The lengths some people will go to just to avoid a ticket are astounding. Case in point, the goofball below. On Saturday January 10th, police in a small town 95 km north-east of Toronto, noticed something a little ‘off’ about a license plate on a passing motorist. Peterborough Police followed to get a better look, eventually pulling the driver over.
What they found was a colour photocopy of a license plate, laminated and duct taped to the back of the car. The plate number was a phony; randomly selected numbers and letters to avoid getting toll charges. Instead, the 45-year-old driver is facing charges of using a plate not authorized for the vehicle, using a plate not in accordance with the act, failing to apply for a permit upon becoming an owner, and operating a motor vehicle on a highway without insurance.
Were the paper plates just poor craftsmanship? That’s certainly what drew the officer’s attention initially.
But with Automated Licence Plate Recognition (ALPR), reading plates has become automated. The technology helped police flag a fake plate visually identical to an Ontario plate.
At car shows during the summer, there are plate guys on site who make custom license plates for ‘show car use’ only. Some drivers have recreations of vintage plates for their retro rides, while others like Demaras Racing’s own Synthwave SVX have unique plate designs that could never be confused for any provincial plate.
Seems that during an incident in September, police ALPR device automatically identified that the plate on the back of a vehicle did not belong to it. Upon closer inspection, a phony Ontario plate with the warning “not intended for road use” and “use on a roadway could result in legal consequences” was confiscated.
We at Demaras Racing can confirm that a local vendor made the plates, as their name and Instagram handle can clearly be seen on the fake. However, plates the company now makes always have a warning on the face, not the back. Regardless, the driver in that case was charged with having an unauthorized plate, confusing the identity of the plate, failing to display two plates and not having a validated permit.
A professionally crafted, phony plates bearing the same letters and numbers from a vehicle with the same year, make and model as one’s own car would defeat police ALPR devices, bad guys better hope the driver they’re scamming doesn’t have outstanding warrants!
OH My lol
If they don’t have an outstanding warrant, they soon will due to all the unpaid tolls their plate is accumulating!