Stolen tag?!?!

I go to bolt the bed down on my truck this afternoon, and notice something is amiss. Where the tag would normally be mounted is an uncleaned part of my chrome bumper. berkeley.

I report it to the police, officer comes, verifies my registration and license, makes a report.

I have to wait for the report to be approved my his supervisor before I can get a copy of it. I have to have a copy of that report to get a replacement tag. berkeley.

I hope they find the berkeleyer that stole my tag. Not because I want my tag back, but because they need to see some berkeleying jail time.

What burns me the most is that they could have taken the tools that I had stored under the picnic table RIGHT BEHIND my truck. Wouldn't have really cared.

I think the new tag gets welded on.

Could be worse. The cops could have contacted you about how you held up a liquor store last night...

Sounds like you speak from experience. Do tell. I need some entertainment.

That was pretty common when I lived in Tulsa. I'm guessing it was cheaper and easier for the illegals than actually registering a car.

Nah, no personal experience. Who would rob a liquor store with the plates from a Miata? No room for booze. You want plates from a similar vehicle - which around here, means you'd have to lock down the ones on white F250s. I think I've been reading too many crime novels.

I say the new tag gets electrified

Well, the next door neighbor has a black truck, albeit a fullsize Chevy that doesn't have a tag. I'm keeping an eye on that truck, as is the police department. I have a feeling it's them. I need to set up a cam on that truck.

BTW, I have a .5 farad capacitor that I might rig up. The issue is that I'll probably hit it more than a would-be thief.

hence the use of tamper-resistant torx screws for my plates...

Had my tag stolen 6 months ago. Minor inconvenience, no big deal. Cop said it was very common. Didn't make me feel much better. I doubt they had that free tag more than 6 hours before it became hot.

I figured machine screws with lock washers and nuts on the other side would keep it from getting stolen. If it was taken from my back yard, they had plenty of time to do it without getting seen.

One more reason I love living in the middle of nowhere. Doubly so as when I move out it will most likely be to a Gov. housing complex...

In reply to cwh:

Do you actually have to wait to get the police report to get a replacement? Seems like the process is pretty much as I stated in my first post, meaning it's gonna take a couple of days during which I can't drive the truck. That seems like a pain, but I can see why they'd do that.

I really hope to catch the person that did it myself. I wanna watch it unfold when I call the cops, it'll be rather funny.

Yeah, the illegals don't have auto insurance, which the law requires them to have. Humm, the law is gonna require us to have medical insurance now. That's working out well for the auto insurance, right? And that lowered our auto insurance costs, right? Anyway, without a driver's license, harder to get insurance (which costs money anyway), so can't get a tag. Just go steal a plate, razor blade off the registration sticker, glue on your plate, drive another year. Arkansas started printing your plate number on the sticker last year. Other states stopped putting stickers on the plates and have a window sticker instead for that reason.

Remember, there are somewhere between 15 and 30 MILLION illegal aliens in our country, most from Mexico, in a country of 300 million population. That means between 5 and 10 percent of the population in our country are not here legally. Get ready for the next butt bang from DC.

HA-HA FLOUNDER.

I lost the plate on my trailer once. I had to file a lost plate report to the police befor I could get a new plate. Officer said it was because they need to have it on file in case someone finds the plate and tries to use it.

We used to have our registration renewal stickers on the plate. Most thieves only needed the sticker and found that they could just bend the plate back and forth and snap off the last few inches with the sticker. No tools required.

Now our stickers go inside the windshield.

I had the plates stolen off of my truck one time. It was usually parked on the street next to the condo my wife and I rented at the time. I get up in the morning, go to class and on the way home stop at Autozone to pick up something. Coming out of the store I start waking to my truck and something strikes me as "off", the plates are wrong. Ohio had just switched plate design and the ones I am looking at are the old ones and my truck had the new style on it.

I look around the rest of the parking lot to see if I am looking at the wrong vehicle, no other black Nissan HB so it has to be mine. I get in, drive home and call the police. An officer comes, runs the plates and they had been reported stolen off of a car just a couple of streets away. Someone stole a car and switched plates twice, I assume to make it harder to figure out.

The worst part was my plates were only a few weeks old and I had to go and buy new ones. Fun stuff.

NJ tried the state mounted stickers for registration.. they lasted 5 years.. it was always fun to see people putting BOTH stickers on the rear plate

I just hope that if the thieves steal my plate they leave behind my GRM license plate frame .

I zip tie my plates through the holes when I can. You just have to make them challenging enough to remove that the lowlifes find a better target.

Locktyte works too!

how about this?

under 21 in NJ stickers

Well, on a whim, I called the police department to see if my report was ready. It was. I got my copy of the report, took it to the tag office, walked out with a new tag. Total cost to me was $0.45 for the copy of the report.

This one gets securely mounted. I have a plan that will require cutting in order to remove the tag from my bumper, so that's the route I'm going.

81gtv6 wrote: I had the plates stolen off of my truck one time. It was usually parked on the street next to the condo my wife and I rented at the time. I get up in the morning, go to class and on the way home stop at Autozone to pick up something. Coming out of the store I start waking to my truck and something strikes me as "off", the plates are wrong. Ohio had just switched plate design and the ones I am looking at are the old ones and my truck had the new style on it. I look around the rest of the parking lot to see if I am looking at the wrong vehicle, no other black Nissan HB so it has to be mine. I get in, drive home and call the police. An officer comes, runs the plates and they had been reported stolen off of a car just a couple of streets away. Someone stole a car and switched plates twice, I assume to make it harder to figure out. The worst part was my plates were only a few weeks old and I had to go and buy new ones. Fun stuff.

I got a parking ticket in NYC for my '58 Buick once. Only problem was that the car was stolen three years earlier. And I lived in Buffalo. Still had the expired plates on it, too, when the metermaid wrote the ticket. Gotta love the Big Apple!

Stolen or vandalized plates happen in Philly too often. Although here in PA it's for the annual registration sticker.

Usually, thieves don't bother with stealing the whole plate. They just bend and break off the part with the sticker, so it can be scraped off and applied to an expired plate.

The problem is rampant to the extent that cops in this area don't care anymore. The 'current' sticker on my car was applied in 2003 (date: 04) and keep the current sticker in the car. I've been stopped a number of times for a number of reasons, but I've never been questioned about the expired sticker.

My girlfriend got pulled over for the reg sticker not being on her plate. Turned out someone had peeled it. The cop said that was actually pretty common and suggested taking a razor blade to any new sticker.

Slash it in a couple of diagonals. It looks the same to a cop, but it's impossible to peel in one even piece, and not worth the hassle.

Salanis wrote: My girlfriend got pulled over for the reg sticker not being on her plate. Turned out someone had peeled it. The cop said that was actually pretty common and suggested taking a razor blade to any new sticker. Slash it in a couple of diagonals. It looks the same to a cop, but it's impossible to peel in one even piece, and not worth the hassle.

That is one hell of a good idea

a very very good idea

mad_machine wrote: how about this? under 21 in NJ stickers

Horrible idea. Let's give predators an extra edge. Way to go, New Jersey.