ShaneM

Well was cruising home with eh kids form school yesterday and the highway patrol pulled me over. He gave me a warning for no front plate and started in on me about the black out covers. I told him that you could clearly see the light through the covers and he smirked and said "turn on your lights" so i did.

He stood behind the car and made me hit the brakes a few times and turn on the turn signals. He was back there a good five minutes and came back and said your lights are fine. He really wanted to bust me for those i could see it in his eyes. He did warn me about the slightly tinted cover over the rear plate though so i took that off. anyway, i'm not drilling the bumper for a front plate so i plan to jut get some little suction cups and stick it to the windshield so i can take it off at shows. I'm not a big fan of how those hide away plate things look. Good to know the black out stuff is fine here in Texas. I would have hated to take that off.

Oh and i ordered myself up a ton of upr billet under hood stuff today. i called them up and the dude quoted me $80 more than the website for the order. I was like WTF dude, pass. He called me back this morning and gave my like 15% off the entire order. Moral of the story is if you want upr stuff call them, they will discount you pretty significantly.

Wil

What type of black out lights do you have on front? I love your car BTW, you make me regreting going the grabber blue and white route.

m0nkeydump

What do you mean by tinted cover over the license plate?

Also, he didn't give you crap about the tinted headlights?

ShaneM

The rear plate had a plastic cover over it that was slightly tinted black, he said i had to remove that. Teh headlights are stangmods blackout tints. Apperently they don't care about the heads in Texas so long as you can see teh blinkers and you can clearly see them. The pics make the front look a lot darker than it actually is.

Tex-can

What did he tell you about the rear plate cover? Was it on of those ones from autozone? Reasone I'm asking is I have them on both plates. You can clearly see the plate with no problem. I don't have a frame on them either.

ShaneM

yeah that is the one, it has a than black rim with a slightly tinted plastic cover to keep bugs off it. He said it cuts down on reflectivity. He was just pissed because i didn't just roll over when he started in about the lights. He really wanted me to take them off until I pressed him about it and asked what exactly about them was illegal. that was when he said they were fine and then came back and said i had to remove the plate cover. it was not obscuring the thing at all.

bluovalguy

As frustrating as it may be, he still may have cut you a break. I dont know what TX laws are, but here you cant any ANYTHING covering your plate, even clear plastic. TX could have a similar statute.

As for the tails, each state is different, but for Texas I believe you have to be able to see your tails come on from 1000' away. Thats pretty subjective and hard to get an exact measurement on, so the cop has leeway on that one. And he is correct about the tails being required to have a certain amount of reflectivity. That is why so many states still ticket for the red tape over broken tails, the tape doesn't reflect.

bluovalguy

Oh, and on the front plate, generally if you are required to have a plate on the front, then statutes usually say that the plate must be on the foward most part of the car. Putting it in your windshield may only draw more attention to you. Not all cars are required to have front plates, so a cop may not give that a second look if he is coming at you from the front. But very few, if any, states allow a plate in the front windsheild, so that will draw attention everytime.

Rejeme

Those Texas DPS don't mess around. I too have been pulled over for nothing more than no front plate in another car. I just put mine on with the factory bracket the day I got the plates in order to avoid anything. Another thing you can't have, or you're at least not supposed to, is any type of license plate frame. One good thing about my car is that the local PD has a Freeway Patrol S197 that looks alot like mine, so people tend to move out my way on the freeway.

justin_burke05

your lucky you didnt get the ticket. i tried to go for about 2 months with no plate before the damn cops finally nailed my wife with a 118 dollar ticket! put the plate on the next day and took it over to the courthouse to hopefully have it dropped... no deal