Fine for parking without license plates

Do they have the right to tow a car without license plates?

A vehicle can be towed to an impound lot for a huge number of reasons . But for several years now, traffic violations such as unpaid or incorrect parking have been steadily taking the lead in this area.

Those motorists who have already experienced all the hardships of evacuation (the main disadvantage is a large fine) strive with all their might to avoid it, which is why they resort to a wide variety of tricks. One of them is hiding or removing license plates.

A natural question arises: can a car without license plates be towed? Discussion of this topic is quite popular on specialized forums and websites, so in this article it will be discussed in as much detail as possible.

Why rent rooms?

Such a simple way to prevent the evacuation of a car seems innocent and simple. But is this really so?

It’s interesting that they started hiding license plates since digital locks appeared . Hairdryers, a device that records the speed of a moving car, have caused some drivers to remove their identification plates.

One of the first means in the fight against them was hairspray and women's tights. Such means blocked the reflection of light, so they did not allow the number to be recorded. However, such ancient means are absolutely powerless in the fight against evacuation .

If due to this the radar could simply not record the data, then the inspector may well notice and then identify a violation of the law, manifested in the form of falsification or concealment of the license plate.

It is worth admitting that even removing the plate with numbers and taking it with you or leaving it in the trunk is not so easy. To do this, the driver must always have with him a tool that allows him not only to dismantle, but also to mount the license plates back.

At the same time, it is important to learn how to perform such actions without unnecessary noise and as quickly as possible, since otherwise passers-by may suspect a crime and call a traffic police inspector.

But why do some motorists still resort to these tricks? Where did the tradition of removing numbers or hiding them using a special film, a layer of dirt and other “screens” come from?

There are several possible answers to this question:

Many paid parking lots are equipped with special mechanisms, parking signs, that read the number. Thanks to this information, the car owner is obliged to pay for parking. If the device cannot determine absolutely all the digits of the numbers, you can really save money;
similar equipment is also installed in the coverage area of most prohibition signs. As in the case of paid parking, its purpose is to read license plates and transmit information to charge fines to negligent drivers;
and finally, current legislation prohibits the towing of a vehicle without license plates. Drivers who hide their license plate count on traffic police inspectors to strictly comply with this rule.

However, unfortunately for car owners, traffic police officers are well aware of such tricks . That is why they have developed a number of measures that allow them to counteract dishonest drivers.

Is it legal to tow a car without license plates?

Have you noticed cars without license plates in impound lots? Do they have the right to tow a car without license plates? It is necessary to proceed from the circumstances of each specific case.

Let us remind you that the current law does not provide for the evacuation of a car without license plates, but despite this, the capital’s services have increased security during the period of international events, so more than a dozen cars with disguised license plates went to the impound lot.

Can a car without license plates be towed from a paid parking lot? It is prohibited to evacuate cars without license plates from paid parking lots, since this area is private property.

So, a tow truck has no right to drive there without the permission of the owner of the parking lot, much less take away the vehicle. This rule makes it possible for offenders to escape from justice.

It is interesting that a walking traffic police inspector cannot give the right to evacuate, but he classifies the lack of license plates as an offense, so the owner of an unregistered car will have to bear responsibility.

It should be noted that at present the Moscow authorities are seriously addressing this issue in order to reduce the crime rate in the city. There are even proposals to tighten or improve the law for resourceful drivers.

"Fair" evacuation

If a car owner parks his “iron horse” without license plates under a “Parking is prohibited” or “Stopping is prohibited” sign, MADI inspectors will not waste precious time on further clarification of the circumstances of this act.

They have the legal right to tow a car to a parking lot for illegal parking. In this case, the inspector will not figure out who owns the car.

Since he does not have the right to clean the dirt from the license plate or rip off the special film (by law, such actions can be classified as property damage or violation of the inviolability of private property), he will rewrite the visible numbers and then send the car to the impound lot.

If a cunning driver has completely removed the license plates, then only he will have problems, since he will not know what to do next, where to look for the car, or to which parking lot it was evacuated. This may well waste a lot of mental energy and precious time.

