Opinion of requiring front license plates on cars

[Indy Texas]

For reference, the states in red require license plates on both the front and rear of the car. The states in blue require license plates on the back of the car only. The two states in pink (NV and MA) have varying policies depending on the type and age of the vehicle.


I for one am irritated that not a single Tea Partier in Texas has attempted to get rid of our front license plate requirement.

[Leftbehind]

If you accept the need for them on the back of a vehicle, I don't really understand the issue with them being on the front as well?

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Superfluous.

[Goldwater]

I couldn't care less.

[Leftbehind]

Because having two is redundant. Would you make employees at a store wear one nametag on their chest and another on their back?

Yes, if they travelled at upwards of 30mph. Number plates and name tags are a really baffling comparison, essentially requiring you to think of your interactions between the two as somehow similar.

You're needlessly making people drill holes in their front bumper and messing with the appearance the car's designer intended it to have.

I can't picture a car without the front number plate, and I imagine I'm far from alone in that. Although with aesthetics I can now at least see some reasoning/logic behind the opposition.

If you're viewing a moving vehicle from the front, it's likely moving too fast for you to take down its license number anyway; whereas if you're sitting behind a car in traffic or following it, you can easily get its plate number.

Sorry, but you can't escape the fact that a front number plate will allow the viewer a better chance of seeing the number plate, if only to see a few letters before they go past and quickly turning around to catch the rest.

[Dave from Michigan]

Horrible policy I had no idea this was required in so many states I'm glad Michigan doesn't require this. Emissions tests are also stupid and should be abolished, Michigan does not have this either but a lot of states do.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Horrible policy I had no idea this was required in so many states I'm glad Michigan doesn't require this. Emissions tests are also stupid and should be abolished, Michigan does not have this either but a lot of states do.

How do you not have emissions tests? What do you do if someone's driving around with their car spewing black smoke from a car with a catalytic converter that hasn't worked in years?

You don't tailgate him.

South Carolina doesn't have emissions tests, or for that matter any sort of car inspection.  We used to have an annual inspection, but the fee was set by law at $3 so mechanics began to leave the program because it cost them more in lost time to do the inspection than they could make.  Rather than raise the fee or even let the market decide how much an inspection would cost, the inspection requirement was ended in 1996 IIRC, tho I may be off by a year or two.

[opebo]

It is vital in identifying your attacker if he comes from your rear.

[dead0man]

HP obviously.  Most cars it doesn't really matter, but it totally screws up the beauty of other vehicles.  Cars, at least some of them, are art.  Would you put a yellow sticky on Mona Lisa's nose?  Of course not, and you shouldn't put a shiny rectangle on the nose of a first gen RX7 either....or any of the three gens (teh first picture I found that worked well had all three together)


Now I've never done this, but I've heard of people that just don't put the front plate on and talk there way out of it ("the front plate holder is on order officer")/bite the ticket when it comes up occasionally.  It's usually not very much, if anything (sometimes they just want you to show that it has one).

[rejectamenta]

Horrible policy I had no idea this was required in so many states I'm glad Michigan doesn't require this. Emissions tests are also stupid and should be abolished, Michigan does not have this either but a lot of states do.

Agreed, emissions tests are the devil. Fortunately you can usually pay off a mechanic to pass your car for a year around these parts if you flunk the official inspection. A frustrating added expense, but at least there's a workaround.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Horrible policy I had no idea this was required in so many states I'm glad Michigan doesn't require this. Emissions tests are also stupid and should be abolished, Michigan does not have this either but a lot of states do.

Agreed, emissions tests are the devil. Fortunately you can usually pay off a mechanic to pass your car for a year around these parts if you flunk the official inspection. A frustrating added expense, but at least there's a workaround.

Or you could just fix the car.  That's the reason for having the emissions tests in the first place after all.  I don't know of anyplace that has the tests that doesn't need them done to combat air pollution.

[rejectamenta]

Horrible policy I had no idea this was required in so many states I'm glad Michigan doesn't require this. Emissions tests are also stupid and should be abolished, Michigan does not have this either but a lot of states do.

Agreed, emissions tests are the devil. Fortunately you can usually pay off a mechanic to pass your car for a year around these parts if you flunk the official inspection. A frustrating added expense, but at least there's a workaround.

Or you could just fix the car.  That's the reason for having the emissions tests in the first place after all.  I don't know of anyplace that has the tests that doesn't need them done to combat air pollution.

But it's such a pain in the ass.

[Hatman 🍁]

I support it, it's not as important as the rear, but still helps. Here in Ottawa, we can always tell if a car is from Quebec if it lacks a front license plate. Ontario has them, but not Quebec.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I always wondered why cars in Wisconsin moronically had 2 license plates...

[H. Ross Peron]

I couldn't care less.

[Tender Branson]

So what do you need to do if you drive for example from AZ to CA ? Do you have to get a second plate and put it on ?

[Maxwell]

Useless

[Hatman 🍁]

So what do you need to do if you drive for example from AZ to CA ? Do you have to get a second plate and put it on ?

I would imagine nothing. It's only for in-state cars. As I explained- here in Ottawa you always know if a car is from Quebec if it lacks a front plate.

[Tender Branson]

So what do you need to do if you drive for example from AZ to CA ? Do you have to get a second plate and put it on ?

I would imagine nothing. It's only for in-state cars. As I explained- here in Ottawa you always know if a car is from Quebec if it lacks a front plate.

OK.

[Tender Branson]

I don't really care about it, but I think 2 plates are still better:

Here in AUT, we always had to put up 2 plates on cars, but when passing a radar box it was only allowed that the radar box flashes the rear plate, because of security concerns (the flash might blind you and cause an accident).

That was changed in 2010, because German tourists who speeded in Austria and passed a radar box could not be fined.

Why ?

Because under Austrian law, the holder of the car gets punished no matter who drives the car, while under German law only the driver gets punished, no matter who's the holder.

So, the Austrian authorities had always a problem: If a German driver got flashed from the rear, only the back license plate was visible, but not the driver's face. Which led to many cases where the German touris said for example "their wife was driving" and the driver was not fined.

Starting in 2010, Austrian radars were then upgraded to flash the back and the front plates in a way that the driver was not blinded but also in a way where the drivers face was clearly visible. At the same time, the EU introduced a law which mandated that EU authorities in every country can fine traffic offenders from every other country. So, no excuses anymore for the German speeding tourists. They now get a clear picture with their faces on it sent to them by the Austrian authorities with a hefty fine next to it ...

Also: Austrian police officers using radar-thingies will usually always measure your speed from the front plate when you pass them.

[rejectamenta]

I have a lot of family and friends in Pennsylvania and Delaware and I've never heard of them being stopped and cited here in NJ for lacking a front plate. A cursory googling suggests that it happens sometimes, but ultimately you aren't bound to another state's rules unless you actually reside there and have your car registered elsewhere. So for instance a resident of Arizona isn't bound to California's rules, but if he or she decides to move to California without re-registering their tags (happens, one of my friends kept Maryland plates up here for way longer than he was supposed to, hahah) they are.

[Torie]

Ah, the matter of front license plates. That brings up a little story of mine, but no doubt folks are tired of those for a moment. Another time perhaps.

[Franknburger]

What a strange question! I have been to some 60 countries around the world on four continents, and there is not one of them without front number plates - except for some US states, of course. This also implies that most car designers with a market outside the US anticipate a front number plate in their design...

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I was in OH over the weekend and thought about this question too........horrible idea in that it costs the consumer more money, but I guess for law enforcement reasons it makes sense to see the plate number no matter which direction the car is facing.