I have a long commute each day to work and without fail I generally see 3 or more vehicles driving down the road with no tags, apparently legal. I say legal because these vehicles ALWAYS have a vanity plate where the state tag would normally be.
Just this morning I saw another a late model truck driving down the road with a shiny mirrored John Deere vanity tag on back.
Each time this has happened lately, I have looked VERY close for a 30 day tag, a dealer magnetic tag or a tag on front and have never seen one.
I have noticed that about 75% of the time, it is a truck and I do live in a rural area, perhaps farmers get some exemption?
When you get a vanity tag, you pay extra usually & you get a regular one also but everywhere I have been so far, they do not have to display the normal one. The cops can run a vanity plate just as well as a regular one.
Other places, YMMV
No cite or anything.
Also, in AR. you have 30 days to get a regular tag and the temp tags get lost all the time. You can get pulled over but with the paperwork, you will usually just get a warning.
I don’t think the OP is talking about DMV issued vanity tags, but the type of novelty tags in the shape of license plates that you can buy at truck stops and other such places.
I know that there are some states that only require rear license plates, leaving the owner free to put other tags on the front, but AFAIK every state requires at least one official license plate on any vehicle on a public road.
I have also seen what the OP is describing, and wonder how they get away with it.
In my state, Missouri, trucks licenced at 18,000 pounds or greater are only issued a front plate. That allows all sorts of John Deere or other plates to be put on the rear. If the police see a pickup with no rear plate they just assume it has one on the front.
I find it completely counter-intuitive to issue a front plate, but no back plate. If the cops are following someone, don’t they want to know the plate number? I understand a back-plate-only law, but not a front-plate-only law.
Because a semi is likely to be pulling a trailer most of the time.
FWIW, in the DC area I sometimes see cars registered in Maryland with a piece of cardboard in the back window which reads, “STOLEN PLATE ABC1234” or whatever. It is becoming less common. It is very rare to see a car or truck without a plate, so I’m guessing the OP may be observing a local phenomenon.
I do live in MO but none of the vehicles I have noted are that large.
Also just to clarify, by vanity plates I do not mean legal/state issued but in fact the ones that many people have on the front of their car with sports teams and other logos.
I should also add that in EVERY case where I have inspected, the vehicle in question had NO state tags (front or rear) or a 30 day. Missouri is also a dual tag state (front and back).
The states that require a front plate only for certain (non-semi) trucks do so because rear plates get damaged to the point of being illegible on the backs of those trucks.
Just my guess but I believe that this setup is in effect because many of the larger trucks are used to tow trailers, fifth wheel, agricultural trailers and such and have identifying tags on the backs of those.
Are you SURE those aren’t legal state tags? Most states raise revenue by issuing totally legal plates that bear sports teams logos and themed images. You pay an extra fee; they often look nothing like the “standard” state tag. These are some that you choose from in my state:
Whereas the standard tag is gold, all the logo plates have a white background. While NY’s specialty plates actually have common design elements with the standard plates, many states’ specialty plates do not (see Florida’s, for example)
Here in RI it’s not necessary to have the tags on your car under various circumstances, but you’re likely to get a ticket and would have to go to court to get the charges dismissed.
New Mexico is a rear-plate-only state, unless that’s changed since I lived there. But in Albuquerque, I had a friend who had an old VW bus and used to live in Colorado. He had his requisite New Mexico plate on the back, but kept his Colorado plate on the front. I asked him how he could get away with that, and he said the cops could only see one end at a time.
I am absolutely positive… this morning for example this late model F250 had a black mirrored plate with a single green John Deere logo on it, most definitely not offical state tags.
I often see KU Jayhawks, MU Tigers even saw one with the playboy symbol.
In Kansas, a rear-plate only state, I too see pickups without legal rear plates, often as the OP states, John Deer, KSU or even Confederate flag plate. Like the OP says, no, these are not state issued vanity plates. And there is no exemption for rear plates for farmers in this state. (I own an old Ford F-500 licensed for farm use.)
Oh, I know the things you’re talking about. I’ve seen them on farm trucks, but, yeah, if I saw people driving on the road with them instead of proper rear plates I’d definitely go, WTF? Strange.
Never got a satisfactory answer to this and now (since its on my mind obviously) I see them all the time, literally a half dozen a day if I am looking.
They are almost always trucks, but not big rigs, I am talking personal 1/2 ton type passenger trucks. Saw one with a Harley Davidson vanity plate and another with a “Roll Tide” plate.
I am going to stalk one this week since no one seems to know what the deal is.