Is there a law in Washington State that allows the police to run your plates and pull

[lovelife000123]

Washington

 

[CdwJava]

The police can run most any plate they want. If they run the plate and find some reason to pull the vehicle over, so be it.

The courts have ruled over and over that there is no expectation of privacy for your license plates, so you take your chance if you drive unregistered, uninsured, unlicensed, wanted, or whatever else. As long as the officer is not trolling for dates and the actionis for a lawful purpose, then your plates and even your name (if the officer knows you) are fair game.

 

[racer72]

As my not so bright son in law found out, there is no law in Washington that says they can't. Technically, license plates are property of the state, driver's just pay for the privilege of having them on their vehicles so they can legally operate them on the highways and byways of the state.

 

[FlyingRon]

It doesn't matter who owns the plates. The license plates were on display in a public space. Not only is it not illegal to look them up, it's called good police work. You have no expectation of privacy here.

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

To continue the plethora of info...

In OH, the state patrol sits on the side of the roads running plates all the time. Just like pilots, they get a hash mark on their front plate for each stolen car they recover. The program is called ACES.

 

[FlyingRon]

Around here more and more police (and other vehicles such as sweep sweepers) are outfitted with automatic cameras that scan and look up plates to find stolen/wanted vehicles, parking scofflaws to be towed/booted, etc... It isn't even required that some otherwise unoccupied cop look up numbers on a hot sheet or type them into the computer any more.