Before I left the New Year's party early Thursday morning, I made sure I wasn't breaking the law.
I had, of course, been careful to have only one glass of wine, early in the evening. I ate food, drank lots of water. I drove the speed limit. My car's lights were in perfect working order. I signaled when turning or changing lanes. And I made sure I did not have a license plate frame that obscured the word "Arizona" on my license plate.
Yah. AZ has a law that makes it illegal to obscure the word "Arizona" on your license plate. Most frames issued by dealerships, or the ones you can buy to show just how much you love Westies or show your support for your favorite high school football team are now illegal. You can be fined anywhere from $140 to $160, depending on the locality in which you get pulled over. Moreover, it's a primary offense, so even if you're not doing anything else wrong, the cop can pull you over and cite you if your frame covers the state's name.
Ostensibly it was made illegal for safety reasons. Used ta be you could easily tell what state a car was registered in by the plate's colors. Then states started changing plates more often than my fastidious and fussy neighbor changes his underwear. That is true even without accounting for the specialized plates for cancer, historic vehicles, child abuse, environmental awareness, universities, veterans, and having voted for Obama.
The idea is that victims of car-related incidents or police can now more easily tell if the car involved in the incident is an Arizona registered vehicle.
There is something fundamentally wrong with that reason, however. See, the law only applies to cars that are registered in Arizona. So a car involved in a hit-and-run just might be one of the many, many, many cars registered in Minnesota, Vancouver, or other northern place that crowd our roads for 9 months of the year.
My belief is that this is really all about one more way for a state hit hard by the economic slump to squeeze more money out of her citizens.
gekko: darned good walkies companion.
Where do I start?
1) Why did you sand the numbers off your license plate like that? Surely that can't be legal, even in AZ.
2)You track the rate at which your neighbor changes his underwear?
3) Seems a bit cynical to speculate that the law enforcement community is a revenue generating arm of state (county, municipal, tribal) government. I'm sure they only have your safety in mind. That can be the only explanation I can think of for when the Nevada Highway Patrol routinely shows up at accident scenes and tickets everyone involved.
BTW, Nevada has, literally, dozens of license plate variations you can pay a little extra for. It's like it's some kind of revenue generator or something. Many are specifically designed for the state's name to be obscured by any frame. But, that could be intentional.
We would all be better off if we abolish state lines and issue national license plates and ID cards. Next we could abolish national boundaries. The concept of nation-states is a little worn anyway.
Or... go the other direction and make visitors register their cars in AZ. We could build walls on borders... wait. Never mind. This is just crazy talk.
License plate frame, schmlicense plate frame. Vermont doesn't care what you say around the plate as long as you don't put DICK on the plate
David: You track the rate at which your neighbor changes his underwear?
Only cuz he announces it.
Dick: Vermont doesn't care what you say around the plate as long as you don't put DICK on the plate
You're still bitter about that, aren't you.
Definitely a money raiser.
Stop by an give me an opinion on writing contests.
http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2009/01/poets-and-writers-its-been-lot-of-years.html
That's almost as bad as the Virginia MP who wanted to ticket me for not having a front license plate - even though Georgia only issues 1 plate per vehicle, which has to be placed on the back. (Luckily for him, and me, his superior had a bit more common sense.)
My belief is that this is really all about one more way for a state hit hard by the economic slump to squeeze more money out of her citizens.
Morons. If they rewrite the law to include ALL license plates, they would make more money...
Jesus fucking christ do I have to do ALL the thinking?
Arizona ain't what it used to be.