The ruling on Tuesday said that license plates should show the combination of letters and numbers, the visitpa.com URL, and the paint along the edges, according to a court document.
Some critics are concerned that such a ruling could lead to bias as police officers are given a pretext to stop drivers.
“At a point in time when we want to do away with pretextual stops, this decision specifically opens the door to every person being stopped at the will of police for investigation,” said Philadelphia attorney S. Philip Steinberg, according to NPR affiliate WHYY.
Sara Rose, the deputy legal director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, argued that the court’s ruling could give police more reasons to conduct traffic stops by profiling drivers based on the frames placed on their cars by dealerships, for example, among other aspects.
“I think a reasonable interpretation of the statute is that it’s identifying information, like the purpose of the license plate,” said Rose, according to WGAL. “This could give police carte blanche to pull over any car that has any kind of covering, any kind of frame around a license plate, which, you know, most cars do,” Rose added.
The court cited a provision in Pennsylvania’s vehicle code that says it is “unlawful” for drivers to have their license plates so dirty that their alphanumerical registration is covered up. The plates also can’t be obscured in a way that a red-light camera or toll collection system can’t read it, or “is otherwise illegible at a reasonable distance or is obscured in any manner.”
The ruling came after an incident in April of 2021 when a police officer pulled over a car because part of its license plate was covered. The obstructed part included the strip at the bottom of the plate that shows the official state tourism office’s website, visitpa.com.
The officer who stopped the car noticed that Derrick Ruffin, the front-seat passenger, was making “furtive movements,” in an apparent attempt to hide something, so the officer carried out a “protective sweep” of the passenger seat.
The officer found ammunition, marijuana and an unlicensed loaded revolver with Ruffin, according to the court document. The car was also not registered and the driver didn’t have a license.
Later last year, a lower court argued that the officer lacked a reason to stop the car since the state’s vehicle code only prohibits the obstruction of the license plate number and issuing authority. They found that there is no violation in covering the state’s tourism website.
Newsweek reached out to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for comment.
