"Obstruct Plate" | GTAMotorcycle.com

"Obstruct Plate"

M

mrspeaker

Member
Tonight I got handed two tickets. One for 80 in a 60, and another for 'obstruct plate'. The officer said my plate was bent upwards. I don't really agree with his assessment - I certainly didn't bend it myself, and when I took a look it may have been bent from an impact but it certainly wasn't 'obstructed' by any reasonable definition of the word.

Any experiences with fighting these? Is it easy to get thrown out? I'm assuming both of these tickets are worth fighting. I'm going to read over some of the info threads here but I just wanted to ask about the plate thing to hear about any similar experiences you may have had. Thanks!
 
If you question the situation, I sure hope you took a picture of the condition of the license plate at the time of being handed the ticket ... including one with both your vehicle, the police car, and if possible the officer, and the condition of the license plate, in frame at the same time.

What was the vehicle ... and where was the plate mounted ... and was it in the original mounting position for the vehicle or had you put it somewhere else?

Normal original-equipment license plate mountings are pretty immune from impact damage.

Failing that ... The condition of your vehicle - including the condition of its license plate! - is your responsibility. The end.

Having said all that ... it is fairly likely that if you supply evidence to the court that you rectified whatever the problem that the officer said was the issue with the license plate, they'll drop that charge. The speeding ticket, not so much.
 
2nd one is probably a fix it ticket, see if the officer will cancel the ticket if you bring the vehicle by to show them it's 'fixed'.

the speeding one will be tough to beat.
 
if you're looking for some sort of help on the plate ticket
don't go with the I didn't do it defense
that ain't gonna help

answers above don't need to be repeated
 
Crap like this is why I leave everything that falls into the category "safety equipment" stock. Stock lighting, stock signals, stock reflectors, stock license plate mounting, stock mirrors. Bike looks stock to a cop (even if it isn't). Lighting, where aftermarket, is the prescribed colours, and nothing else. No obnoxious exhaust systems, either. Less reason to get pulled over.

20 over the speed limit, in the absence of anything else, "usually" doesn't lead to a ticket, except maybe if it was in an enforcement-blitz. 20-over plus something else wrong with the vehicle giving an opportunity for the cop to write two tickets, is more attractive. Or maybe the real speed was considerably beyond 20 over the speed limit and the cop cut you a break ... in which case ... you might wish to thank your lucky stars and not put up too much of a fight about the speeding ticket. If it really was radar at 20 over, they'll frequently plea-bargain it down to 15 over, no points.

I have had tickets in the past where what the cop wrote up the ticket for was in no way representative of what actually happened; the thank-you is to just pay the ticket as issued, live and learn ...
 
By giving you the fix-it ticket (which will likely get dropped), they solidify their position on the speeding ticket. Going to court starts with a negotiation. If you only had one ticket they may drop it from 20 to 15. Giving you two, they often drop the first in exchange for you pleading guilty to the second. Based on my experienc, traffic court prosecutors were not at the top of the class and are desperate to plead everything out. That being said, going to trial is almost always a win for them too as defendants don't understand the system and make dumb mistakes ("officer, wasn't it true that I was going 15 over, not 20", JP-"You were charged with speeding and admitted to speeding. Guilty. Next.")
 
Brian P said:
20 over the speed limit, in the absence of anything else, "usually" doesn't lead to a ticket, except maybe if it was in an enforcement-blitz.
Click to expand...
Mostly agree, but feel it's more of a scale for enforcement. 120 in a 100 zone vs. 50 in a 30 zone are different situations entirely.
 
mrspeaker said:
Tonight I got handed two tickets. One for 80 in a 60, and another for 'obstruct plate'. The officer said my plate was bent upwards. I don't really agree with his assessment - I certainly didn't bend it myself, and when I took a look it may have been bent from an impact but it certainly wasn't 'obstructed' by any reasonable definition of the word.

Any experiences with fighting these? Is it easy to get thrown out? I'm assuming both of these tickets are worth fighting. I'm going to read over some of the info threads here but I just wanted to ask about the plate thing to hear about any similar experiences you may have had. Thanks!
Click to expand...
If you have a stock license bracket there is almost no way they would ticket you for that and I would fight it if they did.
 
The 80/60 ticket was why I decided to get a dash cam a few years ago (picked up a dod LS460W back then - got my eye on the black vue 2-ch DR900X now).
As far as I remember, I was going the same pace as the vehicles in front of me - yet he singled me out.

At the end of it all he tells me that the courts would be able to reduce the charge/fees if I do so and so prior to the hearing...thats when I realized that this was all BS lol.

@OP - do you have pics of what the plate looked like?
Im curious to see what constitutes obstruction since I run a tail tidy kit myself.
 
POWERMAN said:
The 80/60 ticket was why I decided to get a dash cam a few years ago.
As far as I remember, I was going the same pace as the vehicles in front of me - yet he singled me out.
Click to expand...
While it is annoying to get singled out, going the same speed as surrounding traffic is not a viable defense. If you admit to speeding in court, you get convicted.

