Someone made a license plate from a pizza box and magic markers. Stop, cops say
Don’t try it.
That’s what one Massachusetts police department is warning on Facebook after one of its officers allegedly caught a driver with a fake license plate.
And the elaborate tools used in that attempt to thwart the law? A cardboard pizza box and magic makers, according to the Hopkinton Police Department.
The police department offered two pieces of advice for “those aspiring to make their own license plates.”
The first suggestion was simply: “Don’t.”
“But if you do,” it wrote on Facebook, “make sure not to use cardboard from a pizza box and magic markers.”
There’s at least one problem with the license plate, aside from its hastily made appearance: The standard and most recent version of license plates from Massachusetts spell out the full name of the state, according to the DMV. Also, the numbers are red, and the name of the state is spelled out in blue, as reported by Boston.com.
“Charges for this creative operator include operating an uninsured and unregistered vehicle and attaching ‘fake home made’ plates,” the police department wrote.
Other people have tried to make similar fake license plates in the past.
In April, New York police arrested 23-year-old James Walton for allegedly driving a motorcycle with a cardboard license plate, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported. He was charged with second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, which is a felony, according to the Journal.
And the Erie County Sheriff’s Office in New York warned its Facebook followers last March that “in case you were wondering, homemade cardboard license plates are NOT legal.” That post was made after police say they arrested Amanda Schweickert, 28 at the time, for allegedly painting the fake license plate.
Police also allegedly found she was driving her car without insurance and with a suspended registration, according to WKBW.
The police department then posted two images of the fake plate on Facebook, one image showing the painted front and the other showing the undisguised side of the cardboard.
Last week, a police department in Georgia felt compelled to give would-be criminals a piece of advice for a completely different crime: Don't rob a bank and then do a TV interview. That was because police said a man named Eric Rivers allegedly robbed at least two banks in Gwinnett County, Georgia, within the last few weeks — and then decided to speak to a reporter on-camera about traffic, police told CBS46.
His TV interview helped police track him down, the department wrote.
This story was originally published November 14, 2017 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Someone made a license plate from a pizza box and magic markers. Stop, cops say."