Tinted licence plate covers won't shield you from a ticket, OPP says
CBC
On a recent drive to an event, OPP Const. Jeff Hare ended up pulling over three drivers.
They weren't speeding or driving dangerously. They weren't impaired, and they hadn't failed to buckle up.
Hare pulled them over simply because he couldn't read the numbers and letters on their licence plates.
"They were almost impossible to see," Hare told CBC News. "Any time you obstruct your plate, you are breaking the law."
Ontario's Highway Traffic Act makes it clear that having an obscured licence plate is against the law and could leave the driver liable for a $110 fine, though it doesn't result in demerit points on their insurance.
The law says a vehicle's entire licence plate must be "plainly visible at all times" and be free from "dirt and obstruction."
The legislation even mentions devices that prevent plate numbers from being photographed and recorded by red light cameras, photo radar systems and automated road toll systems, such as the 407 ETR.
Despite this, Hare said he continues to see illegal covers on the road.
"I've spoken with a number of officers and it definitely appears to be a growing problem," he said. "We're seeing tinted plate covers. We're seeing coloured plate covers."
Hare said he tries to have a conversation with drivers about their plate covers at road stops, because often drivers claim they didn't know that obscuring the plate is illegal.
One challenge for police is that plate covers and other products that obscure licence plate numbers are widely available in stores.
Canadian Tire, for example, sells an Autotrends branded plate cover with a dark tint called a "Smoke Licence Plate Shield." It was on the shelves at the Argyle location on Tuesday.
While the cover doesn't make the plate numbers invisible, the company has taken steps to avoid trouble with packaging that says the cover is for "off-road, showroom use only."
Barry Trap, who owns Performance Unlimited Auto in London, sells plate covers with some tinting but says he won't sell any product that makes the licence plate difficult to read. He was once approached by a supplier asking him to carry their "prism effect" plate covers, but Trap said he steered clear of selling them.
A patient at Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital died Friday morning after what the Saskatchewan Health Authority described as a "physical altercation" with hospital security officers.
The B.C. River Forecast Centre is issuing a high streamflow advisory for much of B.C.'s coast, including the south and north coasts, north and west Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii.
Both of P.E.I.’s opposition party leaders used the same word to describe the findings of an audit into misspending at Health P.E.I. — disappointing.
A former Alberta energy minister says a proposed bitumen pipeline to the northwest B.C. coast is unlikely to materialize if Canada relies on the private sector alone to build it.
Members of Toronto's Iranian community rallied on Friday in support of anti-government protests in Iran.
Yukoners who already have a family doctor now have another option to access same-day, non-emergency care — the Whitehorse walk-in clinic.
Conservative Party members are pressing their leader to adopt a number of controversial policy positions including private health care, scrapping Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies and abandoning the party's previous position to stay out of the abortion debate.
A former Alberta energy minister says a proposed bitumen pipeline to the northwest B.C. coast is unlikely to materialize if Canada relies on the private sector alone to build it.
A Mississauga man has won a Superior Court challenge against the city over a weed control bylaw that prevents homeowners from growing some plants and grass over a certain height.
Barriers are in place and light installation is underway along Summerside’s East-West Housing Corridor — but officials say not for much longer.
A judge gave a four year, two-month sentence Friday to a Calgary woman who twice fled to the UK to avoid being sent to prison for stealing nearly $2-million from her employer.
The federal government is sending the military to help Pimicikamak Cree Nation after a days-long power outage led to damage to hundreds of homes and the evacuation of thousands of people.
A 47-year-old Pond Inlet, Nunavut, man faces several charges after allegedly assaulting a woman and ramming a house with an all-terrain vehicle in the Baffin Island hamlet.