Electric Picnic motorists be warned as Laois Gardai catch uninsured driver

Drivers heading to and from the Electric Picnic would do well to make sure their vehicles are taxed, insured and NCTed because Laois gardai have technology to use number plates if you are legally entitled to drive.

The Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) 'doesn’t do guesswork' said Laois gardai after using the technology to stop a car on the M7.

They say a blue Skoda Octavia was stopped on the M7 by the Laois Roads Policing Unit after the ANPR technology flagged it as uninsured.

A disc on the windscreen was not for the vehicle.

"Maybe once upon a time that trick could slip by, but not anymore. Our ANPR system checks everything in real time," they said.

Gardaí say all vehicles fitted with ANPR camera systems can to identify vehicles as being stolen, untaxed, suspect, cited as connected with terrorist suspects, crime groups, drug trafficking, people trafficking and/or persistent offending.

Laois Gardai said the vehicle was seized on the spot and the will face the "consequences".

Garda HQ says ANPR uses optical character recognition technology to automatically read vehicle registration plates and is used in patrol cars by many police forces worldwide. They say the technology can read number plates at a rate of six per second on vehicles travelling up to 180km/h.

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The speed of a vehicle travelling in front of a patrol car can also be checked.

The video camera records on-the-scene evidence of speeding, and offences such as dangerous driving, crossing continuous white lines and breaking red lights.

Gardaí add that one of the main benefits of the system is that the plate recognition can run in the background while Gardaí are measuring speed or attending to other issues as demands dictate.