Minimize police interaction on road trip with bicycle mounted on back of the car, obscuring the license plate Here is my bicycle mounted on my car, license plate is obscured I am driving like these occasionally here in Orlando, no problems with the cops at all. Now I am planning to do a road trip through multiple states and I am worried that I will attract the attention from police. Another complication is that there is no license plate in the front because in Florida they only give you one license that goes on the back. My question is: what should I do to minimize chances of being stopped by police? Should I put the license plate in the front? Maybe hang it somehow on the bicycle? here is the list of states on the road trip: Florida South Carolina North Carolina Georgia Tennessee
One specific Florida statute, 316.605 covers this matter directly: ...and all letters, numerals, printing, writing, the registration decal, and the alphanumeric designation shall be clear and distinct and free from defacement, mutilation, grease, and other obscuring matter, so that they will be plainly visible and legible at all times 100 feet from the rear or front. Italics mine. A Jacksonville, FL lawyer's blog references a drug case in which the driver was pulled over because the frame around the plate partially obscured the legends at the top and bottom of the plate, typically a state slogan and/or county or other &quot;insignificant&quot; information. Irrespective to this question, the traffic stop was rejected, as the officer was able to read that information as well as the identification information contained in the tag number. The linked article goes on to suggest that one might get away with it if only the legends are obscured, but it appears that the lawyer's opinion also depends on the judge. In the case of the supplied photo above, it's quite obscured and would create a citing offense if an officer arose from the wrong side of the sleeping furniture. Other states might be determined by searching [state name] obscured license plate. User65535 (a rather large binary-1 number) has presented an answer that I see as an omission on my part. Your primary question is how to get around the obscuration of the tag. You have a number of disadvantages. No trailer hitch means the bike rack is less than solidly mounted, and would not provide a suitable attachment point for a remote tag mount. No trailer hitch means no trailer wiring, which would have been used for a tag light and possibly remote brake lights and turn signal lights, although it's debatable if yours are truly obscured. Aiming at only relocating the tag, you'd still have to have the ability to illuminate the plate, which mean you'll tap into that wiring lead in some manner. The answer may be magnets. Magnets with a light and bracket to hold the tag. You'd want to pull the tag and lock it in the trunk when you are away from the vehicle, as creating a convenient magnet mount means convenience for someone to walk by and snap it free of the mount. I'd bet that the lower part of the car is plastic, but the lower right corner of the trunk lid may support magnets. Additionally, one could consider a strap-through mount. The plate frame (with lights) would be mounted on sturdy fabric straps with parachute clips that lock inside the trunk and wrap around the appropriate portions of the trunk, placing the tag in a visible location, again perhaps the lower right corner.
Threatening to report the uninsured driver to avoid payment would be blackmail and illegal / criminal. As a result, they are not going to do this. Reporting the uninsured driver on the other hand is their civic duty. So they can get your friend into trouble, but they can't get around paying. Is your friend insured now? If not, tell him to get insured IMMEDIATELY. And if they are very lucky, the other company doesn't figure out your friend was uninsured, and they get away with it when they make a claim. Alternatively, tell them to figure out how much the damage is, how much the repair will cost, and whether it is worth taking the risk.
An officer is allowed to pull you over for speeding and then decline to give you a ticket for speeding. So the lack of a ticket has nothing to do with it (unless you actually weren't speeding, not even 1 MPH over.) Simply having past felonies, however, is not a reason for an officer to be able to search the car. Without a warrant, he'd need probable cause, consent, or some other exception to the warrant requirement. It's impossible for me to say what happened here. Maybe your husband had an outstanding arrest warrant? Maybe the officer saw the gun from outside the car? Maybe one of you said "OK" when he asked to search the car? Or maybe the search was illegal after all?
Obviously the police isn't checking all the time that all the speed limit signs are still where they should be, so in practice you would get a speeding ticket, which the police officer would give you with a good conscience. And you might very well think that you missed the sign, and pay the fine without complaining. If you are sure there was no sign, you could say to that officer "I didn't see any speed limit sign, where was it? " and hopefully he or she would tell you where that sign was supposed to be. Then you might go back, find the sign on the ground, take a photo, take it to the police officer who would then take action to get the sign back up, and would most likely make that speeding ticket invalid. There are exceptions: A speed limit sign can actually allow you to go faster than you would be allowed without the sign. For example in a town the normal speed limit without any signs might be 30mph, and the sign said 40mph. If the police officer stops you going 45, you have no excuse because without the sign the limit would have been 30. Or you have one sign 30, followed by a sign 40. