Just got a new turbo so made me think about the interesting story I read re: Steve Jobs who never put on any plates to his Mercedes and leased a new one every 6 months - a fact. Supposedly the claim as to how he got away with it was because of a "loophole" that allowed him to never have plates because California allowed for an exception if it's a brand new car up to 6months.

Decided to check for myself as I don't display front plates unless I get ticketed, then just put on my front tow hook mount plate, get corrected, then promptly take off again. But never tried having no plates at all for 6+ months.

Appears this claim of loophole is right and wrong - right in spirit in that it would seem to be very tough for the state to actually prove you did receive your plates, but wrong in that there is no 6month loophole - the vehicle code clearly states you have to put on plates before 6 months or receiving your plates, whichever comes first. So the defense would have to be on claiming you never received your plates and make the state prove you did.

California Vehicle Code 4456, relevant section is as follows:
c) A vehicle displaying a copy of the report of sale may be operated without license plates or registration card until either of the following, whichever occurs first:
(1) The license plates and registration card are received by the purchaser.
(2) A six-month period, commencing with the date of sale of the vehicle, has expired.

I'm on week 3 of my brand new 997.2 and was driving around town today thinking about this when lo and behold a motorcycle police officer knocked on my passenger window at a red light.

He asked me why I didn't have any plates and I truthfully told him I haven't received my plates yet, and just bought the car barely 3 weeks ago. Given the near state of bankrupty, forced furloughs, and partial work weeks state workers have to take, I'm thinking DMV won't get around to sending me plates for at least few more weeks.

Interesting response was the cop said my tires looked too worn to be brand new and demanded to know how many miles I had on the vehicle. I told him 1397 and offered to pull over and show him. He asked me why and how I had so many miles in barely 3 weeks and I told him the break in period of standard 2k miles always kills me and I drive the hell out of my new cars asap to get past that. So he waved me on.

It's also worth noting it had just rained day before so my normally pristine waxed appearance car looked fairly dirty. I'm wondering if my brand new car had looked "newer" maybe he wouldn't have even knocked on my window.

Last - interesting thing is I may actually qualify for this loophole legitimately. I've been having a house built and staying at a temporary address which is what I used to register car with. I'm moving out in next couple weeks and not doing a mail forward - not like I'm going to miss the junk mail, all my bills are electronic and ipad e-magazines.

If I don't get my plates from DMV before I move out, I plan on putting my hand on a bible and swearing I indeed never received my plates and run for 6 months without any plates.

Will be intresting to see if over next few months I get pulled over again and ticketed, and whether this vehicle code will actually allow the court to throw out my ticket.

 

I remember that story about Jobs. Supposedly, he was paranoid about people digging his plate number out of the DMV system and then ... well, the "and then" wasn't clear, but basically he didn't want to be identifiable. I always gave it very little credit beyond assuming that if true it indicated a foolish sort of paranoia. People with enough money to have a personal staff and who worry about this issue just register the car in the name of a staff member.

Personally, I'm half that paranoid. I figure my front plate is conspiring with unknown forces to ruin the look of my Porsche, so I've never mounted it. And here in SoCal, there was such a fuss the time they stopped a lawyer driving a Corvette without a front plate, that I suspect they moved it to the "do not stop" category of offense. That is, something they can add to the ticket if they stop you for some other reason, but not cause for a stop. Seems that way anyhow. I notice you did not get stopped technically. Just asked in a casual way.

Of course, that lawyer was a black man in scruffy clothes who claimed the stop was racially motivated rather than by a concern for revenue from speed cameras. (I'm biased about speed cameras so the moral position seems about the same to me, but what the hell.) I always supposed it was a realistic feeling that anyone in cheap clothes driving a $50k car in a bad neighborhood stood a fifty-fifty chance of being a car thief, so the plate check made a good reason to stop the car and look closer. However, since joining this forum, I've read complaints from a couple of people who objected to being treated with no respect because they wanted to buy a Porsche but somehow forgot transportation and walked into the dealership wearing sneakers and a hoody, instead of driving up in a comparable car. So obviously, the ability to buy an expensive car does not correlate as well as I thought with taste in clothing. (Or possibly the correlation of Porsche ownership with claims by new posters is not as high as we might wish.)

That lawyer said he just went out for a late night drive I think. Might have said something about looking for a liquor store too. Memory fails. I'm the wrong age and living in the wrong area to use those excuses, but so far I've never even had a comment from a sheriff's deputy up here in the Antelope Valley. Keeping my fingers crossed.

But with all that discussion to clear the brush away, I have to ask: Why are you reluctant to install your rear plate? Serious anonymity urge?

