1. A method for identifying characters on license plates of a vehicle on a roadway said method comprising: a) acquiring from an electronic camera, a plurality of electronic images of the vehicle said images including the license plate area, b) recognizing image features in the electronic images of the vehicle that do not include recognition of the characters of the vehicle's license plate, c) grouping the electronic images that are determined to be of the same vehicle, the determination based upon the image features in the electronic images of the vehicle that do not include recognition of the characters on the vehicle's license plate, d) analyzing a single image from the grouped image to recognize the characters of the license plate, e) assigning the recognized characters from the single image to all images of the grouped images, f) calculating a confidence level for the recognition of the characters and if the confidence interval exceeds a preselected value using the recognized characters to identify the vehicle and an owner and if the confidence level is less than a preselected value initiating a manual review of the image for character recognition, and, g) assigning the confidence level for one image within the group of images to all other images within the group, h) wherein the steps a)-g) are performed automatically by the computer processor.