the formula is number of possible symbols (letters, numbers) S to the power of the number of characters on the plate N, or S^N, so if you add one more character out of 31 possible symbols, then you multiply by (another) 31 available combinations.

6 characters (A-Z 0-9) gives you 2,176,782,336 combinations.

Even if you take out some confusing combos like O0, 1I, 5S, 8B … 6 characters of 31 different kinds gives you 887,503,681

Customized images, yes. Overlapping alphanumeric codes (two vehicles with the same sequence?) NO. Maybe it was necessary in the 1960s, but it is long since past time for issuance of alpha-numeric unique identifiers to become… unique throughout the states.

I think speed limits help people not die

I do too, except the way they have evolved is terrible.

They’re (almost all) the same day, night, rain, shine, sleet, snow or ice.

They’re primarily enforced on nice sunny days when it’s not uncomfortable for the officers to be standing outside their cars.

They’re almost never enforced on the busiest roads during rush hours.

Within the US road funding system, the busiest roads get their speed limits raised in order to increase their “Level of Service” to prevent them from losing federal funding. US1 south out of downtowm Miami is a damn nighmare at 45mph with all the traffic it carries, but other similarly configured roads which are straighter with better sightlines fewer side streets and less traffic get 35mph speed limits because they won’t lose their funding for low LOS issues. (my info may be out of date about US1, I left Miami 25 years ago, but while I was working at DOT classifying roads in the 1990s I had to commute that death trap.)

And then you can start talking about the small towns that use speed enforcement as a source of revenue.

Which makes sense, since that’s where it’s easy to speed.

Depends on how you look at “makes sense.” It’s easy to speed, it’s relatively safer to speed (except in blinding snow conditions when the cameras probably don’t work too well…) So, if “makes sense” is about maximizing revenue, then sure: more people will be breaking the law where the law itself makes less sense…

Yes, if you want to post a clearly visible easily readable sign: “SPEED LIMIT 80kph, VIOLATORS WILL RECEIVE FINES UP TO $5000 BY MAIL” then that’s fair game. If it’s a camera on a post with no notice and just the normal SPEED LIMIT signs that mean nothing of the sort the world over… that’s like a troll hiding under a bridge shaking down unsuspecting travelers as they pass.

Pop up fines - impediment to free travel - arbitrary tax collection. I mean, if you want to go back to Roman times where any government officials you happen to meet can just grab you by the shoulder and “collect taxes for the emperor” because you happen to be within reach - you can call that “not evil” if you like. I call it regression of civilization.

If it’s clearly posted, that’s fine - and appropriate in certain mountain pass situations.

If it’s a surprise when the fine arrives in the mail, that’s pure unadulterated evil.

Norway does a lot of sensible things that seem impossible in the USA.

the selective enforcement is, by design, a way to manufacture an excuse to harass and persecute minorities/undesirables.

Absolutely, and this is another thing that’s going to prevent “fair” algorithmic enforcement from happening.

The correct solution is to relax or abolish the laws themselves until they diminish to the point that fully enforcing them is reasonable.

I have always thought this, but I don’t get my jollies out of selectively “sticking it to” people different than me for the same things I get away with all the time. Apparently, a lot of our government, police, and voters do…

Personal preference, Chrome has been a more consistent reliable performer for me over the years.

Yes, Google is evil, but really - everything you interact with on the web is evil, Firefox isn’t protecting you - at least Google occasionally makes it more obvious the scope and depth of your personal information that is being harvested by “the system.”

The problem with these, and all, automated systems that detect EVERYTHING is that current code enforcement hardly detects 0.1% of existing violations, by design. That’s how they roll. They only kick into action when somebody complains.

Think of speeding tickets - how easy would it be for our roadside ALPR systems to time your transit from point A to point B, calculate your minimum average speed to make the trip in that time, and mail you a citation when you’re over the posted speed limit? Not hard at all, but that’s not how speeding tickets roll in this country (and most others, too.) If they really wanted total enforcement, your car already knows when you’re speeding, it can already wirelessly tattle on you to roadside monitors, they could effect 100% citation coverage if they wanted to, but whoever tries that is comitting political suicide.

One of the reasons HOAs are such groaners is that the types of people who run for HOA president occasionally (not always) go in for this “100% enforcement” mentality and due to the utter apathy of HOA residents who can’t be bothered to depose their despot, they can persist in that mode for years. Last HOA I lived in had fearless leaders who “lived in the back” and hired an outside company to write upkeep violations, but only on houses in the front of the neighborhood.

When I lived in a big city with a code enforcement department instead of an HOA system, things went along for decades without much flap, the occasional citation on the really persistently bad violators - as things are expected to work, but then some new neighbors moved in and attended the city-neighborhood meeting and started chanting “just enforce the law, JUST ENFORCE THE LAW” and, so, code inspectors were sent to walk the neighborhood by foot and write every violation they could see from the street. Our 400 houses got more violations written up in one day than the entire city of 40,000 homes received in the prior year.

So, these systems that “observe 13,000 violations in a single week” need to chill out, turn the filters way way up and figure out what the 13 most important violations in the city are each MONTH and work with those property owners to get them fixed. Use the photo-scans to pre-screen citizen complaints, ensure that there’s even a problem worth sending an inspector for when the neighbor says “there’s been a junky car here up on blocks for the past 2 years and somebody needs to do something about it” the records can show whether that’s true, or a gross exaggeration before prioritizing which citizen calls get seen this week and which need to chill out and “wait their turn.”

I work with a lot of fresh-out-of-box windows PCs. When I don’t immediately wipe them completely for a Debian install, the first thing I do in Windows is fire up Edge, download and install chrome and set it as default browser, then delete all Edge shortcuts.

Several iterations of Windows stubbornly re-install the Edge shortcuts, luckily Google can quickly help you make the deletions stick longer. Of course, if they don’t want to respect our choices of how we want our desktop configured, we also have a choice of desktops and OSs.

First they bomb the fuel refineries and distribution system creating extreme real shortages.

Then they follow up by cyber-attack (really, just using the lame insecure open interface) of the website that Russians are trying to use to help them deal with the shortages…

Sounds like a solid followup blow to me.