Eagle Flight
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2003
- Messages
- 48
- Location
- Houston, Texas
- Corvette
- 1967 L79 C60 M20 Coupe, 2004 CE Z16 #1864/2025
Folks, what do you say to this argument? I have been crafting this to send to my state reps for a while now and thought I'd bounce it off of the forum first. I post it here because I have been following the C6 front plate tribulations over the last few months and I feel your pain... I know it is probably spitting into the wind, but it makes me feel better (and no I have not been pulled over for no front plate, but the potential is there every day)...
- Eagle
How to easily save the State of Texas $46.5 Million Dollars and also make thousands of voters/taxpayers happier...
Per the information at the following link http://www.window.state.tx.us/wrp/em12.html the cost to the State for license plate production per set (2) is about $5, therefore the inferred savings if Texas was to join Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia in only requiring and issuing a single plate for the rear of each vehicle is $2.50 per vehicle. A Texas House Resolution was initially proposed to change this and has been sitting since 1995. If this were approved, it would produce a significant savings to the State of $46.5 MILLION based on 18,622,000 vehicles currently registered in Texas (statistics published by TxDOT - ftp://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/pio/pfacts/pf_0304.pdf). Since each car gets new plates automatically every 7 years, this easily reflects a $7 million annual savings to the State based on existing and new vehicle registrations. I recommend that we take this money + everything else we can scrape up like this and put it into education finance reform (a hot issue in Texas due to high property taxes)!
Additionally and personally important to many drivers in Texas the requirement for 2 plates does not match with the body style of all newer vehicles (just take a look at any car manufacturer website, Acura, Lexus, Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, etc, you see tons of vehicles and none with front license plates!). Seriously, I defy you to spend just a few minutes, type in your favorite new car maker's website and try to find a car that sports a front license plate - there are none. Everyone agrees that the new cars, regardless of type, look better and more aerodynamic as they were designed - without the excessive front plate structure always added after the fact. A quick scan of the internet identifies thousands of Texans who have signed online petitions attempting to get the legislature to amend Statute 502.404 to only require a single plate on the rear of vehicles like the 19 other states noted above (http://www.petitiononline.com/txplate/petition.html).
Further investigation identifies very few cases where having a front license plate was a useful law enforcement tool and those are primarily for when a car is parked (therefore relatively easy to inspect from either side). We already have windshield mounted stickers on the front of the car that easily identify current registration and inspection information, the front plate is an unnecessary artifact of a long past age.
The only somewhat useful argument for front plates is the electronic survellance at intersections that take pictures of you if you go through a red light, and these can easily still track the occupant and rear plate to achieve their goals. Other than that most cases of law enforcement pulling a vehicle over strickly for the lack of a front plate result in unneeded distraction to the flow of traffic and other drivers and inefficient use of our law enforcement resources. Do we really need to pay tax dollars to have someone enforce a law that does not actually improve highway safety?
Lastly, an argument I have read by law enforcement officials in favor of the two plate system is that two plates help them by allowing them to pull over vehicles which lack the front plate if they 'look suspicious' but otherwise are without probable cause for a justified traffic stop. These folks are not making a good argument vs what should be a closely protected right of the public against such a stop, particularly without a probable cause that warrants the diversion of law enforcement resources from their primary duty of assuring public safety.
Texas should consider requiring only a single rear plate on motor vehicles, it will save the state millions of dollars, make thousands of taxpayers happier, move Texas into the modern age of motor vehicles, and allow a more efficient use of Law Enforcement as well improve their focus on public safety.
- EagleHow to easily save the State of Texas $46.5 Million Dollars and also make thousands of voters/taxpayers happier...
Per the information at the following link http://www.window.state.tx.us/wrp/em12.html the cost to the State for license plate production per set (2) is about $5, therefore the inferred savings if Texas was to join Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia in only requiring and issuing a single plate for the rear of each vehicle is $2.50 per vehicle. A Texas House Resolution was initially proposed to change this and has been sitting since 1995. If this were approved, it would produce a significant savings to the State of $46.5 MILLION based on 18,622,000 vehicles currently registered in Texas (statistics published by TxDOT - ftp://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/pio/pfacts/pf_0304.pdf). Since each car gets new plates automatically every 7 years, this easily reflects a $7 million annual savings to the State based on existing and new vehicle registrations. I recommend that we take this money + everything else we can scrape up like this and put it into education finance reform (a hot issue in Texas due to high property taxes)!
Additionally and personally important to many drivers in Texas the requirement for 2 plates does not match with the body style of all newer vehicles (just take a look at any car manufacturer website, Acura, Lexus, Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, etc, you see tons of vehicles and none with front license plates!). Seriously, I defy you to spend just a few minutes, type in your favorite new car maker's website and try to find a car that sports a front license plate - there are none. Everyone agrees that the new cars, regardless of type, look better and more aerodynamic as they were designed - without the excessive front plate structure always added after the fact. A quick scan of the internet identifies thousands of Texans who have signed online petitions attempting to get the legislature to amend Statute 502.404 to only require a single plate on the rear of vehicles like the 19 other states noted above (http://www.petitiononline.com/txplate/petition.html).
Further investigation identifies very few cases where having a front license plate was a useful law enforcement tool and those are primarily for when a car is parked (therefore relatively easy to inspect from either side). We already have windshield mounted stickers on the front of the car that easily identify current registration and inspection information, the front plate is an unnecessary artifact of a long past age.
The only somewhat useful argument for front plates is the electronic survellance at intersections that take pictures of you if you go through a red light, and these can easily still track the occupant and rear plate to achieve their goals. Other than that most cases of law enforcement pulling a vehicle over strickly for the lack of a front plate result in unneeded distraction to the flow of traffic and other drivers and inefficient use of our law enforcement resources. Do we really need to pay tax dollars to have someone enforce a law that does not actually improve highway safety?
Lastly, an argument I have read by law enforcement officials in favor of the two plate system is that two plates help them by allowing them to pull over vehicles which lack the front plate if they 'look suspicious' but otherwise are without probable cause for a justified traffic stop. These folks are not making a good argument vs what should be a closely protected right of the public against such a stop, particularly without a probable cause that warrants the diversion of law enforcement resources from their primary duty of assuring public safety.
Texas should consider requiring only a single rear plate on motor vehicles, it will save the state millions of dollars, make thousands of taxpayers happier, move Texas into the modern age of motor vehicles, and allow a more efficient use of Law Enforcement as well improve their focus on public safety.
