I live in a State that requires a front plate. Yuck. Gives most cars a “Buck Tooth” effect. Bought new Prime and took off front plate/mount. Was left with 2 holes. (Again, Yuck). If you have same feelings on drill holes in your grille, I have an easy solution. Engine cover body pins...just pop center piece out and push in drill hole on grille. Visually smoother....
Doesn't Oregon require front plates? I got a fix-it ticket for not having a front plate a few years ago. I bought a car from a couple who moved here from Florida (where I guess they don't have front plates). There wasn't a place to attach a front plate on the front bumper, so they just threw it away. I decided to see how long I could get away without it. The answer was about a year and a half before I got the ticket. The cop told me that they are increasingly stringent about enforcing the requirement for front plates because they are important to a lot of newer technology including red light cameras, the cameras on toll roads, the cameras at border crossings, dash cameras (if you don't get someone's plate number, a video isn't always going to be useful), and especially scanners that some cop cars now have that scan license plates (front or rear) when they pass them on the road (parked or moving) and runs them for registration violations and warrants for the drivers. It was this last use that he said he thought was the real reason for increased enforcement. I think they're also a good target for the laser speed guns cops use.
I’ve driven in Portland for over 25 years in several different cars without a front license plate, I guess I’ve been lucky. The only time I will take out my front plate is when I park in downtown Portland on one of the streets, but even then I just mounted on my dash.
You can get plugs purpose-built for this application: Bumper Plugs Legally? If you're supposed to have a plate on, put the plate on.
I bought those several years ago for my Corolla, it was nice because you could actually order it with the exact color paint… Since my prime is black I thought this would be a good substitute. I guess if I finally do get a ticket for not having a front plate, and then submit to the law…
If you can get away with it that long, and you really don't want it on your car, I guess it's worth it. But I would think putting the tag on the dash would just be a beacon to cops saying "I don't have this attached to my car!" Why put it on your dash? That can't meet any requirements for having it, can it?
Pros and cons of whether you'll catch a fine aside, I'm not a big fan of license plate shenanigans like this, put it in the same category as the clever clogs who put clear covers over their plates, to defeat cameras. If for example I had someone tailgating the heck out of me, I'd like to be able to read their plate.
Now that I have a front & rear dash cam, I'd certainly like them to be there, too. The thing that really gets to me is the people who put plastic covers on their front and rear tags, especially if those covers are tinted dark or they let them get completely dirty and yellowed to where you cannot see the plate. If I was a cop, I would delight in pulling those people over.
This is my favorite thing regarding license plates. I saw this a few of years ago. What I really loved about it was that it was already two months expired. You know things are bad when even your fake license plate has expired!
It's 2022. I'm surprised no one has come up with a "bracket" that spans the bumper between those two large trapezoidal "holes". The bracket ideally would have protruding pieces on each end of the bracket's backside that are the shape of those trapezoidal holes so that you simply pop the bracket in and attach a front plate if needed. The pieces that go into the holes would have to be epoxied in to stay in or 3M double-sided taped into the holes. Or they could be slightly larger than the holes and be made of silicone so you could just squeeze them in. So something like this: but instead of being attached with screws, it would simply be pushed into the bumper's holes.
Well we may end up with a used 21 PP with a front plate frame, and FL only issues you ONE plate for the rear, so I might be filling the holes if my wife doesn't want some fake plate on the front. It seems to me this would be the perfect excuse to drop a couple of LEDs in the holes...
