California driver pulled over for bizarre license plate then police uncover the unbelievable truth
Published on Oct 15, 2025 at 9:29 AM (UTC+4)
by Claire Reid
Last updated on Oct 15, 2025 at 9:29 AM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Claire Reid
California Highway Patrol officers spotted a bizarre-looking license plate out on the road and pulled the driver over to uncover the unusual reason.
In the US, motorists must have valid license plates on their vehicles while driving.
It’s an offense to obscure or alter your plates.
Which one man in California recently discovered first-hand.
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The driver’s license plate looked ‘unusual’ to cops who then found out why
Occasionally, a car’s license plate can cause a real headache for its owner, just ask this lady who ended up with a bunch of fines after her plate was turned into a novelty plate available online, or this motorist who faced a similar situation thanks to her Star Trek plates.
However, a motorist in Merced, California, had no one else to blame when he was recently pulled over by California Highway Patrol officers.
In a post on social media, the force explained that the cops had spotted the plates and immediately became suspicious as it looked ‘unusual’.
They decided to pull over the driver to get to the bottom of the issue, and that’s when the driver revealed that he had lost his original plates, so he had decided to draw himself a new one.
To be fair to him, he did a decent job of it, but not quite good enough to get past the eagle eyes of the CHP.
Sharing a snap of the car and its DIY plates, California Highway Patrol urged others to follow proper procedures if they lost their plates.
“While we appreciate the effort to stay compliant after losing the original plate, California law requires vehicles to display state-issued plates only,” the force wrote.
“If your plates are lost or stolen, you can easily get replacements through the DMV instead of breaking out the art supplies.”
Fair enough.
California is set to run out of plate numbers soon, here’s what happens next
While license plate numbers may seem endless, they aren’t.
In California, a seven-character setup was launched in 1980 with 1AAA000.
But by the end of this year, the DMV expects to hit the final code in that sequence: 9ZZZ999.
But fear not – there’s a plan in place.
Once 9ZZZ999 has been issued, the DMV in California will flip to a new sequence – 000AAA0 – a reset that unlocks millions more combos and should keep plates flowing for the next hundred years.
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Claire Reid is a journalist who hails from the UK but is now living in New Zealand. She began her career after graduating with a degree in Journalism from Liverpool John Moore’s University and has more than a decade of experience, writing for both local newspapers and national news sites. Claire covers a wide variety of topics, with a special focus on cars, technology, planes, cryptocurrency, and luxury.
