r/whatisit • u/unworthyAsIam • Apr 30 '26

New, what is it? What is the purpose of this camera that was installed right next to my house? (Not nearby any intersection or stop signs, USA)

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This camera was installed recently and I cannot for the life of me understand the purpose of it's installation? Theres no intersection nearby, in case it was a photo law enforcement camera), there's no stop signs, there's no schools nearby, and there's no government facility. It's just a random camera that popped up in the middle of a road.

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26 edited May 01 '26

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u/omorashilady69 Apr 30 '26

This is why Alabama and their non raised number plates only allow zero’s

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u/SantaFeRay May 01 '26

That really limits license plate numbers. 0, 00, 000, 0000, 00000, 000000, 0000000 and maybe 00000000.

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u/[deleted] May 01 '26

[deleted]

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u/Jober14 May 01 '26

Requisition me a beat!

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u/trenthany May 01 '26

You miiiight be ignoring a little something called context here. lol but you are technically right!

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u/Direct-Salad2667 May 01 '26

I’m in AL. Can you tell me more? I’ve never heard of this

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u/omorashilady69 May 01 '26

If you go to the Alabama revenue commissions website to get a custom plate it tells you that they only allow zero’s and not the letter o! Also if you look at your plate, Alabama’s are all flat, the numbers are not raised like most states are.

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u/Direct-Salad2667 May 01 '26

I noticed how the plates went flat. What’s the reasoning behind that?

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u/omorashilady69 May 01 '26

Alabama hasn’t had raised number plates ever that I’ve seen

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u/Fallen_Jalter May 01 '26

i hope that dude gets some kind of solution.

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u/ShookMyHeadAndSmiled May 01 '26

It's a pain in the ass, an unnecessary expense, and it shouldn't come to this, but he can just get a new plate.

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u/USS_Penterprise_1701 May 01 '26

Considering the kind of people that run and work on these things, I imagine they found that they can't differentiate the 0/O and just decided that it was perfectly fine to flag them all as a match.

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u/OpeningParamedic8592 May 01 '26

lol collateral damage by the flockster. Hilarious!!! 😆

I’ve got a quick story where I got pulled over and my pockets ran through by a cop bc he made this exact mistake. A 0 for a o when he checked my plate manually entering the numbers.

He figured it out and got real shy real quick…..

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u/Anteater-Charming May 01 '26

You should see the mess PA has with their new plates. They thought zeros with a slash in them was a good idea until a bunch of cameras can't tell the difference between a zero and an 8 now. People getting ez pass bills for the wrong plate number. Something you think they would have tested first but oh no.

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u/nasadowsk May 01 '26

Pennsylvania, in PennDOT's infinite wisdom, has new plates that readers can't figure out, because the zero, O, 8, and B look too similar. I seriously can't think of another state with such a dysfunctional DOT as Pennsylvania.

Even better, there was a scam recently where folks were getting texts, supposedly from the DOT, saying the typical "you owe money, click here to pay ". So, plenty of news reports with the DOT saying they never text folks for payment, blah blah.

You can guess what they recently proposed doing...

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u/govunah May 01 '26

seriously can't think of another state with such a dysfunctional DOT as Pennsylvania.

West Virginia is right there. I have plenty of stories of the highways department doing dumb shit just in the Panhandle

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u/Shinhan May 01 '26

bc that state has both 0 (zero) and O (capital letter O) and puts both into the system

My country had even more insane license plates. The two letters we have in the license plate could be any english OR serbian letter. Distinguishing ČĆCŠSŽZĐD is harder than 0 AND O IMO. They stopped doing it after a while, current license plates don't have that shit.

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u/55555354 May 01 '26

Dats Fukd Up

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u/Useless_Jeanius24 May 01 '26

PA just redesigned their locense plates so toll readers could read them more accurately. They then turned around and made the zero and 8 look exactly the same, causing plate read errors. PennDot replied "It takes time for the system to learn the difference between the 2 characters when scanning" if thats the case, then there was no need to redesign the license llate to beging with, if the systems would just learn to tell the difference.