how often do officers enforce front license plate laws?

I doubt that an Oregon policeman will cite your California-registered car for not having a front plate. Some states do not issue front plates anyway (Arizona, for example.)

I've owned a few sportier cars where I haven't bothered to install the front license plate (my Ford Mustang for example) and did not have a problem when living in California.

Since you spend most of your time in Oregon, why don't you register your car in that state, especially now that CA license fees have recently been increased? (Or are the Oregon license fees greater than California fees?)

 

California does not like to give up fees. If you reside in CA and you own a car, CA will demand that you register your car there. You'd have to be an out-of-state resident to own and drive a car there without a CA registration, and even then they probably have laws concerning how many days a year you can live in CA while claiming to be a non-resident.

 

See avatar... before I swapped the BOB JR tags to this ride.

<-----Cited the first week I had the car for NFP and too dark tint on side windows...

You can see I put the plate on post ticket... and fine... after sign-off correction and appearance.

 

Isn't Oregon getting ready to tax the cars by mileage... odo readers or something...

 

MN is actually studying a system that is used with a GPS system to tell how many miles you drive between fill ups.

Bill was signed for the study last year. I would pull up to a gas station, A sensor on the pump would receive a signal from the transponder in the vehicle and add the taxed amount for miles driven.

As far as the plate deal, I've only gotten verbal warnings for not having it. I've actually left it behind the specialized plte I have on the truck now.

 

a number of years ago, mass switched from rear plate to both, but grandfathered the old ones. i drove my miata for 10 years with the front plate in the trunk. (didn't want to spoil the front end).
but once a year, i had to add it on for a sticker.

many mass residents have nh or fla plates, some legitimate, some not. gov pushes for drop a dime from neighbors on the illegal ones to get the revenue.

 

I never put front plates on my new cars in CA. After driving for 15 years without it, finally I get cited for both cars. I bite the bullet and put them on and not to spend time to go to the highway patrol to have the ticket signed off.
Cops are short on revenue nowadays and starting to cite anything they can spot.

 

o got cited for that in ny back in 88 u think i had the plate on the dash of my oldsm0bile delta 88 what a car that was smooth as a babys bottom! gee that was a long time ago

 

My step-father had an Oldsmobile. I was very very little. I thought "oldsmobile" meant that it was an old car. (Which, incidentally, it was. It was an old Oldsmobile.) Once, when he was drunk (he must have been, though I would not have known it at the time) he let me steer it. I sat on his lap and my feet were probably two feet above the pedals and I nearly hit cars on both sides of the street.

 

As red light cameras and toll-lane/bridge RFID gizmos proliferate, it'll become more important for cameras to be able to pick up both your face and your front plate, which means LEOs will be cutting folks less slack than ever on front plates and windshield tint.

 

Yay for living in the panopticon!

In Chicago I got a ticket for no plate while the car was parking in front of my house. I've been making extensive use of zipties ever since.

 

I drove a Jeep for about a year with no plate at all. The mounting bracket rusted off, and I had good intentions about fixing it. My natural tendency toward procrastination turned the days into weeks. Eventually it became sort of a game where I wondered how long I could go without getting pulled over.

As luck would have it, my wife was driving when the state police pulled her over on her way to work. It turns out she had also slipped up and let her driver's license expire. Her building principal drove by while she was pulled over, so she got teased about it at work.

I put the plate back on the next day.

Tom

 

The City of Los Angeles is broke, so the cops are out stopping any car with minor infractions like brake or turn signal lamp out, including front license plates. Three of my friends already got ticketed for it on their sports cars. Besides, not having a front license plate means one more thing that will get you stopped other than your speeding, or running a stop sign. There's a zero tolerance thing going on now.

 

Question: What's the definition of a "minor infraction"?

Answer: Any crime that I commit.

When I was actively breaking the law as nonviolent civil disobedience, and admitting what I had done, and accepting without complaint my jail, and (in one case) prison sentences for it, a lot of people were telling me that it is wrong to break the law, any law, merely because it is the law. Those same people of course always had excuses for their own "minor infractions" and reasons why they should not have to pay the price of their own law breaking.

We had a saying in prison (and jail): Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. If the law requires a front license plate, and you don't like that, lobby for a change in the law. Until then either obey the law or accept the consequences. Jail and prison are really not all that bad. They are not fun by any means, but every middle-class person should spend some time there just to understand what a totally sick mess our so-called "justice system" is.

 

I disagree.

No-one should have to be put behind bars unless they have committed an act so deserving of separating them from society that we are left no option but to incarserate them and separtate them from interating with our society.

Except for some lawyers judges and politicians that is... they should have a seat in there because they made it what it is today... the average middle-class person did not have anything to do with that.

 

for me?? never. have been driving my Zenn around since Nov 2007 and have never been pulled over for anything. (did get a "photo" ticket for rolling a red light) but only did it because i had "free" right turn (traffic to my right had "left turn only" light on) but only did it to preserve my momentum which would reduce the amount of charge needed to recharge...

since the Zenn does not have a front plate mount, i am wondering if they are letting me slide since the Zenn is not a "real" car. (for over a year when i first got the car, i had people ask me that question)

 

New law in California this year, turning right on red must stop first on the limit line for a full 6 seconds, and stop sigh for a full 3 seconds. This defines how long you have to stop.

 

6 seconds??? wow. light be green by then!!

 

I suspect we're not all that far apart on this issue. I said that middle-class folks should spend some time in prison. To see how we treat the poor. When you get right down to it, with very few exceptions, the only "crime" for which we imprison people is the "crime" of being poor.

Dave, a lot of the folks above are in CA, where front plates are required. Here in WA the front plate seems to be required only on cars that have a front license plate bracket. Many cars do not, and never seem to get pulled over. My insurance agent says that in many years of driving without a front plate (on a car without a front bracket) she has never been stopped. My Porsche does not have a front bracket. Motorcycles in WA do not even get issued a front plate.