A video showing you going the same speed as traffic without having speed overlay is useless as a defense. A video with a speed overlay is still not a great defense (if it shows you speeding, you are guilty, if it shows you weren't speeding, they can challenge its accuracy).
 
POWERMAN said:
The 80/60 ticket was why I decided to get a dash cam a few years ago (picked up a dod LS460W back then - got my eye on the black vue 2-ch DR900X now).
As far as I remember, I was going the same pace as the vehicles in front of me - yet he singled me out.

At the end of it all he tells me that the courts would be able to reduce the charge/fees if I do so and so prior to the hearing...thats when I realized that this was all BS lol.

@OP - do you have pics of what the plate looked like?
Im curious to see what constitutes obstruction since I run a tail tidy kit myself.
Click to expand...
you'd likely catch an 'improper plate' ticket, not obstructed IIRC.

HTA says it has to be mounted to the rear most part of the vehicle.

The Highway Traffic Act
ItemOffenceSectionSet Fine
1.Drive motor vehicle, no permit7(1)(a)$85.00
2.Drive motor vehicle, no currently validated permit7(1)(a)$85.00
3.Drive motor vehicle, no plates7(1)(b)(i)$85.00
4.Drive motor vehicle, fail to display two plates7(1)(b)(i)$85.00
5.Drive motor vehicle, plate improperly displayed7(1)(b)(i)$85.00

Schedule 43 – Last Updated: January 1, 2023 | Ontario Court of Justice

www.ontariocourts.ca www.ontariocourts.ca
 
"Rear most part of the vehicle" can be debated in court if the factory positioning of the licence plate bracket is actually forward of the "rearmost part of the vehicle". A lot of the HD full dressers (where the plate is actually factory mounted up under the beer box) is factory.

However the bent plate thing is going to be impossible to beat. Your plate must have been mounted in a non standard positioning and genuinely bent - in the eyes of the police that's highly likely to be viewed as an effort to conceal your plate.

When you get into this sort of nonsense, you're just asking for it.

X3AtJ.jpg


2348878660_f895760901_o.jpg
 
If the factory put the license plate someplace that isn't the absolute rear-most spot on the vehicle (e.g. H-D's with luggage ... and quite a number of compact SUVs that have a spare tire carrier on the tailgate!), you have a defence: "The manufacturer built the vehicle that way, the license plate is where the manufacturer intended it to be, and by the way, here's a picture of the vehicle's registration plate showing the declaration of conformity to CMVSS."

Same with the angle of the plate. Lots of OEM plates aren't "vertical". (Almost none of them are! They're almost invariably tilted a few degrees.) But that angle is the way the original manufacturer designed it to be. See above.

If YOU put the license plate anywhere other than in the original manufacturer's intended position and mountings, then the onus is on YOU. "But the angle is X degrees and you can still see it from the back" ... "It's not VERTICAL. Guilty. Next".
 
Bet you a donut he rides with an abbreviated plate holder.
 
I think the bend is the main issue they will nail you on the ticket for. No factory mounting position on any vehicle requires the plate to be bent, and I've yet to see a factory mounting method on any vehicle that would *allow* it to get bent, either.

As soon as there's a bend the LEO's have reason to think there's fishy business going on.
 
PrivatePilot said:
"Rear most part of the vehicle" can be debated in court if the factory positioning of the licence plate bracket is actually forward of the "rearmost part of the vehicle". A lot of the HD full dressers (where the plate is actually factory mounted up under the beer box) is factory.

However the bent plate thing is going to be impossible to beat. Your plate must have been mounted in a non standard positioning and genuinely bent - in the eyes of the police that's highly likely to be viewed as an effort to conceal your plate.

When you get into this sort of nonsense, you're just asking for it.

X3AtJ.jpg


2348878660_f895760901_o.jpg
Click to expand...
Factory mounting should meet all the HTA requirements so id say its a non issue as far as the courts.

As you said, when you start buying aftermarket kits or so it yourself setups, you invite a closer inspection.
 
PrivatePilot said:
...
2348878660_f895760901_o.jpg
Click to expand...

Closer inspection :LOL: more like intense Heat score, what idiot thinks you can get by with this ****,
that wouldn't even fly as road legal on a green plate dirt bike. One day you will be sitting at an intersection and some cop is going to tackle you out of nowhere and throw you on the ground to handcuff you.
 
It's a grey area to me, as the above examples are definitely intending to hide the plate as much as possible. Bending the plate is done with the single purpose of making it harder to read, so it's hard to defend.

That said, that video with the tackle-happy cop shows that common sense can be in short supply on both sides. If I got ticketed for my fender eliminator, I'd be greatly aggrieved, as the intent is to clean up the lines of the bike, not make the plate harder to see:

tuono plate.jpg

The stock plate holder is so silly looking I can't even find a good picture of it via Google image search, and it's obviously intended to be removed at the first opportunity. Suffice it to say that the plate is at a very similar angle, just moved inboard by about 10". Technically, I'm in violation of the law, but I'd feel similarly ripped off as if they started handing out tickets for doing 115 on the highway.

I'd be very curious as to what the OP's plate looked like. It's a fine line...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom