Source
r/legaladviceofftopic•
carjs

fake license plates?

i saw a video of a car outrunning a police officer, with the police officer giving up on the chase almost immediately, and the comments were talking about how they probably just got his license plate and had another cop meet him instead of chasing. this made me wonder what the consequence of a fake license plate would be (counterfeit with random letters and numbers not registered) and why it’s not more common like fake ids? if a cop pulled you over, would they be able to look in the system and immediately tell it’s not real? but i guess anyone with a fake license plate isn’t going to play nice and immediately pull over. maybe my first question can answer the second. anyway just something i was thinking about and i was wondering if anyone could answer my question.

Posted Jun 26, 2021, 6:19 AM UTC

24
chino_exel•

Cops can immediately check your plates, either through their onboard computer, or calling it in (depending how that jurisdiction has it set up). All plates are kept in the DMV database and is available to law enforcement. In fact, police can and will do random plate checks of cars on the road. This is legal since the plates are in plain sight. So the cops would know just about immediately if your plates are legit.

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Febtober2k•

In fact, police can and will do random plate checks of cars on the road.

In NYC, anyone can put in a plate number and look up what outstanding tickets or violations are associated with it. I used to look up vehicles around me when bored at red lights.

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chino_exel•

That's kinda cool. I wonder in what other jurisdictions you can do that.

1
yerilit•

this made me wonder what the consequence of a fake license plate would be (counterfeit with random letters and numbers not registered) and why it’s not more common like fake ids?

Speaking from the UK, driving around with an invalid plate would be pretty stupid here as there are cameras (both fixed at the roadside and on police vehicles) which read licence plates and validate them against various databases (to flag to the police that a stolen, uninsured or otherwise wanted vehicle has gone past).

It is moderately common, however, for organized criminals to clone plates (find a random car of the same make and model and have fake plates made with that number on them). This is more effective as, provided you clone plates belonging to a law abiding owner, your car will pass any camera checks.

However, it's still risky because the police can find out about your cloned plates (for example, when the real owner gets a speeding ticket in the post from somewhere they know they weren't at) and then the game is up and next time you're spotted the police will be coming to pull you over. (And in the UK the police usually do chase vehicles, and run them off the road if needed).

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