UK Gas Stations Installing Tire-Shredding "Stingers" To Stop Gasoline Thieves - Telegraph

A sharp rise in the theft of fuel at the pumps has led some garage owners to install "stinger" devices to puncture the tyres of drivers who leave the forecourt without paying. The increase in "drive-aways", as they are known in the industry, has been linked to the 20 per cent increase in the cost of petrol in the past year.

The new Drivestop device has a sensor which detects when a driver is pulling away without paying. The cashier triggers the system which starts with a loudspeaker announcement warning the would-be thief that his tyres will be shredded. If the warning is ignored a set of metal spikes spring up and punctures the rear wheels, deflating them in ten seconds.

The Drivestop, which costs £10,000, also leaves a tag with a unique identification number embedded in the rubber, which enables police to link the vehicle with the theft.

Mukesh Patel, who owns a petrol station near Finsbury Park, north London, installed the system last month after losing more than £5,000 in drive-away thefts.

EDIT

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2004288/Garages-use-%27stingers%27-to-combat-petrol-theft.html

People FEW of these driveaways are people desperate for Gas most are assholes and gangs that have been doing it for years.

several years. I'm having trouble envisioning how these drive offs are happening.

... so that the camera can get your number plate.

In theory, the attendant will not enable the pump if your plate
is obscured (which is also illegal FWIW) but, in practice, this
doesn't always happen.

Recently there have been a number of reports about people using
sticky tape to obscure the number plate for the duration of the
petrol stop: the tape is actually transparent but the glint and
distortion when you put it on in a slightly crumpled fashion
makes it much harder to read from a camera image (allegedly!).