YOUR LICENSE PLATE FRAME OR COVER COULD BE A CRIMINAL VIOLATION

The Florida legislature is very responsive to complaints from law enforcement, especially if it also involves revenue collection.  One of the most recent changes in traffic law is in Florida Statute §320.061.  This law deals with the obscuring or defacing a license tag, and was a minor non-moving violation which could be resolved by paying a small fine.  It carried no points on your record, and had no effect on your insurance rates.  However, the new change this year elevates it to a Criminal Misdemeanor charge which could be punishable with jail time.

As stated before, this law was always “on the books”, but with a lesser penalty.  Most of the time, the law was enforced only in extreme circumstances.  Then about 20 years ago, a small group of law enforcement officers began to enforce the law.  A lot of these times, law enforcement officers were using it as a vehicle to initiate traffic stops leading to other violations.  After a while, manufacturers of license plate frames, and the organizations, universities, professional sports franchises, and businesses that sell licensing rights complained to the Florida Legislature and law enforcement organizations.  Eventually, an advisory opinion was issued stating that a license plate frame doesn’t violate the law since the actually license plate number and renewal decal were still visible on the tag.  As long as those identifying items were not obscured the frame did not violate the law.

Once again, the legislature, responding to public and political pressure in setting their priorities visited this issue again.  In response to a recent trend among motorists, fueled by social media posts, license plate covers started showing up on vehicles throughout the state.  Inevitably, these covers started to be modified, to reflect the personality of the owner of the vehicle they own.  They became tinted with a color to coordinate with the color of the vehicle.  They even started to become tinted darker and darker, until eventually, the tint was so dark that the tag was virtually obscured.  Seeing that this could be used to evade photo enforcement of tolls, red lights, and more recently school zones and school buses, the legislature “put their foot down”.  Now obscuring a tag was no longer a (zero point) traffic infraction, but because of the potential danger to law enforcement, they became criminal offenses.  Seeing the potential for abuse, and their loss of revenue, license plate frame manufacturers (and their licensees) complained again creating another legal advisory opinion which basically cuts out the same exception as the original law did.

In other words, the simple license plate frame should not violate this law.   However, the use of those license plate covers, that block out the identifying characters on a tag, are now punishable as any other crime.  As sad as it may seem, it is possible for even a license plate frame (or decals for sports teams or “the thin blue line”) can be construed by some officers as a reason for a traffic stop.  I, for one, haven’t had one on my car for over 20 years.