Recently, you can see the evacuation of cars without license plates under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

The vehicle is removed from a 400-meter zone from the MCC, surface vestibules of stations, metro structures, ground transport stops, transport hubs, parks, as well as other public places where a large number of people accumulate.

According to the new regulations, such cars are moved to specialized parking lots, where they are checked by law enforcement officers.

Thanks to this, they can determine whether the car poses a terrorist threat or whether it is wanted. After this check, the evacuated cars are returned to the owner or his legal representative.

Towing a properly parked car

Is it legal to tow a car without license plates that is parked without violations?

As we have already noted, special services can evacuate a car without identification marks only in extreme cases.

For example, if the vehicle is in the area covered by a prohibitory sign . However, if the car was parked in a yard where there are no parking restrictions, then traffic police inspectors usually do not touch it.

However, this rule also has a number of nuances. For example, if a driver left a car on a section of the road under which there are underground communications (water pipes, gas pipes or a sewer network), then it may be evacuated to a penalty area.

The fact is that in an emergency, certain services must have quick access to all communication facilities . If there is a car above them, access to them remains blocked.

Responsibility for car owners

So, according to the above, despite the fact that in most cases the evacuation of a car without license plates is prohibited, the legislation provides for a number of exceptions that do not allow you to be completely sure of this.

Therefore, removing or hiding a license plate often makes little sense.

It is worth admitting that license plates are not something to joke about, since here you can easily either lose your license or run into a hefty fine, there are several options.

Here is the punishment for cunning drivers in 2019:

They will take away your license. You run a high risk of losing your license for six months or even a year if you travel with deliberately false license plates: from another car or simply fake ones.
They will issue you a fine or, again, deprive you of your license. If you cover your license plates while driving: with a rag, a net, an accidentally stuck sheet of wood, a plastic bag, paper, special inclined frames, filters, films - this is punishable by law in the form of a fine of 5,000 rubles or deprivation of rights (for 1-3 months).
They will be fined. If you attach false license plates to a parked car, you face a fine of 2,500 rubles.
They scold you and let you go. If the license plates are simply dirty, the inspector can issue a fine of 500 rubles or issue a warning, although the numbers must be read at night from 20 meters. In this case, it is important not to be rude to the inspector, but simply wipe the number with a rag. If the sign is wrinkled or its paint has worn off over time, promise to make a duplicate.

According to the above, the fine for parking a car without a license plate is small . But still it is several times more than paying for parking.

In order not to expose yourself to unnecessary expenses, it is better to always pay for parking. In addition, paid parking protects your car from theft and other troubles.

It also makes absolutely no sense to remove or hide identification marks so that the car is not towed as a result of violating traffic rules.

After all, the car will be taken away anyway, but, in addition to a fine of 2,500 rubles, you will also have to pay for her stay in the impound lot.

It is much more economical and practical to try not to break the rules and park the car only in the designated place.

Video: In Moscow they began to evacuate cars without license plates

No number? To the impound lot!

Paid parking has filled the capital. Now even in residential areas you have to pay for accommodation. Motorists were initially indignant, but then, realizing the futility of the protests, they accepted a new rent.

Car evacuation

Moreover, if at first these were isolated cases, then every day there were more and more followers of the numberless stand. And then the officials thought hard. After all, if a car does not have a license plate, it is impossible to identify the owner and issue him a fine for non-payment of parking. And such a car owner does not pay for parking. But officials simply cannot allow this to happen. And then the capital’s leadership came up with a brilliant plan. The Moscow Anti-Terrorism Commission has developed regulations for the evacuation of cars without registration plates or with poorly readable license plates from paid parking lots.

Payment for parking

As justification, the commission decided to consider all car owners who leave cars without license plates in parking lots as potential terrorists. According to officials, if the car cannot be identified, then it must contain explosives. Well, how could it be otherwise? Therefore, such cars are loaded onto a tow truck (!) and taken to the impound lot. There, it’s as if specially trained people (apparently FSB and Emergencies Ministry officers) are inspecting the cars. If the explosives are not found, the car will be returned to the owner.

According to Maxim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Transport, the evacuation of such cars is carried out at the expense of the budget funds of the city of Moscow.

Car parking without license plates

“If the owner arrives at the site before the tow truck starts moving, the car is returned to him, but only after checking by law enforcement agencies. The priority in this work is to ensure the safety of citizens,” explained Liksutov.

In general, this all looks like some kind of stupid show. Look what's happening. In a paid parking lot in the city center there is a car without license plates. Let’s even assume that, based on some signs, one can suspect something is wrong and assume that there is a bomb in it. How should the situation develop in this case? Lightning-fast reaction of the police and intelligence services. A complete cordon of the perimeter, and even all nearby houses must be cleared of people. After all, if a car is filled with explosives, the force of the explosion can be enormous. Then sappers with special equipment get into action.

Parking lot without numbers

What actually happens when a car without license plates is noticed by towing service employees? The car is loaded onto a tow truck and taken to the impound lot! Well, this is idiocy!

By the way, here is an excerpt from the recommendations of the National Anti-Terrorism Center:

Procedure for detecting a suspicious item

It is strictly forbidden to touch, open, move or take any other actions with the discovered item.
It is not recommended to use mobile phones and other radio communications near such an object.

I'm not saying that only a terrorist without a brain would leave a car filled with explosives without license plates in order to thereby attract attention to himself. Most likely, it will be an inconspicuous and just stolen car with license plates.

The decision of the capital's anti-terrorism commission caused misunderstanding not only among ordinary motorists and the media, but also among deputies. Yaroslav Nilov, deputy head of the LDPR faction and chairman of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans Affairs, is confident that city officials have exceeded their powers, and the evacuation of cars without registration plates is just a desire to earn as much money as possible.

Car evacuation

Nilov is confident that those car owners whose cars without license plates were towed from paid parking lots have the right to compensation for moral damages. The deputy has already sent requests to the Prosecutor General's Office, the Ministry of Justice, the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs to verify the legality of the actions of capital officials.

In general, the real reason for the decision to evacuate cars without license plates is clear to everyone. This is the fear of losing the flow of cash for paid parking.

Car evacuation

We have several days of holidays ahead of us. I am sure that tow truck operators will closely monitor parking areas. By the way, during the first May weekend, 77 cars without license plates were evacuated from the streets of Moscow!

So I recommend not leaving cars without registration plates. Well, for those who do not listen to advice and find that their car is not there, here are a few tips. You can find out where the evacuated car is located by calling “02” or “112” , as well as in the Unified Contact Center “Moscow Transport” by calling: +7 (495) 539-54-54 or 3120 from a mobile phone. You need to tell us where the car was towed from, as well as name the make and color. Based on this data, they will look for your car in two parking lots:

Yuzhnoportovaya street, property 37-A
Proezd Entuziastov, possession 3

And in order to solve the problem of licenseless cars in paid parking lots, the following is needed. The first is to change the procedure for registering new cars. I think it’s not difficult to make sure that the car leaves the dealership immediately registered and with license plates. Secondly, the Traffic Rules should include a ban on parking in paid parking lots without license plates. It is clear that hooligans can remove license plates from a car of a law-abiding owner, but these are rather isolated cases. And, of course, the paid parking system should become convenient, understandable and transparent.

Can a car without license plates be towed away?

Many drivers are interested in whether a car without license plates can be towed away. Some believe that the lack of state registration plates on cars does not allow traffic police inspectors to call tow trucks, but in practice the situation is different.

Why do drivers rent license plates in parking lots?

The most common reason for removing license plates is the desire to avoid administrative liability for traffic violations. Drivers unscrew them completely, or use “camouflage means”: films, curtains, etc.

For some time, hairsprays were even used to create an invisible film that prevented automatic fixation devices from reading the data. Now this method is no longer relevant, because The traffic police and other authorized bodies use the most modern devices.

Some drivers mistakenly assume that in order to avoid evacuation for violating parking rules, it is enough to twist the license plates. Whether this is so, we will consider further.

Can a car without license plates be towed?

According to current legislation, citizens are prohibited from operating vehicles without license plates, with the exception of cases of purchasing a car at a car dealership if it is being driven to register with the traffic police. If we are talking specifically about parking, then it is not prohibited without license plates, but in a situation where the car is parked in violation of traffic regulations, it can be towed.

