Quote:
Originally Posted by snareman
Europe question for you - a lot of people in the US won't put a front plate on their car even through their state law requires it (I didn't have one for 17 years until it finally became legal to not have one this year). Do people in Europe defy the laws and go front-plateless?
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No they don't. It is the quickest way to get pulled over as every policy officer is going to see you don't have one. My front plate fell off once in a car wash, and I couldn't mount it again with some clips from BMW. So I had the front plate inside the car. I got pulled over within 24 hours (didn't get a ticket, as they believed my story).
You basically cannot drive a car if it does not have a license plate. I do not understand why in the USA it is ok to drive without plates (I've had rental cars without any plates - front or back - that came with a piece of paper behind the window because it was "new"). That doesn't happen in Europe. The license plate is the only way to identify a car (others can't read a piece of paper behind a window) when you get into an accident, or otherwise behave in a way that warrents people knowing who you are.
Even if you by a car in a different country and just want to drive it back to your own country (lets say I want to buy a BMW in Germany, to take it back to Netherlands and take care of all the paperwork and registration in Netherlands, I still need a 1 day license plate in Germany to drive it in Germany.