Houston sheriff’s deputies use tag readers to help manage roads

WARNER ROBINS, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Middle Georgia law enforcement agencies are relying on a technological boost to help solve cases.

Houston County deputies are checking on a license plate on a busy road in Warner Robins. 

“There’s no system that’s completely automated,” Corporal Justin Hall, with the traffic division at the sheriff’s office, said. 

Two squad cars in the county are equipped with license plate tag readers on both the fronts and the backs of the vehicles. The readers cast a wide net for deputies to be able to see the roads. 

“You have an extra set of eyes looking behind him, and an extra set of eyes looking to his side,” Hall said. 

Those extra set of eyes helped track down an elderly man who suffers from dementia whose family says shouldn’t have been driving. Authorities put his tags into the system and caught up with him within hours. 

Here’s how it works: The readers scan a license plate, notifying patrolling officers on whose driving credentials are and aren’t so good. 

From there, the deputies call the plate in to verify the information and choose to pursue or let the car go. 

“In this case if the electronics are doing something very quickly that it might take more time for a person to do, they’re still able to do that. They’re not going to be prohibited from doing that,” Attorney James Davis said. 

He says the move is neither illegal nor an invasion of privacy. He calls the equipment a tool to cover more ground.

“Unless you can prove it’s for a prohibited reason based on race or some other protected area, they’re probably going to be allowed to do it,” Davis said. 

Deputies say the readers alert them to plates that are on a “hot list.”

“There’s something wrong with them, they’re either expired, there’s no insurance on them, they’re stolen, there’s something wrong with that plate to begin with,” Hall said. 

It’s a helpful piece of technology keeping the streets safer. 

Houston County sheriff’s deputies say the tag readers are still in the early stages and only have two cars using the system. The equipment can cost more than $10,000 per vehicle.