Iowa license plate frames

[decappastubbie]

I just read that the Iowa supreme court has ruled that all parts of the Iowa license plates be visible to the police. A license plate frame that covers up the county name would be ground for being stopped and a possible citation.

Iowa drivers should check this out.

[Green 53]

That already is in effect in Arizona.

Denny L

[fpstude]

It seems like the folks that design the graphics on state license plates never leave their work stations. At least 80% of the cars seen on highways and streets have license plate frames that cover the area between the lower mounting holes or the upper mounting holes. Here in California license plates have the DMV web site painted on the bottom of the plate between the mounting holes, seen by almost no one. Although why the state thinks this information is important is beyond me. A minimum amount of planning during the design process would eliminate this problem.

[57pack]

Here in NJ the Police are using those license plate scanners.
I was stopped here in town because the plate scanner couldn't
read my plate.
Reason being my plates were issued to me in 1970.
They are of the old design and non reflecterized. Scanner wasn't programmed
to recognize the older plates. In this case my license plates were older
than the policeman who stopped me.
Someday probably in the near future license plates will
have chips with all information available in a instance.
Maybe these scanners are the reason DMV's are prohibiting the
license plate frames?

[glen]

While it is true, Arizona has the same type of law, as Denny mentioned, the police, state highway patrol, sheriff's or other agencies can not just pull us over for that single infraction. However, if they pull us over, for another issue, and see the frame is blocking a clear view of "Arizona" at the top of the license plate, then they can write us up, for a secondary infraction.

After passing the initial law, the legislature (with a lot of consternation) realized the law enforcement bureau's had better things to do, than to be looking for license plate infractions

[Green 53]

They made a big issue with it when the law first began. $135 fine. I think they then dropped it to about $30 and now as Glen mentioned they have to stop you for another violation before issuing a ticket.

Denny L

[Skip Lackie]

The 1964-65 New York license plates had New York on the top, and World's Fair on the bottom. A NY lawyer objected to carrying an advertisement for a private corporation and covered the World's Fair lettering with black tape. As expected, he got a ticket, and as expected, appealed. He eventually ended up in the NY Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor. Of course, that was several years after the state had gotten new plates without the World's Fair label.

That said, I'm not sure that any court would rule the same way if the secondary label was the county name or an official website address. In any case, driving around with an ad for a car dealer on a plate frame strikes me as just as bad.

[JRoberts]

A similar law has been in effect in North Carolina for quite a while.