To avoid parking tickets, more and more motorists are hiding their license plates. But this very fashionable practice can cost much more than the parking meter.
In recent months, a new trend has been spreading in major French cities: when parking, motorists partially or completely hide their license plates with pieces of fabric, plastic or cardboard. This very fashionable “trick” aims to avoid fines for non-payment of parking imposed by cars equipped with automated number plate reading systems (ALPR). But while it may seem ingenious, this practice can cost much more than the fines it seeks to avoid.
Used in cities like Paris, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Marseille, LAPI vehicles that roam the streets scan the license plates of parked cars and compare the data with payments recorded at parking meters. If a vehicle has not paid for parking, a ticket is automatically issued. To counter this system and avoid fines, some motorists now hide part of their plate when they park, thus preventing the system from reading it.
The legal debate around this trend is lively. Some believe that there is vagueness in the legislation. Lawyer Sébastien Dufour, followed by millions of people on TikTok, maintains that the law is sufficiently vague to be interpreted in favor of motorists. According to him, if the plate is in its place, even hidden, it remains “in evidence”. However, case law from the Court of Cassation from 2015 established that the offense linked to an illegible plate applies even if the vehicle is stationary, thus contradicting this position.
Although this ruse may seem effective at first glance, it is not without risks. In Toulouse, for example, the municipality reacted quickly to these practices. Public highway surveillance officers can manually note the infraction and impose a fine of 35 euros for non-payment of parking. In addition, hiding your plate is in itself an offense punishable by article R317-8 of the Highway Code, which imposes a fine of 135 euros for illegible plate. In other words, a motorist who thought he would save a few euros could end up having to pay a fine of up to 170 euros!
But some motorists go even further, by tampering with their plates, either using grease which makes them partly illegible, or worse still, by modifying letters or numbers with adhesives. And for these obvious changes, the penalties are much heavier. Because, in France, falsifying or modifying a registration plate is a criminal offense which can be punished by a fine of up to 3,750 euros, or even, depending on the circumstances, a suspension of the license for a maximum period of 3 years and even confiscation of the vehicle. It is therefore better to avoid this new game, even if it seems harmless at first glance…
