3rdPillar said:MINE IS SO MAD MANY CANT READ IT EVEN THOUGH IT IS 100% CORRECTLY SPACED
Rear of the Year BMW Z4 by 3rdPillar, on Flickr
Sweet plate
Numberplate spacing
- Thread starter NeilP
- Start date
Sweet plate
My car failed its MOT last october as i have removed the space in the my plate.
I have had the same plate on my car for 10 years, taken it to the same garage for the last 5 years, and this year was the first time ever!
I had to dig out a temp plate i got 3 cars ago... and get them to stick it on top :roll:
I have had the same plate on my car for 10 years, taken it to the same garage for the last 5 years, and this year was the first time ever!
I had to dig out a temp plate i got 3 cars ago... and get them to stick it on top :roll:
mad4slalom
Senior member
as long as you dont go overboard most plod are'nt that interested, as long as you can easily read what is says without mixing groups from left to right etc then i see no problem, whats more dangerous a tweaked plate or a boy racer who takes the rear springs out completely from his hot hatch for the ultimate slamm !! dont laugh, i know someone who did it.
DR-Z said:I think cars with blacked lights should be crushed. These are actually dangerous. Dodgy number plates are not.sam1832 said:
If said unreadable plated car ran you over and drove off and the only witness was sombody who miss read the plate the driver is untracable. Perhaps not dangerous in its self but it makes the number plate pointless
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So the chance of getting run over x the vehicle has a dodgy plate x the driver doesn't stop x witness being there x the witness reads it wrong = more likely to be struck by lightning.sam1832 said:DR-Z said:I think cars with blacked lights should be crushed. These are actually dangerous. Dodgy number plates are not.sam1832 said:
If said unreadable plated car ran you over and drove off and the only witness was sombody who miss read the plate the driver is untracable. Perhaps not dangerous in its self but it makes the number plate pointless
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A
Anonymous
Guest
I never understand why altering the spaces is illegal.
A plate, say D3 BBY could be positioned as D3BBY. Presumably, if D3 BBY actually exists, then D3BBY doesn't (i.e. same plate with no space), so why don't the computers just truncate the characters in every plate to remove spaces?
I understand why using black screws etc is wrong, as that could be trying to change a letter/number etc.
A plate, say D3 BBY could be positioned as D3BBY. Presumably, if D3 BBY actually exists, then D3BBY doesn't (i.e. same plate with no space), so why don't the computers just truncate the characters in every plate to remove spaces?
I understand why using black screws etc is wrong, as that could be trying to change a letter/number etc.
kevinmarkwhite said:
I'm sure the reason is because of the amount you compress them together can make it impossible for ANPR and other systems to read them.
So for example a 1 and 3 are closed up to become a 'B'
From there you go onto fonts where 'C's are made to look like 'O's etc. 4's to A's, etc.
Yuo can't legislate to allow closing up some gaps or similar fonts, so you have to stick to a prescribed font and spacing.
Not just car owners. The M42 speed cameras were switched off for several months as the overhead speed signs displayed using the wrong font...lol We're goping to see some interesting cases over the next few months as the 11,000 who were find want their money back.
If you combine driving a Zed with displaying any non standard/cherished number plate you are guaranteed to be judged a complete T055 POT by every other road user by default. :roll: I can find no evidence that there has been any change to the legislation that the Police can and will use to cane you for incorrectly displaying your registration mark. Don't do it. It's not worth it. If you really want a plate that spells something then save up and buy a legal one. Better to put your money to one side and save for a legal plate than to spend your money on a pointless fine.
A
Anonymous
Guest
cj10jeeper said:
Yeah but leaving the font and size standard and just removing a space shouldn't cause problems?
New reg is 13 so with standard font and size etc that is ok.
With modern OCR technology I still don't get it. If its cos cameras have problems then I don't buy it with modern tech.
The plate on my old car was WJ12 HYW. Does it really matter if you show it as WJ12 HYW or WJ12HYW? (Just using that plate as an example of my point about spacing).
I've been using OCR applications on my Macs for over 16years and they can "read" just about any font. Likewise, spacing shouldn't matter either, because once the characters have been recognized it's basically an anagram which surely can easily be solved against all registration numbers which the DVLA has issued. The DVLA shouldn't sell registrations if they don't have the technology to read them.
exdos said:
I agree with your points, they are all valid. My thoughts was that the spacing allowed them to distinguish between O and 0. I can't think of any other reason, and this reason doesn't seem good enough, but there must be more to it than the DVLA just being funny?
By the seaside...
exdos said:
Yes, but you try doing real-time OCR in variable lighting from a distance on dirty number plates with chunks of letters often partially obscured with mud or covered in a layer of white crud from road salt and you'll find that the error rate on from your OCR software will increase to the point of it being unusable - the standardised font and spacing are there to give the ANPR cameras a fighting chance of using pattern-recognition algorithms to fill in the 'missing' bits of letter and numbers without forwarding an unacceptable number of plates to the 'human OCR' engines for further 'processing'
The DVLA do have the technology to read them, but you have to obey the rules on how to present them, this is the whole point of having standards - you can't ignore the rules and make up your own barcode formats and still expect the laser scanners to read them, can you...
PerryGunn said:
I understand the difficulties provided to any OCR system, but surely, with the amount of money the government/DVLA/Police invest in Speed/ANPR cams and the revenue that it raises to reinvest on all of this, you'd expect that they would be able to overcome all the difficulties you've recited. I'm no expert on any of this but I would've have thought that the technology to cope in low light conditions already exists, and that by using Infra-red rather than UV light and/or appropriate lens filters, it should be possible to "see" sufficient of the black letters on a dirty numberplate to fill in the gaps with the algorithms. In any event, don't the ANPR cameras read the front numberplates, which tend to stay considerably cleaner than the rear ones?
exdos said:
OCR works on a static image of a well presented font. Try OCR on a faxed or poorly photocopied document and it soon struggles (although better with recent updates and compute power)
ANPR has problems like any system with mangled letters caused by dirt, uneven thickness etc. think of those captcha systems used to prevent robots registering for forums etc. Those film covers/sprays seem to work too, I was watching a "police, camera, doughnut" type program and a traffic car pulled someone who's plate couldn't be read by their ANPR camera as it had been sprayed. I was surprised though, I thought the effectiveness of that stuff was an urban myth.
The SPECS average speed camera use infra red lighting as you suggested. As do some of the motorway ANPR systems.
If you want to see how bad the results of ANPR can be, look to see if your local filling station uses it and has the display showing by the checkout as a "deterrent" to thieves. It's almost humorous how crap it can be
Stuart Truman said:
I do understand the difficulties; I'm just surprised that they haven't been overcome for a project like the government's ANPR system. I would've though a spin-off from military developments would've solved this problem.
Many years ago, I devised a spreadsheet/database which calculates the comparative form of horses in a race from the information given in the Racing Post. It was my hope to be able to scan the form directly from the newspaper using OCR, and then to load the text automatically into the appropriate fields in the database. I could never get the very small text, printed on textured newspaper, to reliably scan, so I know the problem.