Saw Cop Car with New Hardware

[ChallengerHK]

Today I was behind a cop car that had two boxes mounted to the trunk, one on each side, about 10 in wide by 7 inches deep by 3 inches high. these were pointing forward and to the side, and each one had a big cable, about an inch thick, running into the trunk. Any idea what this stuff is?

[erat340]

They cruise the parking lots and streets and scan license plates to there database, looking for stolen rides.

[ChallengerHK]

They cruise the parking lots and streets and scan license plates to there database, looking for stolen rides.

That's actually pretty cool. Can I assume that they also scan plates looking for people with outstanding tickets, unpaid taxes, etc. The one I saw pulled over a car that was strictly at the speed limit, and I didn't see any safety violations on it, so I'm guessing it had something to do with this hardware finding something.

[Jamiez]

I know some city's parking departments do that looking for vehicles to boot.  If you've ever seen the show Parking Wars they do that pretty much every episode.

The technology is actually pretty cheap and reliable these days, so I know some Repo-men use them as well, cruising malls, stadiums, or anywhere there are a lot of cars and one more driving around for a few minutes wouldn't look out of place.

They looked something like this?

[ChallengerHK]

Yep, that's them.