I took a photo of a [bloody huge] American car in a car park on my very non-American Island. I just looked at the picture now and noticed that it has two different number plates. One official and one for show. Is this legal?
I expect it is. But Any excuse to ask a question in GQ and I take it (sorry)
You tell us. What’s the law in your country?
I’m not sure if I can fully discern what the license plates are, but it looks like one of them is European and one is American. Right?
sleeping correct (one is UK and one is American)
Duckster I didn’t think of that. So, for the sake of making this a useful thread - what is the law on different number plates in your country?
As long as the required plate is in place, I doubt there’s any problem.
This is not an area covered by U.S. federal law, rather each state has its own regulations. Some states require two plates, front and rear, while others require only one, always in the rear. It’s not uncommon to see other “fun” plates displayed, particularly on the front in states that only require one plate. These plates typically show a driver’s nickname, or a club affiliation, or some design or logo, e.g. a flag, and are obviously not in any way trying to mimic any official plate. As long as the legal plates are in a proper position, I’m not aware of any restriction on having display plates (but I don’t the law in all 50 states).
It is a violation, as far as I know, to register a vehicle in more than one state. As far as registering the car in more than one country, I don’t know. I doubt the U.S. state could do anything about it, not being on equal par with a national government. Whether non-U.S. governments have rules about this is an interesting question. And of course, we don’t know if the car in the photo is registered with two entities or indeed just has the other plate for show.
As Gary T said. My province, Ontario, requires a plate on front and back. However, a neighbouring province, Quebec, required only one Quevec plate on the rear. The front is free to be used with a non-official decorative plate, or not.
As a result, in Toronto, I occaisionally see a car approach wearing a European plate of some sort, then it passes, and I see a Quebec plate at the rear.
I’m not sure sure what would happen if the owner of a Quebec-registered car put an Ontario plate on the front and then drove in Ontario…
Well, in New Mexico (which requires the current license plate and registration sticker be displayed on only the rear of the vehicle), you can display an expired “vanity” plate (like the Florida one in your photo) on the front of your car if you so desire:
We’d probably have to deal less with cops glancing in their rearview, then slowing down to pull up behind us in hopes of giving us a ticket for license plate violations! It has happened to me many times!
We lived in Europe for a few years and had Department of National Defense “Canada” license plates on the front and rear. When we returned to Quebec, the rear license plate was changed to a Quebec one, but we kept the canadian one on the front until we sold the car. I now have that plate in my bedroom.
Well he’s from the UK but I have a WAG that as long as one set of plates is registered then it’d be perfectly ok. I mean it’s not like you’re carrying false plates and the police can easily just check the regional plates that you’ve got on.
mnemosyne: Interestingly enough, DND is the only department that get issued those Canada plates. My dad works for Transportation Safety Board of Canada and he frequently dashes out at 3 in the morning to go to an accident site and he’s been pulled over numerous times, the cops said it would have been much easier had they been able to see that he worked for the gov’t. i.e. special plates on the company car.
Here in Oklahoma, one plate is the rule, which enabled a friend from Iowa to keep his old plate on front while the rear plate was removed in favor of the usual Oklahoma plate.
Had a look at http://www.dvla.gov.uk and it says nothing there about not allowing second plates, as long as the actual plate meets criteria. I would guess that the second plate could be described as a ‘bumper sticker’ of sorts, and wouldn’t be punichable unless it was in a font/shape/place/style that caused confusion.
I’m pretty sure the Florida plate in the picture linked in the OP is not a real license plate, but a replica. The letters are too small and not of the proper shape. There are dozens of varieties of Florida plates, but they all use the same set of dies, and the letters have a distinctive look to them, with angled corners on all the rounded parts. Also, there is a period on the plate in the photo, which is not part of a normal license plate (though the owner may have added it him/herself.)
Also, there are no stickers on the plate indicating the expiration date; most US license plates have these, including Florida (though maybe Florida only has them on the rear plate??)
If this is the case, then I suppose the plate falls into the category of “decoration.”
I agree with malden: the Florida plate looks to be one of the “novelty” plates you can pick up in a lot of places. The fonts don’t look right and there are no ad valorum\registration stickers on the tag.
For the curious, here’s an example of a real Florida license plate. 
It occurs to me that it might be an older Florida vanity plate, with the date sticker peeled off, kept for sentimental reasons (it may reflect the car’s nickname).