You Could Either Pay Tolls, Or Attempt to Evade Them with This License Plate Spy Gadget

A driver’s dashcam captured a brilliant blue Lexus GS sliding beneath a toll gantry in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, with a rather strange effect. For a single second, the sedan’s license plates seemed completely blank, with no numbers or letters visible.

The footage shows one of several close calls for a 22-year-old man from New South Wales. He’d been driving his Lexus across toll roads for months, essentially avoiding the taxes that can quickly build up on NSW highways. Each time he neared a gantry, the plates would flicker out, persuading the overhead cameras that no vehicle was present at all.

NSW highways use electronic tolling systems that automatically tax drivers based on a photo of their license plates. If you skip the tag or the charge, those photographs can be a dead giveaway to the enforcement teams. Our driver understood this all too well. He’d outfitted his automobile with a brilliant bit of technology: a pair of motorized curtains, one for the front plate and one for the back. With the turn of a switch, thin metal rods extend out over each plate, drawing the black fabric straight over the numbers. The entire setup was powered by the car’s electrical system, with a small control module stashed away in the center console. When you pressed a button, the plates vanished into thin air; when you released the button, they reappeared as if nothing had happened.

This device is very similar to the quick-change technology seen in spy movies, where the agents go into the night without leaving a trace. But here it was, fastened onto a conventional street car, essentially utilizing ordinary automotive parts found in any parts shop or online. The curtains moved quickly enough to beat the camera’s shutter, leaving toll workers with no idea where a plate should be. For months, the Lexus accumulated thousands of dollars in unpaid tolls while blending in with traffic on routes such as the M2 and M5.

The dashcam video eventually reached the appropriate people, and NSW Police officers out on the streets of Sydney took note. They began keeping an eye out for the bright blue Lexus with the eye-catching wrap job, even on a rather calm roadway. They saw the Lexus motoring up to a set of lights one afternoon in Stanmore, a suburb immediately across from the city center. The registration plates appeared normal enough, but a closer inspection revealed the faint outlines of the questionable material hiding beneath. The police officers were not going to let it go. They quickly pulled the automobile over.

As the 22-year-old exited, the police rushed to the center console. They opened it and discovered the control module, a little box filled with wires that led to the plates. A quick look under the hood and bumper proved that it was a complete system, with servos and rods ready to pop out the curtain on order. The police took a few photos, documented all of the connecting points, and removed the entire assembly from the 22-year-old right there on the side of the road. There was no high-speed chase or dramatic standoff, just a regular traffic stop that appeared to wrap up the entire operation.

When questioned, the driver told a story that did not ring true. He explained that he installed the system because he had misplaced a screw and had no other way to get the plates to stick properly. The bright blue vinyl wrap on the automobile had left a few “imperfections” around the plate regions, and the curtain was his solution to correct them. The police officers listened and then simply shook their heads. They could detect a fob from a mile away, especially since the viral video had pretty much blown everything open.
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