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[–] 57 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Being so close to the Central Park police station, those are obviously cops who don't apply the same rules to themselves as they apply to others.

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  • [–] 27 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

    While walking near a NY police station, I once saw a Charger (maybe?) parked partially blocking an intersection (or a driveway? This was years ago), next to a hydrant. Someone was using a white paint pen to write "COP CAR" on the side. Another cop in uniform came walking up, looked at what was happening, and then told the graffiti artist, "c'mon man... Finish it quickly and get out of here before I see anything."

    I was about to take a picture of the scene when the cop put his hand up and gave me the only good advice I've heard from a cop: Don't ever take a picture of something that isn't happening.

    As soon as the guy finished and capped his paint pen, the two stood near each other for a moment, and the cop said, "he shouldn't have parked there. Shame he didn't listen to any of us. Well, I guess I gotta report it; I just wish I'd gotten here in time to catch whoever did this."

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  • [–] 11 points 20 hours ago (3 children)
  • [–] -2 points 15 hours ago* (1 child)

    A good cop would see the rules enforced evenly, instead of letting his buddy’s antics slide and then refusing to bust a vigilante. If he was a good cop, there wouldn’t be any need for the vigilante justice in the first place.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 day ago (8 children)

    This “nano” sticker/paint that blocks ALPR cameras… my friend really wants to know where to get this, for research and science.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago (1 child)

    This video by Benn Jordan explains how to do it

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  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago

    Benn is suggesting adding noise to the plate to disrupt the text recognition algorithms. The above video suggests something different entirely… basically a film that makes your plate invisible to plate readers. Your plate looks blank. Once human eye it looks normal though.

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  • [–] 1 point 20 hours ago (5 children)

    Main result I'm getting is alitelabs. They don't explain what "nano" means, so I assume it just means a very fine grain reflector pattern to make sure it blends correctly.

    I'm more interested in the random dot pattern that somehow fools text recognition software. Just little artifacts around the plate. I don't trust not being hassled by cops with reflective letter decals because they'll be visible, I'm sure. It's not so obvious, but your headlights align with your eyesight and reflect off license plates because cars have license plate lights. It's really obvious when you have that knowledge, pull up behind a white/pale reflective plate, and have a mismatch of light color between your headlights and their plate lights - namely one with classic warm white incandescent, one with typical modern cool white LEDs.

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  • [–] 2 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

    Yeah assume if something actually worked, everyone on the damn internet would be buying and using it.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago (1 child)

    Plate fuckery is pretty common with car enthusiasts. The other 95% of the driving population doesn't know or doesn't care, while all being too fearful to do something so blatantly illegal. I'd bet most drivers beleive they simply don't speed. Some still don't have a clue there are cameras or where they are.

    Sample your local city's BMWs. Tinted covers, reflective spray paint, reflective letter overlays, plates like 11II1II1 or 00OO0O0, flipping frames, rolling shutters, a perpendicular mirror in the middle, scraped letters, a leaf, real-looking fake plates, perpetual out of state temporary tags, fraudulent temporary tags, or even no plates at all. Or somehow worse, the US has a SovCit problem and they run "not for commerce" plates.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    I just want to thwart ALPRs like Flock out of spite. I’m not interested in speeding without consequence. It wouldn’t surprise me if they used the same mechanism to read plates, but I’m really only interested in the more “legal” use case.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 child)

    Alite has very similarly styled reviews and a total of 30 of them, each one with a dash or em-dash in it. Seems legit!

    I don't think I'll be ordering from them.

    Also a bit of googling told me that is 'likely not very effective against modern ALPRs like Flock and is more effective against older speed cameras. So for privacy it may not really do much unfortunately.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 hours ago

    I saw something on tv about somethimh similar, but people used a clear coat or something, which is illegal to fuck with your plate. They showed pictures and it would show a blank, like in this video. People used it to avoid speeding tickets. They then asked the police about it, and they were aware of it, and showed the picture on tge speeding camera, which also showed a blank. But they literally turned a knob to make it visible again. This was like 15 years ago

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  • [–] 10 points 1 day ago

    As a non-US person this is also mildly interesting.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    Its sad when the general public does not really care about small simple issues like these.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    The general public who are aware do care. It's the institutions responsible for enforcement that don't care. A member of the general public can't issue a citation.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    With how heavily the US relies on car, why is there not a street officer or something, separate from police (who barely do their job)?

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  • [–] 16 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    It's called Parking Enforcement and New York City has more than any other jurisdiction.

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  • [–] 1 point 21 hours ago (2 children)

    But they still barely do their job?

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  • [–] 4 points 20 hours ago (1 child)

    They absolutely do their jobs very thoroughly - but only where it will have no repercussions for them. There probably isn’t even a shift assigned to this lot, thanks to some back room agreement with the cops.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago

    It's not as much a back room deal as it's an understanding. If the parking attendant gets into an altercation with a member of the public, thay will need to call for the cops. It would be couter productive to book a cops car only to have to get that same cop to come and help later. Like clamping a fire truck only for your house to burn down.

    The chef should be looking at getting rid of cops that can't follow the basic licence place and parking laws.

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  • [–] 5 points 21 hours ago

    There's virtually no traffic enforcement in NYC, other than street parking

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  • [–] 1 point 8 minutes ago

    If those cars are there illegally, how did they get in?

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  • 2 comments in c/fuckcars@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 4 points 15 hours ago

    Over 15 speeding tickets in a year is wild, though I’m approaching that from the viewpoint of someone who has kept a spotless record for decades. And 85 parking tickets? How the hell are these people still allowed to drive? And how are they allowed to continue updating their car registration?

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  • [–] 3 points 16 hours ago

    Tow them all.

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