OHTA.ca

Hello Everyone,

I own a vehicle which came from Montreal where they dont have front license plates. Its a new vehicle and fairly high end so i didnt want to drill holes in my front bumper to install the front plate so i have it on my windshield. Today i was pulled over and the officer game me a ticket for failure to display two plates and i told him that i do have two plates and that they are displayed, but he didnt care and moved on.

Any help since i was pretty sure the traffic act said that all you need is to display two plates and that was all.

Thank you

No, they must be displayed on the front and back of the vehicle, while it might not be in the wording it's in the annotated sections.

I had a guy try that once here, the third time I ticketed him with a summons, jp gave him a $750 fine and told him to smarten up. It was an Audi.

BTW I had a front plate on my M3 and my TT...if you don't want to mount your plate on the front of the vehicle, you shoulda left it in Quebec.

Even if you find a way to beat it in court expect more tickets until you conform to the law.

Visit a dealership and get the proper mounting for the front plate.

you can still file for trial and disclosure, you may get lucky that way. Or go to court to plead for a lesser charge.

It would help your case though if you get the problem fixed first.

beleafer81 wrote:Visit a dealership and get the proper mounting for the front plate.

It would help your case though if you get the problem fixed first.

+1

Makes sense guys, i was just wondering because a while back i could have sworn i read the traffic act and said that the plates must be located at the most front and back parts of the vehicle but now it doesnt read that, but you are all right i am just going to fix the problem and hope that the ticket gets thrown out.

Thank you

I got that ticket in Toronto in 1997. My car was illegally towed at 11pm the night immediately prior. The tow truck tore off my front license plate, mount and all. Not only did I get my car out of the pound with the help of the police (and not having to pay a cent), but I didn't get home until 4am that morning and was out driving to work at 7am, when I got the ticket. I showed the officer the mount, offered him the information from York Regional Police concerning what had happened to me not 6 hours earlier, but also told him I could confirm to him by later that day that I was having it repaired.

Still gave me the ticket and because I didn't know better, I paid for it and moved on. What a difference 13 years of experience makes. I had a bevy of information I could've taken to court, police reports, damages to my car, receipt of having the mount replaced, etc. I would've walked on that, but why in the world would he have even ticketed me knowing I was giving him information he could verify? Dunno.....maybe he was upset that Princess Di had been killed the day prior.

No, IMHO you would have been found guilty.

Just cause it was torn off the day before, does not authorize you to break the law.

I've have numerous people give that 'excuse' in court, "It was torn off in the car wash"

The JP's standard reply is, 'then you don't drive it til it's repaired'...if you're vehicle cannot meet the equipment requirements under the HTA, then you don't drive it til it can.

We regularly see people import cars and 6 months later still don't have aplate on it...worst offenders are sports cars (Vettes, Mustangs etc)...have NEVER lost one in court.

By all means i respect the law and if i have to have a plate then so be it but im just going to ask this next question in hopes to get a polite response. Is it legal to modify or cut the plate to make it fit into the front of the vehicle in a different matter. It will be in the front i just want to see if i can make it fit into a smaller black area located in the picture below.

Thank you

I disagree. We aren't talking a failure to re-mount the front license plate 6 months in. This happened within the same morning, not even just in the same 24 hour period. With a police report dated/timed 5 hours prior, I believe I would not have been found guilty provided that once I did turn up in court, I had the police report of the incident where my car was illegal towed, impounded, and subsequently released under order of the police, report of damage to my car including front license plate was noted, the officers allowing me to DRIVE home with the front plate OFF, and with a repair bill dated that same day. The circumstances were unique, and I think it is utterly ridiculous to expect a driver to tow his/her car to a shop where to re-drill holes in the front bumper to mount a new plate and mount.

I believe this law exists so that cars are properly identifiable, but the law does not ignore common sense and, armed with the evidence to support that this wasn't just an excuse, they'd see that I acted diligently under the circumstances. I'd like to also mention that this place where I was nabbed was a police set-up on the corner of Spadina and Adelaide in downtown Toronto where they were pulling every car over for the slightest of infraction. My shop was at Bathurst/King area, near Strachan. It was a B.S. charge and in retrospect I wish I'd have fought it, because I would've won unless the Justice lived in a world of absolutes without room for life to happen.

Marquisse wrote:I wish I'd have fought it, because I would've won.

well I'm not sure how you can tell what would have happened and certainly your arguement / situation is unique...what I'm saying is that I regularly get people coming to court saying "Oh it just fell off in the car wash"

As for modifying your plate, no that even worse!! That's a Part III summons, mandatory court, usually a hefty fine.

The fact of the matter is although you car is lovely, it's not special in the sense that 500 of them are driving around with the plate properly mounted.

I know it 'ruins' the look of the car, but I had the same issue with my 2005 M3...I didn't like the mount, but it is the law and as a police officer I especially have to lead by example, or so some think.

Sure, you can't know what side of the bed the justice woke up to that morning, but armed with the evidence I did have, a reasonable person would've seen that it was not neglect on my part.

It really couldn't have been worse luck. I didn't even have the time to have it fixed; no shop was open between 4:00am and 7:30am, and I took my car downtown to work and to be fixed simultaneously given the shop and work were in the same area. Since the tow truck ripped the mount and the screws through my front bumper, it wasn't a self-fix, either. I had to go buy a new mount to hold my license plate. To this day my front license plate is still badly mangled and I still can't get all of the kinks out from A Towing ruining it as I still have the same plates.

On a funnier note, I don't think the idiots at the impound lot have ever been screamed at for as long and as loud as I was until I demanded they call the police. I was screaming like a banshee at them because, as far as I was concerned, my car was stolen/taken without my permission and now money was being extorted from me. They were not going to release my car until I paid something in the neighbourhood of a $300 charge on the spot - something a 22 yr old just out of college and in her first apartment did NOT have just lying around. They could not do that as it amounted to theft, and the officers made them release my car. They told me they were going to sue me for the cost, to which I told them they could countersue because I was filing a claim for the damage to my car. I never heard from them again and about 2 years later, a huge crackdown on illegal towing ensued in North York and Toronto, reminding all that the cost is to be ultimately payable by the entity requesting a tow unless it was a By-Law officer or the police making the request. So, it wouldn't be the towing company suing me, it would have to have been the Landlord, and he had no leg to stand on. It's a long story as to how it was towed, so suffice it to say I was at a friend's house in North York, who was having a major dispute with her landlord, and my car became involved in the pi$$ing contest.

No you are 100% right im just trying to find the best possible way to install it to my liking and still stay true to the law.

Thank you

As a police officer I totally understand the benefits of a properly mounted plate, as a car enthusiast, I think they ruin a car's 'face'.

I getcha.

Get a third plate, mount them like wings on the sides of your headlights and boom, extra down force....

You would be the only three plated vehicle in Ontario.....

stylesx wrote:Makes sense guys, i was just wondering because a while back i could have sworn i read the traffic act and said that the plates must be located at the most front and back parts of the vehicle but now it doesnt read that,

It still reads that and has not changed.

Regulation 628 9 (3)