Parnelli Joneser

Jim H,
I'm a native Oregonian and hate front plates as much as anyone else, but realize the fine is up over $500 for that infraction. Don't go to Corvallis or Benton County, you'll get drilled for sure. I folded the bottom of mine over just under the letters and placed the stickers on top to gain a little. I'll post a pic later...

MBMB

What's a flappy license plate? I'm picturing a license plate mount hinged and spring-loaded so that at highway speed the license plate blows back to a horizontal position (edge-on to the wind). Around town the cops wouldn't notice anything unusual.

Joe F

Jim,

Lake Oswego is deadly area for those with no front plate. Watch yourself.

JF

Jim_H

I fear I have totally jinxed myself

Parnelli Joneser

MBMB,
yes, you're spot on about a "flappy plate". On an old truck I once used small chains to allow the plate to swing up when going over 35-40mph, worked well. I've also seen plates mounted on a piece of old rubber like from an industrial belt. It appeared more rigid(around town) than my chains and would still swing up at speed. The front of the 928 somewhat limits one's choices for mounting, because I' m thinking you don't want to have a plate swinging up against the grill, eh?

PorKen

MBMB - just an aluminum hinge; swings back over 5MPH:



Parnelli Joneser,

I like the industrial belt notion.

I'm thinking of mounting the plate flush with the front bumper, but with the lower 3/4 in the grill area, angled down. I might still have it swing farther back at high speed.

SharkSkin

I find this all very interesting.... to avoid LIDAR you want a plate that absorbs IR or diffuses it. There are places that sell reflective paint to defeat traffic cameras that use flash by overexposing the plate. Seems like two conflicting solutions to essentially the same problem.

I worked with a guy who as an ubergeek was trying to help the city of Campbell make their photo radar system work, and he related some examples of the problems they were trying to solve. He looked at many, many pictures. He was unable to help them but it was only a matter of time before greedy governments introduced legislation to get around the issues. For example, in many locales they don't need a pic of your face anymore... they ticket the R.O. unless someone else was driving and you finger them. Anyway, here's a list:

1) Obscure: Coffee mug on the dash, fuzzy dice, wide-brimmed hats... these accounted for most of the unactionable "events" under the rules in effect at the time.

2) No front plate(thus the invention of systems that capture the rear plate)

3) This is where it gets interesting.... plates that had been washed too much.

Huh? Washed too much? Well... here's how it was related to me. City transit busses around here regularly speed, and go through traffic lights that are "a little pink" quite frequently. Well, the funny thing was, on all of the pictures of busses, the plates were completely illegible! Turns out that those hulks go through some pretty aggressive power washers, and they go through them all the time. So the paint eventually gets scrubbed off of the plate, starting with the high spots which are a contrasting color. No contrast, no legible photo.

So he looked into it further, and at the time(~10 years ago) there were laws aplenty on the books stating that you could not cover your plate with paint, tape, or any kind of obstruction, clear plastic, paint or otherwise. In fact, the law forbade you from touching up worn paint! Nowhere in the vehicle code was there any prohibition on excessive scrubbing of your license plates!

So you could scrub and scrub until it was all the same color.... and there was not a thing they could do about it! DMV wouldn't even replace the plate unless it was mangled. I imagine it might be possible in some states to scrub enough to remove the reflective particles, so the plate is just the base color... but your car has other reflectors on it. No guarantees.

So, if someone more up-to-date on the laws regarding plates sees anything wrong with this approach, please speak up! I don't know how many of you would be OK with a cruddy-looking scrubbed off plate on your nice, shiny shark, but what the hey. Do what you will with the info.

PorKen

SharkSkin,

Interesting, I'm thinking... sandblaster?

I've read some reviews of laser license covers; some actually improved the effective range of the LIDAR (=bad)!

I understand that some places, for example Vancouver, BC, the car owner is responsible for a photo radar ticket regardless of who's driving.

Parnelli Joneser

OK,
Finally took the time to upload a pic to show my shorter plate.



The month/year normally go below the numbers. I folded back over an inch of the plate but none's the wiser, as it were. so far.
As for blasting the color and its reflective properties off, I'd bet a matte finish clear coat of some sort might help too. Might get some attention with dull grey paintless plates. And I like to avoid attention whenever possible, law enforcement attention, anyway.

SharkSkin

I don't think sandblasting would cut it, unless you lived in the desert and the whole front of the car was blasted. I was thinking more of one of those abrasive-backed kitchen sponges. You could just say that's what you've had to do to get bugs off.

sharkmeister85

Porken,
For the record, photo radar was scrapped in B.C. a couple of years ago by a new government. It was a great campaign promise that I'm sure swung more than a few votes! You are correct in that the registered owner got the ticket. Photos were taken from the rear so the driver could not be identified. The courts were okay with that, since they felt taking a picture of the driver was a privacy violation!
Glenn

PorKen

This is what I've done with the front:



I had finally pieced together some nice fog lights too - oh well. I moved the hinge to the center, with small screws screwed into the cover at the small lip under the nose.

The only problem area I see remaining is the the white slab where the plate normally mounts.