The article mentions that he drove with no license plate. But I always wondered if he possessed the plate and never attached it, keeping it inside the car just in case.
Danny White, a resident of Washington, DC, had a similar problem: his vanity license plate read "NO TAGS", which happens to be what police there put down in the license plate slot for missing plates.
In 1986, Robert Barbour applied for a personalized plate. The DMV gives you three choices: he picked SAILING, BOATING. If he couldn't get those, he didn't want a personalized plate, so he put NO PLATE. Of course, he ended up with NO PLATE. Since that's what the police put as the license if a car doesn't have a plate, he ended up with 2500 tickets. Eventually the DMV told the police to write "NONE" instead of "NO PLATE" and said "We're just hoping that no one will come up with plates that say NONE." (Which would be ironic if the parent comment is accurate.)
I had two plates, and I guess one fell off or got stolen or something. So I still had my back plate on. Since the PD never confirmed anything after the online report, I figured I would have to go down and do it in person some time. But apparently not.
Since there was zero confirmation, this means you can just do the same to anyone. If the person is particularly jumpy, disabled, has mental issues, etc. it could easily get serious.
There was a similar story in comp.risks (anyone remember that?) back in 1986. When ordering a custom plate, you could put down three choices. The guy applying could only think of two choices ("SAILING" and "BOATING"). If he couldn't get one of those, he didn't want a custom plate, so he put "NO PLATE" as the third choice. Of course that was the plate he got. He ended up getting 2500 parking tickets, since any car with no plate was marked on the ticket as "NO PLATE".
I thought the handicapped spot story and the every-six-months-new-car-for-no-plates story were separate. Steve didn't want a license plate on his car because he thought it messed up the aesthetics. He was also a jerk and parked in the handicapped spot because he could.
In some jurisdictions you can avoid this problem by having no licence plate at all and if you upgrade the car frequently enough, you can avoid ever having a plate.
I read years ago in comp.risks about a similar story. A guy in 1979(!) requested a personalized plate "SAILING", with second choice "BOATING". He didn't want a customized plate if he couldn't get those, so for his third choice he put down "NO PLATE". Of course, he ended up with "NO PLATE". He ended up getting 2500 parking tickets, since cars with no plate had "NO PLATE" written on the ticket.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-06-23-vw-20054-...
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