Police in Texas have the right to stop motorists if a license plate recognition camera system suspects the vehicle's owner lacks automobile insurance. In an unpublished ruling last Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Texas Court of Appeals refused the attempt by Kenneth Ray Short to have a March 2010 traffic stop declared illegal.
Officer Daniel McGrew's patrol car had been equipped with an automated license plate recognition system (ALPR, also known as ANPR in the UK) that photographed and recorded the identity of every passing vehicle. When Short drove past, an instantaneous computerized database search returned a result that Short's insurance coverage was "unconfirmed for 45 days or more and expired." Sometimes, when the system returns just that the plate is "unconfirmed" it means the Department of Insurance database is unable to say whether or not the vehicle is insured, and it is the police department's policy not to stop such vehicles. In this case, the system claimed Short's car had not been insured since December 6, 2009, so McGrew conducted a traffic stop.
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