NMA State Alert for Oklahoma: State Plans to Generate $95 Million in Ticket Revenue by Collecting License Plate Numbers
The Oklahoma Dept. of Public Safety (DPS) is getting ready to choose a company to operate twenty or more vehicles equipped with automated license plate recognition systems (ALPR) to scan the license plates of passing vehicles and compare that information against several databases while looking for alleged scofflaws. For example, registered vehicle owners who are flagged as having expired auto insurance will receive $250 citations.
The detailed story about the DPS's plans is provided here. To learn more about the roving ALPR method of capturing data about you on the road, a link is provided to a past NMA e-newsletter about the topic. If you open that last link, be sure to check out the embedded video for a demonstration of ALPR and how it snatches license plate numbers on the move.
ALPR-based tickets will be mailed to the registered owner of the vehicle whose license plate was flagged, much like with red-light and speed cameras. The same flaw exists: there is no proof that the citation is received in the mail, yet the penalties become more severe if there is no response in a timely manner. Another common problem with ALPR is that drivers are misidentified in the process, whether because of a wrong plate number being scanned in, or a database entry that is wrong, or because a vehicle's title was never transferred properly during a previous sale.
Although the DPS is far along in the process of selecting an ALPR vendor, it is never too late to express your concerns (and encourage family, friends and colleagues to do the same) about the use (and misuse) of ALPR to your state legislators. You can find contact information for Oklahoma state representatives here and for state senators here.
