GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Bob McNally is a field-based sales representative from Hudsonville, and during the pandemic he didn’t drive too much for work, he said. However, lately, work has been picking up, and he’s driving about 500 miles a week all over West Michigan.
Now that he's out on the roads more often, he said he’s seeing something that’s catching his attention: cars with no license plates.
“Just about a week or so ago, I saw two cars in the same day without license plate and no registration paper at all in the back window,” McNally said during an interview with FOX 17 Friday morning. “And then, just this week, a couple more, and I was in Benton Harbor the other day; two days ago, a car went by, no license plate at all.”
FOX 17 stood at the intersection of Fulton and Division for 45 minutes and got video of 11 vehicles with no license plates. They also saw a few more on Alpine in Walker.
McNally said in each of the cases he’s seen, the vehicles have been older sedans. He believes this could be a problem for law enforcement.
“We’re past the point of 'it's OK to drive around without a license plate because of COVID.' We’re past that point,” said Sgt. Dan Adams during an interview with FOX 17 on Friday afternoon. “All registration, proof of insurances, all those offenses are back available to be enforced and we will be. So, if you let your driver's license lapse or your registration on your vehicles lapse because of COVID, and not being to get to the Secretary of State, it’s understandable.”
Sergeant Adams said they understood why some people didn’t go during the pandemic, considering the SOS relaxed the rules due to the virus. However, they’re open now and he encourages everyone to get registered as soon as possible.
“As we’re getting vaccinated and moving into hopefully a recovery from COVID, we’re going to be out there,” said Sergeant Adams. “The weather’s getting nice. People are going out driving around, and we’ll be out there enforcing those kinds of things. So, people need to talk about getting their paperwork in order.”
