UCR App Lets Drivers Zero In On License Plates Of DUI Suspects
RIVERSIDE (CBSLA.com) — Wanna get drunk drivers off the road? There's an app for that.
Programmers at University of California, Riverside, have designed a simple video recorder application for mobile phones that allows concerned citizens to record and report suspected drunk drivers on Southland freeways.
The DuiCam app allows users to capture activity from any dashboard-mounted mobile device and automatically records all traffic movements within camera range.
Users can then stop the recording, review the footage and pan or zoom to identify a vehicle's make, model and license plate number. They can also save the screenshot or video and share the file with law enforcement agencies via email or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service).
The app - which is free and available to download for the iPhone and Android - allows users to avoid filling the phone's media storage capacity by capping the time limit of clips to any variable set by the user up to 30 minutes long.
Created by computer science professor Frank Vahid and developed by programmers Timothy Cherney and Daniel de Haas, the DuiCam app has been downloaded an estimated 1,000 times since its debut last fall, according to university officials.
Cheney and de Haas are reportedly working to add automatic license plate recognition and other upgrades to the application.
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