With bar codes on license plates or yearly renewal stickers, police have [yet another] scanner for instant identification of vehicle/driver/outstanding warrrants etc. Scanner could be handheld. Bar Code Scanners attached to the police car, and always on alert, would beep and display the car description if a "be-on-the-lookout-for" vehicle is in traffic with them. Police could input discrepancies, e.g. plates don't match up with vehicle, and instantly update record. The bar code id system might help in the speedy retrieval of stolen cars and children, as well as lessen the danger to the when an ordinary traffic stop turns ugly. The pinged vehicle sighting is recorded and with gps, location is noted also. The technology is available.-- mread4, Oct 15 2003 pretty close to this idea http://www.halfbake..._20proximity_20scan [krelnik, Oct 04 2004] methinks this has probably been done to death in a different category : (car: license plate)-- neilp, Oct 15 2003 OCR already happens in the UK. A funny example was when the machine mistook a G for a P and the police stopped the car (original car had no insurance) and found that this driver was banned.-- Carcical, Oct 16 2003 I don't support any idea that makes it easier for the police to identify me.-- DaGreengo, Oct 17 2003 The so-called "ring of steel" that guards the City of London, has cameras that log and track every vechicle that enters. If one is wanted for any reason, the control room staff are alerted and they dispatch officers, whilst continuing to track. Lancashire police have Automated Number Recognition (ANR) systems fitted to their motorway cars and they will regularly park up and wait for an offender's vehicle to pass them and they will then stop it. The last swoop resulted in 70 arrests. The beauty of this system is that it works with existing plates that are still human-readable. If plates were bar-coded, it'd be tricky describing to the police that the car that ran you off the road was "thin black, white, thick black, white, thick black, etc..."-- oneoffdave, Oct 17 2003 Big Brother is watching... isn't the patriot act enough?-- austere_apathy, Oct 21 2003 Yes, and once the electronic chip (embedded in our foreheads at birth) have been scanned, a cross-match can be made...-- ramiyam, Oct 22 2003 random, halfbakery