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Drivers who flout parking regulations annoy Peter Kielland of Ontario. He
suggests a system that helps parking attendants to check how long cars have been
left in timed parking zones (WO 98/41953). In North America, this is done by
marking wheels with chalk every hour to show which cars have not moved—but
streetwise motorists just remove the chalk. Kielland mounts a video camera in
the attendant’s van that snaps each vehicle’s registration plate along with a
time stamp, while character recognition software logs the licence number. By
crosschecking the numbers against previous entries, an alert can be sounded if a
number shows up twice.