I was thinking on this too and I did NOT want the huge front license plastic brick on the bumper. I may wait until I get a fix it ticket or bolt the license plate directly on the skid using existing holes and add some rubber stickers on back of plate to keep it from scratching the paint and bend the plate to follow the skid shape instead of hanging straight down. For now I have plugs over the plate holes lol
Let me preface what I’m about to say with: One, much smaller license plate is sufficient for motorcycles, so why are 2 needed for a car?
IMO, you’re inviting a traffic stop by “officer Onepercent” by doing this. This is the dude who equates traffic violations as precursor terrorism or “gateway” crimes to murder. He’s the archetypical ‘bad cop’ as portrayed by Hollywood, only with no countering ‘good cop’. He’s the dude who pulls on you and loudly calls for backup when you hand him a carry permit. His olfactory power puts a bloodhound to shame, able to sniff out alcohol or cannabis smells from 30 feet on the shoulder of a busy highway.
He has nothing but time for you.
Years ago I hit a deer head on in my Mustang, got it back with a fresh bumper cover and no plate bracket. Of-course, I get stopped by MD s/p on the capital beltway. Never mind the crew of knuckleheads bobbing and weaving through traffic or the guys drifting in and out of their lanes, this guy only had time for me. I even showed him the very recent body work receipt but you’d have thought I was trafficking a few hundred kilos of coke for the way this guy was talking.
This was totally my fault for inviting it, I should have immediately gotten the bracket from Ford - literally next door to me, but put it off. And, i had the plate in my windshield- again, my fault, but that doesn’t comport with MD vehicle code.
Now as picayune is that stop was and all I had to do was literally get the bracket, get a -free- rein spection and move on with life. My buddy OTOH, fared much worse, incurring a 3 hour traffic stop. I wasn’t there but he described it in painful detail. They called a drug dog, did a full custodial detention -iow, an arrest, searched the car found nothing, drug dogs found nothing, then they took the dogs back again, and found nothing. After about an hour in cuffs he was on his way, no charges.
it’s a simple thing- just display the daggone plate and be done with it. Lest you end up drawing unwanted attention.
