[liber8er]

Approaching 4 years of driving with no plates on the same car here in California. Just leave the paper dealer plate(the one with the dealership name/logo on it) on the car. Cops wont ever pull you over for lack of plates, even if youre missing the front plate as well, as I am.

[chaz]

I did this as well. Even got pulled over for speeding once and was issued a warning. CHP chuckled when he saw that I was well beyond the limit for not having plates affixed to the car, and asked me to get them on the car.

New cars are so common in CA that if the car is a late model and looks reasonably good, you'll never have a problem. Parked on the street, they can't see the dates on the registration that's stuck to the windshield. Just make sure your registration is paid and your insurance is up to date.

[fletchowns]

Try driving between 1-5AM, cops are looking for absolutely ANY reason to pull you over during those hours (looking for DUIs).

[anigbrowl]

So you've avoided paying taxes on your new vehicle for 4 years. Thanks a lot, Mr. Freeloader.

[lanstein]

You must not live in SF then. After four fix-it tickets for no front plate, I caved.

[there]

in chicago the meter maids are strict about no front license plate, so when i moved here i quickly got a ticket for it (which was $50, i think). i had gone 6 years with no front plate and didn't want to put one on.

i had a personalized license plate on the back that i no longer cared about and i discovered that when i told the dmv that i lost the front plate (which was true, since the car had no front plate for 6 years outside of chicago) they gave me a temporary plate while the replacements were being made, which cost me all of about $10.

the temporary plate expired in 6 months, so for 6 months i was able to avoid having a front plate. if i had kept the car for longer, i would have just told them the plates never came in the mail or something, paid the small replacement fee again, and gotten another 6 month temporary plate.

[gcb]

did that too because DMV was loosing my papers for a while. drove almost one year without plates. no one ever complained. I had 'dealer' plates on both ends.

otoh, a friend got a ticket for missing front plates.

[liber8er]

They won't pull you over if they see the dealer plate on the back though. I had a cop coming towards me, flip a U when he saw no front plate, see my dealer plate, flip another U and go on his way. This was after about 2 years of driving with that dealer plate, mind you.

If you get stopped for something else, you'll get ticketed. It's a fix-it ticket though and costs around $25 and two minutes to get signed off.