Gary

 

Did you point to the little sticker in the corner of the windshield? (or is the DMV still stalled on fees?) The same thing happened to me about 4 days after my wife bought a new car in 2007, but I didn't get the worn tire routine...and the car, being clean, looked like it came right off the showroom floor. He drove past me, flipped around and lit me up. All I had to do as the officer walked up was to point to the windshield sticker. He grinned, apologized and got back in his patrol car.

That is pushing it. Did he have a true professional demeanor, or was he 'attitude-based'? You know what I mean.

You don't have to justify that to him one bit. That is asinine. Would he like to ride along with you for a week? One out of town trip can rack up close to that many miles alone. Ask him how many miles he puts on his bike monthly. As a taxpayer I'd demand to know that. And if he's next to you at a light, how can he tell how deep your tread is unless he is checking it with a depth-gauge?

Next he'll be wanting to be your proctologist, too... or wanting to make sure you eat your vegetables. Micro-managers like this give the good cops a bad name. Why am I not surprised that it was a motorcycle officer?

 

Not reluctant at all - I suppose it's my insanely curious nature rearing itself to see if I can test whether this "loophole" actually works. If I hadn't been thinking about the Steve Jobs story and gotten this "courtesy stop", I probably would just put on my rear plate when I get it, or if I move before plates arrived, would have just gone to DMV to order new ones.

I've never not put on rear plate soon as I got it. Only thing I normally rebel on like many or most on this board is the front plate other than temporary correction / fix-it check.

But now that I actually read up on this vehicle code, it seems like a legit loophole does exist. I suppose I could lie and say I never got plates and make the state prove it, which I don't see how they could. But I'm in a probably once in a lifetime bizarro scenario where I'm moving out of a temp address while building a new house after I bought a brand new car with good odds I won't get the plates before I move. Highly unlikely this combo is going to happen to me again so might as well just see what happens

 

I did point while I told him I'd just bought the car 3 weeks ago. He might have even looked while I wasn't paying attention. I was looking driver side when I heard the knock on window.

I looked at the paper myself later though and not sure how dealers are supposed to do it or how they do it elsewhere - but the paper was folded, you can't see the date of sale on the side showing up on the windshield. Also just noticed the salesman had also pasted copy of his business card there - I took that off tonight. If the cop looked, he wouldn't have seen a date of sale, although I have a copy of purchase in my glovebox if it came to that.

I'd say medium 5 - I've had cops I'd rate a 10, they're writing me a ticket for speeding but hey, I did break the law and got caught (that time!), they're just doing they're job and the guy was a real auto guy - friendly, chatted about how I like Porsches, basically - got the sense he wasn't giving me a ticket just so he could "bag" a Porsche but just doing his job.

This motorcycle cop I'd say was halfway - wouldn't say belligerent or anything (had that once or twice before), but not exactly Mr. Friendly either - perhaps borderline accusatory like how dare I not have plates on. The clincher I guess why I even go this far because I normally appreciate how tough a job cops have, is after I told him I'd barely had the car 3 weeks, it did indeed seem like his attitude was I was somehow getting a free pass I didn't deserve. I can't swear how long it took everytime I bought a new car but I don't ever recall California DMV sending me plates sooner than 4 weeks.


This was probably the only part I'd say was semi-evidence maybe he was out to jerk my chain a little. After I stopped at a Starbucks, I looked at my tires and I don't really know how he could say my tires looked too worn - I've got ~1400 miles, sure - but seriously I still have those little stubby plastic things sticking out side of my tires and aside from rain rubbing some of the tire polish off, the tread is clearly brand new. I don't know what they're called, the little fine plastic things, but it's whatever brand new tires have until they after couple thousand miles they wear off.

 

mozhacker- after you clarifying, the guy was being an obvious turd (and I'm being kind here).

Those casting nibs/nubs being so evident as you describe tell the whole story. You don't own him an explanation of how you put 1300 miles on your car in 3 weeks. I'd ask him, "well you tell me, officer. My dog is too small to drive..."

Your tires as he stated being "too worn to be new" my eye... and yes, we're paying for that kind of idiocy with a badge. I too empathize with the stuff LE folks put up with. And LE isn't what it was 30-40 years ago... I don't know how they do it today. I have many acquaintances in many agencies and I don't know how these folks do it with the twisted Criminal Justice system they have to work with, and the abuse of LE that city hall puts them through just to fill the coffers. That being said, they signed up for the job, they weren't drafted into it; furthermore it's no excuse for this behavior.

The guy needs to go out and bust REAL badguys.

 

In the old days...when cars had spare tires, I would take the paper plate off a new car ASAP since that was usually a come-on to thieves to steal a new wheel/tire. I still do that and have done it in California, Colorado and now Texas. Only stopped once - in Colorado but since the plate I was running was in my name (although a different vehicle) I just got a no front plate warning, not even a fix-it offense.

