Misplaced and expired stickers

Per Service Ontario – where to put your license plate sticker

In most cases, you should attach your licence plate sticker to the upper right-hand corner of your licence plate (or front plate for a commercial vehicle).

While sitting in traffic, have you noticed the number of expired license plate stickers you, see? I have noticed that, so people don’t seem to notice or care that they are driving a vehicle where the sticker on the plates have expired. As a driver, it is your responsibility to ensure that your license plate is up-to-date. I don’t know how many times we have been sitting at a stop light and have noticed that the car ahead of us has an expired sticker.

The other thing you notice is that, at least in Ontario, your sticker for a personal vehicle is supposed to be in the upper right-hand corner of the plate. I think I have seen stickers in every area of the plate, which is a ticketable offence. It is amazing to see how often the renewal sticker is put in a different location on the license plate and people think that this is allowed. The renewal sticker has a spot on the license plate and that is where each sticker is to be placed.

When you are sitting in traffic, look at the different license plates around you, and you can see lots of problems with the various license plates.

Another thing to notice is the condition of the back license plate on vehicles. Some plates look like thy have been a really bad day, but the front plate is in mint condition. It really makes you wonder if people are tampering with their license plates, making them hard to read from behind. This is an issue when you are trying to report a vehicle for breaking the law, or even for some of the toll highways to read the license plates. One thing I have noticed is in some cases people have changed the front and back place because of the condition, but they have forgotten that the renewal sticker is on the plate that is now on the front of a car, which is again wrong. Commercial vehicles have their stickers on the front of the vehicle, but not regular passenger cars.

Yes, misplaced and expired stickers can make for an interesting trip when you are in a car because just looking at the different locations of the stickers and the different lengths of expired stickers can be interesting. Recently there was one person on Twitter ask why she got a ticket when she was parked. In her tweet she included a picture of her license plate, and I noticed that the sticker looked like it had a Sept 2017 renewal date, and the picture was taken in January 2018. I guess that is a good reason to get a ticket because the ticket was for not displaying a current license, she may have renewed the sticker but hadn’t put it on the vehicle.

When you renew your license plate sticker, remember to put it on as soon as you get it and also remember to put it in the correct location as explained right on the paper you get the sticker on.