April showers don’t just bring May flowers — they also bring slush and grit, resulting in illegibly dirty licence plates and possibly, a costly fine.
Winnipeg police and RCMP are warning Manitobans to give plates a dust-off before hitting the road or risk a ticket.
Last year, Winnipeg police handed out 452 tickets for obstructed license plates.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Police say they’ll grant some leeway depending on the weather, but a plate they can’t read could either be a warning, or a fine.
“As we start to see the slush, and the rain, and the road grit start to show up before our city workers have the opportunity to clean the streets properly, we start to see that grit getting transferred on to licence plates,” Winnipeg Police Service Sgt. Paul Deacon said Wednesday.
“Some of the issues that we see with that is it makes identifying a vehicle difficult for us, as well as for you — we’re well aware of the amount of vehicle thefts and stolen licence plates that happen in Winnipeg, and when those plates are obstructed, it makes us difficult for us to identify it.”
The WPS hands out tickets for obstructed licence plates under two regulations: the Drivers and Vehicles Act, and the Highway Traffic Act, with fines of $113 and $203 respectively.
Most people in Winnipeg ticketed for a dirty license plate are fined under the Drivers and Vehicles Act, Deacon said. The Highway Traffic Act is more often deployed when police encounter intentional plate covers or if they “have a reason to believe that a reasonable person would know what they were doing.”
It varies case-by-case: some levels of snow and dirt accumulation can result in the heftier fine, but officers also try to be more lenient when the weather is responsible for the grime, Deacon said.
“Frankly, it’s up to the discretion of the officer and the evidence that presents itself at the time,” he said.
“But even though we tend to see that there are more obscured number plates (in certain weather) our officers tend to enforce it less, as we recognize that the road conditions make it more difficult to read plates. We understand that by operating your vehicle, the plate is going to get dirty.”
Deacon said he tickets about half of the drivers he pulls over for illegible plates.
In Winnipeg, police handed out 163 tickets under the Drivers and Vehicle Act in 2021, 534 in 2022 and 452 in 2023. Deacon said spikes often come after inclement weather and issues with peeling license plates.
There were 361 tickets issued through the Highway Traffic Act in 2021, 321 in 2022, and 345 in 2023.
Manitoba RCMP put out a message on social media Tuesday reminding drivers to keep their licence plates clean.
RCMP officers handed out 148 tickets in 2022 and 148 in 2023, all under the Highway Traffic Act. Numbers for 2021 were not available.
Westman Traffic Services Sgt. Mark Hume said officers recognize a rural driver might find their car getting dirtier faster than their city counterparts.
“You’ve got a lot of people coming off gravel roads, where it’s muddy this time of year, it’s causing more dust than in the city, we take that into consideration,” he said.
Both Deacon and Hume suggest drivers take a walk around your vehicle every morning — it will remind you to clean off licence plates and rear-view cameras, keep an eye out for flat tires and other damage, and alert you to possible theft.
“A lot of the time, stolen plates are found by us when we pull somebody over and say, ‘You’re missing a plate,’” Deacon said.
malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca