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There are also laws that allow traffic police officers to evacuate cars in order to prevent terrorist acts. If the police department receives a report about a suspicious vehicle parked without license plates, it is immediately checked by specialists, and if there is no suspicion of the presence of an explosive device, it is delivered to the impound lot until the circumstances are clarified.

Thus, a car without registration plates can still be towed, so there is no need to waste time twisting license plates. This only complicates further searches for drivers, because, having discovered the absence of transport, they will have to look for it in all impound lots. If there are signs, just call the traffic police and get information about its location in a few seconds.

Car in paid or private parking

Most cities have paid parking lots equipped with barriers. They belong to organizations as private property, so evacuation in this case is carried out only with the consent of the parking lot owners.

To evacuate a car, the owner of the parking lot must call the traffic police, but the procedure is carried out only if there are grounds. For example, they can take him to the impound lot if he stands with violations and interferes with the passage of other vehicles. If we are talking about parking owned by a private person, his desire to remove someone else’s car is sufficient.

The car is parked incorrectly

Incorrect parking means the location of the vehicle in the area of prohibition signs, pedestrian crossings, as well as on bridges, tunnels, etc. In this situation, the traffic police inspector has the right to evacuate the car in case of violation of traffic rules, or as part of anti-terrorism security. He can also wait for the owner and draw up a report against him.

If the driver arrives on site before the vehicle is loaded onto a tow truck, the towing must be stopped. If the car is already loaded, you will have to pay for the work in full.

The car is parked correctly

If a vehicle is parked in accordance with traffic regulations, but does not have license plates, it cannot be taken to the impound lot.

An exception is the need for emergency evacuation due to utility accidents on underground or surface communications: in this case, evacuation is carried out at the request of housing and communal services, which need to provide access to the site for work.

Let's look at a practical example:

The man bought a car and parked it next to his yard. There is a sewer well under the vehicle. The car was parked without license plates for several days, and one day an accident occurred at its location. Housing and communal services employees arrived there, and after an examination it was determined that in order to gain access to the well, the vehicle must be removed.

A corresponding appeal was sent to the traffic police. After some time, a tow truck arrived at the address. Having discovered that the car was missing, the owner called the traffic police and, having given the address, received information about the impound lot, because The employees already had information that a car parked without violations was taken from a specific location.

In a situation where the car is parked without traffic violations, but it has to be evacuated to avoid accidents or to eliminate their consequences, the municipality will bear all costs of evacuation and storage in the impound lot. If the car violates the rules while parking, the owner will have to pay everything.

The car is parked in the yard

In many regions, there is a program for getting rid of junk cars, when residents of apartment buildings can apply for old cars that have been occupying parking lots for several years in a row and are standing idle. If a car does not have license plates, it cannot be towed.

The same applies to new vehicles: in the absence of license plates and traffic violations, evacuation is not carried out.

If the vehicle is in the yard, but the traffic police or police department receives information that it may contain an explosive device or residents consider it suspicious for other reasons, employees have the right to evacuate it after a preliminary examination, even if it does not have license plates.

The absence of license plates does not prohibit the towing of a vehicle if it is parked illegally or is located in a private parking lot. Sending to the impound lot is carried out by order of the traffic police, but finding it will be problematic for the owner, therefore, in an effort to avoid liability for non-compliance with traffic rules, it is still not worth unscrewing the license plates.

Can a car without license plates be towed away?

Is it possible to evacuate a car with missing license plates from a paid parking lot?

A tow truck may have many different reasons for towing a car to an impound lot For many years, the leader among traffic violations has been an incorrectly parked car or lack of payment for parking. Those car owners who have checked the features of this procedure on their car (the most noticeable thing is a large fine) are trying to prevent repeated evacuation and try to cheat in different ways. One of these tricks is to remove or hide license plates.

Is it possible to evacuate a car with missing license plates from a paid parking lot? This is a fairly pressing issue that is being discussed on various specialized forums and websites. It requires special attention, let's take a closer look.

Why do drivers hide their license plate number?

As it happened, car enthusiasts began to hide the vehicle license plate number under films, dirt, and other types of reflective substances or remove it completely. Why this is done, here are the main answers:

When entering the paid parking area, the car passes through the parking equipment (parking lot), it reads the car number. Based on this information, the parking electronics issues an invoice to the car owner for using the parking lot. If the device is unable to read the numbers on the number, the invoice will not be presented, you can save money;
Similar devices are also installed in places where various prohibition signs are placed. In particular, the equipment is designed to read information from license plates and transmit it to the traffic police to calculate a fine for the disobedient owner;
License plates are hidden by motorists because current legislation does not allow cars without license plates to be towed. And car owners hope that the traffic police will comply with this norm, therefore, the car will be able to park where it is not supposed to with impunity.

What responsibility awaits car owners for hiding their license plate number?

As discussed above, even taking into account that the evacuation of a car without license plates is not permitted in a large number of cases, the law provides for several exceptions that do not allow one to have one hundred percent certainty. As a result, hiding or twisting the license plate is almost pointless.

For car owners who like to cheat and believe that a missing license plate will protect their vehicle from impound parking, a number of penalties are provided:

If a motorist drives with hidden license plates, he will be punished with a warning and a fine of 500 rubles;
There are more serious penalties for driving with missing signs. In this case, the owner is fined 5,000 rubles or may be deprived of his driver’s license for up to 3 months;
For finding a car in a parking lot with missing identification marks, a traffic police officer can find out how and under what conditions this happened. In almost all cases, this violation is punishable by a fine of up to 2,500 rubles.

You may notice that fines for missing license plates when parking are quite small. However, they are much more expensive than paying valet parking. If you do not want to expose yourself to such expenses, it is better not to try to save on them. In addition, being in a paid parking lot will protect your car from minor damage and the possibility of theft.

There is simply no way to hide identification marks, hoping that traffic violations will go unpunished. Your car will still be taken to the impound lot, and you will have to pay for being there and a fine of 2,500 rubles. It is much more useful and cheaper to comply with traffic rules so that you do not have to pay various fines.

Towing a car near prohibitory signs

If a car owner decides to park his vehicle with a missing license plate near the prohibitory signs “Parking is prohibited” and “Stopping is prohibited,” traffic inspectors will not spend much time wondering how to find the owner of this “no license plate.” They will simply call a tow truck, which will park the car in the impound lot.

The officer will not figure out who the owner of this car is. He is not allowed to remove the film from the identification plate or clean it from dust (according to the law, such manipulations are called “violation of privacy”), the employee will write down all the readable information, after which the vehicle will be sent to the impound area. If the driver cheated and completely dismantled the license plates, then only he himself will have problems, because Then he will have to spend a long time figuring out which parking lot his car is in. Which can take quite a few days and nerves.

Are cars that are parked without violating traffic rules taken away?

Towing of vehicles with missing license plates is carried out by technical services in special situations. For example, this can happen when parking a car under a sign that prohibits it. If you park your car in yards with no prohibitory signs, most likely nothing will happen to it.

But this rule also has some nuances. For example, a car can be towed to a parking lot if it is parked under areas where there are any communications underground - gas pipes, water supply, and sewerage pipes. The purpose of this is to enable rescue services to access necessary communications during emergencies. If there is a car there, this access simply will not exist.

Towing a car with missing license plates in a paid parking zone

If a motorist has removed license plates to refuse to pay for a parking space, having his car towed will be a fully legal method of punishment. No one can tow a car located in a paid parking lot. Nobody will do this.

They deal with such drivers differently. Information about the car is transferred to the Parking Space Administrator. This service has walking staff. Who are authorized to remove or erase extraneous items that obscure license plate information. Next comes the standard scheme - recording the car number and charging a fine to the owner.

Is it legal to tow a car with a missing license plate?

Yes, it's legal. If such a car was noticed by a traffic police officer, then the following scenarios are possible:

The employee will transfer information about the car to the law enforcement organization, which will deal with all subsequent proceedings.
The employee has the right to decide to inspect or evacuate this vehicle. As a rule, in such cases, cars are transported to an impound lot, they are issued a fine and payment for tow truck and parking services.

Video: Moscow, Luchnikov lane, paid parking and all cars without license plates

In Luchnikovo you can see an interesting sight. There are whole rows of cars without state registration. numbers. To evade paying for parking, car owners park and cheat their license plates. In this form, the parking lot simply has nothing to read from the car that has committed evasion, and the cars sit without paying a penny. Also, cars are parked at unauthorized points, for which a fine is imposed, but due to the lack of identification marks, they continue to park with impunity.

Moscow authorities are ready to fight those who like to evade paying for parking

In Moscow you can find many “invisible” streets, on which there are dozens of cars with missing license plates. Officially, it is prohibited to evacuate such cars. But the authorities are ready to make fundamental changes for such violators.

One of the proposals is to establish high fines for such violations. Such a size that the driver would first think several times whether he should rent a number. Another proposal is to use foreign experience - installing a blocker on the wheels. In this case, the car owner will be interested in paying for parking. There is also a proposal to use radio tags that will be installed directly on the car itself. Using this tag it will be possible to identify any vehicle.

Debunking myths about evacuation: are cars without license plates taken away?

MADI inspectors sent 4.5 thousand cars without license plates or with closed signs to impound lots in 2016. The pace of evacuation is going to be increased by increasing the number of inspectors who work on the streets. However, according to the law, hiding the license plate number of a parked car is not a violation; you just cannot drive such a car. Also, MADI inspectors cannot evacuate cars with removed license plates from paid parking lots. TV channel “360” found out from MADI and an independent auto lawyer what scheme the tow trucks use, what they do with camouflaged vehicles, and whether inspectors have the right to remove “fig leaves” from license plates?

Myth No. 1: Cars without license plates are not towed

Automotive expert Sergei Radko assures that drivers have every right to remove license plates while parked: “If the license plates are unreadable or, moreover, missing, then there can be no evacuation for this; the Supreme Court made the corresponding decision back in 2014 year. If we consider a reason such as the fight against terrorism, then this is also not within the jurisdiction of the Department of Transport.”

Indeed, MADI and traffic police inspectors themselves do not have the right to evacuate a car from a paid parking lot if it does not have license plates.

According to the law, inspectors have a different work scheme.

“If there is no license plate on the car, the inspector transmits the information to law enforcement agencies for further inspection of the vehicle,” said Anna Pivovarova, a specialist in the press service of the AMPP State Public Institution.

A police squad examines the car and makes a decision: to evacuate the suspicious object or inspect it on the spot, and issues an appropriate order. After which, in the best case, the tow truck still takes away the car with all that it entails in the form of “tolls” and a fine when the owner does show up.

How to find a towed car without license plates

No laws prohibit inspectors from towing a car without a license plate if it is stopped outside the permitted parking zone - under a prohibitory sign or in a pedestrian zone. This makes drawing up a protocol somewhat difficult, but such cars are taken away without hesitation and with legal justification.

“If a car is under a prohibitory sign, a MADI inspector draws up a protocol and calls a tow truck, even if the car does not have a license plate. Owners of such cars receive additional inconvenience when they try to return their cars from specialized parking lots,” the AMPP press service says.

In such cases, the car is searched only by make and color, so the search takes much more time and you will have to do a lot of running around. The owner must describe the car to the MADI call center and indicate where it was parked. They will try to identify it by model and color.

Then, most likely, they will name several addresses of impound lots where you need to find the car. The misadventures will not end there - you will have to prove that the car belongs to you by checking the VIN numbers. Then payment for evacuation and a fine for violation; for twisted license plates of a parked car, the Code of Administrative Offenses does not provide for punishment.

Myth No. 2: The inspector has no right to remove items from license plates

Inspectors have every right to free the car number from foreign objects: paper, disks, stickers. Of course, if no act of vandalism is committed, that is, nothing will have to be broken. If it is impossible to open the room without breaking into the room, evacuation is carried out according to the rules of the first point.

Fines for driving without license plates

A parked car can do a lot, but once it has started driving, unreadable or altered license plates mean a fine of up to five thousand rubles (depending on what you did with the plate). Or deprivation of rights for up to a year if you changed letters and numbers or attached someone else’s numbers on top. But in general, MADI notes that this year 30% fewer motorists began to disguise or change their license plates.