Technology targets car theft

It would be easy to find stolen vehicles if there was a way to stop every car on the interstate and run the plate against a statewide database of those reported stolen. In recent years, technology has allowed for that type of comprehensive searching, and it doesn’t take a checkpoint. It can be accomplished while an officer is cruising down the interstate at a high rate of speed. It’s called a license plate reader, and it digitally scans the plate of every oncoming vehicle that passes. The characters are instantaneously uploaded into a computer system that scans thousands of records to determine if the vehicle is wanted or stolen — and then it lets the officer know which cars to chase down. There are also fixed LPR’s throughout the state in both rural and populated areas, said Sgt. Troy Rivers, who works on the California Highway Patrol’s Vehicle Theft Administration team based in Sacramento. On any given interstate in Southern California, the device could look at roughly 50,000 vehicles per day. While the devices run upwards of $6,000 each and are not outfitted on all of the CHP’s 2,000 patrol vehicles, the ones they do have can account for more than $5 million in recovered stolen vehicles and over 300 arrests in the past several years, Rivers said. “We concern ourselves with the family of four or five or ten, who may only have that one vehicle. If they don’t have it fully insured, that’s a tremendous loss,” Rivers said. “It’s a fairly significant financial impact on the state. It keeps insurance premiums down as well, because by recovering vehicles, that is less money paid out in claims, which if they’re taking a hit, they would otherwise pass on to consumers.” When a vehicle is stolen and the plate is known, it is entered into the Department of Justice’s computer system and remains there until the vehicle is found. In the case of a crime where the license plate is known, that information is also entered, and the LPR in that way can contribute to the arrest of felons because the plate match allows for probable cause to stop the vehicle, officials said. There are 118 CHP stations throughout the state, divided into eight regions. While there is not an LPR at every station, there are several for each region, and they are rotated throughout the division to each station during the calendar year, Rivers said. “It is one of the most successful tools we have in law enforcement to recover stolen vehicles because we can look at thousands more license plates than we normally would. It has enhanced our ability to not only apprehend vehicle thieves but to recover vehicles as well,” Rivers said.