Sharpie Skillz: Ontario drivers keep making fake licence plates

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Ontario’s license plates are supposed to be officially made via a set method and with materials pre-approved by the government. In fact, they’re legally obligated to be that way, and even accessorizing them with the wrong kind of plastic plate frame can land you in a legal grey zone. 

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But lately there’s been a flush of Ontario licence plate imitation attempts by amateurs employing high-tech forgery tools like diaper boxes, Sharpies and laminated paper.  

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One recent attempt, made by a motorcyclist in Kingston, was so poorly designed and spelled that it caught the attention of late night host Jimmy Fallon , who basted and roasted the artist in one of his monologues. “When they took him to jail, police were like ‘it’s a good thing you like making license plates,’” Fallon says. You can skip ahead to the 4:30-minute mark to catch his other quips in that video.

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The aspiring artist isn’t alone in the province either. Here are some of the other so-bad-they’re-hilarious licence plate forgery attempts recently found by police in Ontario, plus one bonus headline about a 30-year-expired registration. 

A truckload of tickets

A commercial vehicle with a hand-scribbled licence plate ? That’s just bad business. Yet there it was on the roads of Milton, cruising around over Easter weekend and causing the OPP to exhaust its emoji resources. It’s a bad move and a worse attempt at a fake. As one commenter points out, however, it’s still more legible than the province’s new blue-on-white plates.

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Questionable colours in Kingston

At this point we can basically consider Kingston’s Sgt Steve Coopman a collector of fake licence plates. It was his Tweet that got picked up by Fallon and his funny-makers, but before that he also shared this top-shelf forgery attempt. 

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Honestly, if officers were handing out marks for effort, this driver would’ve been top of class – just look at the shading! Did they use stencils? Steady hands aside, the driver got busted and (probably) a fine, which we estimate around $510 for the offences of not having plates, improperly displaying plates, no validation on plates and more.   

What the heck is a ““LEK-00F,” anyway?

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Experts may never know whether this cryptic message pasted onto a laminated piece of paper posing as a licence plate has some sort of secret significance. “LEK-00F” – what could it be? Tell you what it isn’t: a legitimate plate sequence. 

Police in Guelph nabbed the counterfeit earlier this year , and it’s a real craft project! It has printed letters arranged like crooked teeth at the bottom, a felt-pen section at the top, and some sort of pasted-on bit in the middle. Not as convincing as some of the others on this list, but definitely one of the most creative. 

Mismatched and tampered with

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Toronto police didn’t have to call the detectives in to deduce that there was something off with the insurance on a vehicle they stopped in the GTA late last year. An officer first saw the odd look of the expiration dates on the back, which had been adjusted with a Sharpie, but upon circling the car also noticed that the front plate numbers didn’t match up !

But the fines did add up, as they always do. The driver was hit with charges for altering validation, failing to apply for a permit, operating a vehicle without insurance and two counts of using unauthorized plates. 

A Pampered plate

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An unlicensed driver in Paris, Ontario had police initially fooled with this forgery that was semi-concealed under a dark cover. But when an officer ran the plates and noticed the numbers didn’t match the truck but belonged to a Toronto transit bus, they took a closer look and quickly spotted the problem. It had been fashioned from a Pampers diaper box of all things . 

The driver did own the truck, but was still charged for driving without a licence and driving without licence plates.

Honourable Mention: 30-years-expired licence

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Another unadvisable way to attempt to escape the cost of vehicle insurance is to buy it once so you get the official plate and then simply never renew, like this Toronto driver appears to have done. 

He was pulled over by a Vision Zero Enforcement Team officer who was just 8-years-old when the plates expired in August, 1989. Some Twitter commenters thought that might’ve been some sort of record, but were promptly proven wrong by another Ontario police officer.