The casual eye sees heavy traffic on a busy street. An Automated Licence Plate Reader sees fish in a barrel.
“Jeez, that’s a hit,” says Regina Police Service Cpl. Jason Wilkinson, having only just pulled over to the side of Dewdney Avenue.
It is new to this reporter, riding along as part of an initiative from SGI for its April Traffic Safety Spotlight on suspended drivers and unregistered vehicles. As of the end of January, there were around 61,000 people with suspended licences in Saskatchewan, according to the Crown insurance issuer. Regina Police Service Cpl. Jason Wilkinson stands beside a police vehicle equipped with Automated Licence Plate Reader in Regina on March 31, 2022.All the while, his computer makes sounds like a heart monitor, beeping with each plate it scans. It hardly misses a thing, connected to the three cameras mounted atop the vehicle. Each plate it reads is plotted with a kind of coloured bread crumb shown on a map displayed on the screen, and when it gets a “hit,” it emits a sound like a space laser.
Wilkinson has barely sat down when his computer pops off again. This is his life. The pace is normal, he says.