BTW, you were more patient and accomodating than I would have been with those questions - I would have just mumbled some inane repsonse.

 

California seems oddly efficient in mailing plates to you. I've always gotten mine within four to six weeks of purchase. This, I guess depends on how quickly your dealer submits the paper work. I'm curious (but not so much so to go an look it up) as to whether there is a definition of a "License Plate" in the DMV code. If there isn't, you'd probably be able to have a vinyl (if you cared enough).

 

Ugh- another reason why I need to head to Socal...

 

Rear plate only , three 911"s and never an issue.
I would sell the car before I would put a front plate on permanently .
Not a hint of alcohol on me when I drive either !!!

 

last time, they gave me a ticket when my car parked on the street, 3 months after i leased it.
they can verify with DMV immediately did they mail you the plate or not. if they did, they will give you a ticket, no matter within 6 months or not.

 

Cali is efficient. I bought an out of state car, went to the DMV to process registration and title and got plates while I was there...

BTW there is no way in hell I'm putting a plate on that pristine front bumper.

 

Not saying it would even be worth fighting, and not disagreeing that ultimately you can be given a ticket on a whim - but being given a ticket vs actually found guilty of the ticketed infraction are separate things

Verify with DMV they mailed to you or not, the vehicle code is quite clear that the specific criteria that forces you to display any plates before 6 months as long as you display the sales sticker is:
1) The license plates and registration card are received by the purchaser.

again, why anyone would spend the time to fight this instead of just fixit and move on I don't know, BUT in the example you gave above, if anyone wanted to fight it the city can claim all they want they ticketed you based on verification with DMV they sent you plates + reg, but given the wording of the code the state would have to explicitly prove you received, not just were sent, the plates and reg.

 

Granting all that, it's also true that judges hate it when people waste court time on semantic issues. And the bit about not fighting city hall applies triply to not fighting the lawyer with the gavel and bench. At this level of offense or similar civil case, the judges often rule based on what they think is right, not points of law. I don't mean they ignore the statutes, but remember that 'law' is a combination of statutes and precedent and at these levels a lot of "horse sense."

A judge who thinks you screwed up will hand down a fine and go to the next case. A small fine if yours was an innocent mistake and bigger in proportion to the malignity of your intent, subject only to sentencing guidelines when those apply. A judge who thinks you have wasted his time trying to nitpick around a law you personally don't like might wink and send you away if everybody else agreed that the legislature had stuck their Florsheims between their teeth writing the statute. More rarely, you can show that the statute does not contemplate the exceptional circumstances of your offense. On one occasion, the asst district attorney met with me before the case was called and said: "What the hell?" So I told her why I'd been going 100+ and ignoring traffic lights. She moved for dismissal herself. (Truth is, the sergeant was having a bad day and resented my resurrecting my "command voice" to get him out of the way in an emergency. Otherwise, no ticket would have been written.) "Tch, tch," she said. "Sgt Lopez should know better." The judge would have agreed I suppose, but might have felt obligated to levy some sort of fine. She saved me trouble and money and that's the best scenario you could hope for. An agreeable ADA.

But this isn't that sort of law. It's just a routine practices sort of thing: "Go ahead, use the paper until we send you the plate. Come back if we forget." If you waste a judge's time arguing about the wording of such a statute, he isn't going to be happy. And you'd be hard pressed to find an ADA willing to dismiss ahead of time. An unhappy judge who feels put upon can find all sorts of ways to make the offending side sorry. Starting with money and building up from there.

Sometimes fighting the system has value. But like all fights, you should pick which ones are worth commiting your troops.

Gary

 

Last week I drop a friend off at LAX. As I'm pulling away from the curb I see a bike cop sitting on his bike watching the traffic, as soon as I pass him he pulls out and pulls me over. Now I know I wasn't speeding yet, and I used my signal because I saw him, so I wasn't sure why he stopped me. He comes up to the window and says "here at the airport we do random car stops and checks, and I chose your car because you do not have a front license plate." I responded with my typical reply of, "I'm waiting for the bracket to come in from the dealer, but I do have the plate with me." He said "ok, do you have any bombs, grenades, or weapons of mass destruction?" I said "no." He said "he would be right back." He went back to his bike, came back with his business card and said "you can call this number if you have any questions, remember there is only one of you, and you are precious cargo so please drive safe, and by the way the California highway patrol does not like the dark tint on the front side windows, so they may stop and harass you, just a heads up, and you have a very nice car." I said "thank you" and drove away.

I felt it was a jerk reason to pull me over, since I go to the airport all the time in my VW and never get stopped, but the one time I take the Porsche I get stopped, but at least he was cool about it.