1. An in-car multiple-resolution camera system for first responder vehicles, comprising: a high-resolution camera imager for capturing images in high resolution and outputting the same in a first high-resolution image output stream having pixel information therein; a signal processing module for processing the first high-resolution image output stream and producing (1) a reduced-area high-resolution image output stream containing image information for only a selected portion or portions of the original image and (2) a wide-area low-resolution image output stream; an event recorder for recording the events imaged by the camera imager using the wide-image low-resolution image output stream; and a license plate recognition system for using the reduced-area high-resolution image output stream to capture and process images of vehicle license plates nearby.