes, though I never saw him use it. But I did see the little tetrapods he made from nails and epoxy that he was prepared to toss back by the handful, in the event of a chase. They'd always land with one point up.
He tried to demonstrate to me his method for using the sideview mirror to aim while shooting a slingshot backwards, but that just seemed crazy...
I feel like his is the sort of ingenuity/dementia that these days is diffused into the World of Warcraft. I don't know what he's up to now.
Numberplates in the UK have retro-reflective coatings and use infra-red illumination light to make it easy for computers to identify the text on the plate against a busy background.
I'd like a license plate that had one value written in yellow/black, and a second value written in retro-reflective/specular, so that the IR cameras would silently misread the car plates without any tell-tale hinge action giving away what was happening.
#4: Quite right. He's not 'sticking it to the man', he's just being a cheapskate and a cheat. (Alledgedly). You use the road, pay your damn tolls.
Wouldn't it be more interesting to have a fake license plate in the form of an LCD screen that changes randomly on demand?
"But I did see the little tetrapods he made from nails and epoxy that he was prepared to toss back by the handful, in the event of a chase. They'd always land with one point up."
I think these are called caltrops (sp?) i also wanted to rig a little bay under the car to release these as well.
caltrops,caltraps, calthrops too I think - all tetsubishi to me. Easiest to clip plate steel, cut vees in either end and bend up and down alternate points.
They used to do this a lot in Japan, 15 or so years ago. The BoSoZoku and various offshoot driving cultures had number plates on a hinge that seemed to fold up and out of sight... They did a lot of mods to their vehicles that weren't legal, but I always thought this was the coolest/most outrageous.
As seen on MythBusters?
They did -two- episodes on different technologies designed to fool traffic cameras so they couldn't read plates. None of them worked. At the end they did a joke one where the plate flipped around and had a fake plate behind it.
@13-- e-Ink.
There are pics on Gizmodo.
I thought of doing this too for years, not to stick it to the man, but to protect my own behind. I have a 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass S that already has a flip down license plate bracket installed from the factory (for those who don't know, the gas filler is behind it).
I have a transponder that's supposed to take money automatically. One month there was some sort of mix up, and I received a couple of thousand dollars in fines at the end of the month. I had to call in a favor from a senator I kinda know to get the mix up cleared away.
Now, since the cash lane is usually less backed up, i use that instead.
#8: Yep, I remember that episode of Knight Rider too. That's what this made me think of.
Italy is notorious for drivers who selectively wash their cars, meaning they intentionally leave the rear license plate unwashed as to make it harder to read by authorities and cameras.
I don't think it really works as we now have the same license plates as the UK and the rest of the EU, so cameras at least would still be able to read the plates. I'm sure there's probably a law against it, but then again, this is Italy.
It's amazing to be on the autostrada and see a meticulously washed Mercedes or BMV with a disgustingly filthy grey band of smog encrusted on the plate. I just think "God, what a stupid asshole." I wouldn't want to get pulled over in a car like that- it's so obvious that you're trying (albeit ineffectively)to stick it to the system.
And then you remember that motorcyclists simply cover the plate with their hand....
How about duplicating the plate with an LCD screen so you can change *everything* (until the BSOD gives you away)?
I'm pretty sure they did this in one of the Cannon Ball Run films. The license plate flipped and there was a decoy license plate that took its place. There was also an episode of one of those true crime shows on A+E or Discovery channel about burglers with a James Bond gadget car. They must have had a hideaway license plate. I definitly remember bright rear lights, smoke screen, caltrops, secret compartments, etc.
I ride a scooter that doesn't actually HAVE a plate that traffic cameras can capture.
As soon as I can actually get my scoot to break some sort of speed limit, I am SO GONNA avoid a fine!
#10, As a foolish youth, I made a smokescreen device using just an automotive windshield washer from the scrapyard and transmission oil.
I installed the windshield washer reservoir next to the existing one, and wired it into the same switch. (A hidden A/B switch selected between the two.) I then pointed the output tube of the second windshield washer down the throat of the carburetor, and filled the reservoir with oil. (Transmission oil worked best.)
A flick of the windshield washer switch sent tranny oil down the carb and into the cylinders, where it would vapourize during combustion and come out the tailpipe as a massive white cloud.
I had to be careful not to stall the engine doing this on city streets, but it worked really well at highway speeds.
Regarding beating licence plate cameras:
I had toyed with the idea of making a licence plate holder ringed with infrared LEDs, because IR shows up on video as a large grey blur. But then I realized that most toll camera systems use different cameras and some actually use IR for illumination.
My current idea, as yet unimplemented, involves attaching the plate to a 12-volt sander for a little high-speed blurring. Anybody know what fast those cameras are?
Chunkymonkeybrain,
Not necessarily; remember that guy in Germany who got a speeding ticket on his skateboard?
I once knew a guy who did this on his moped.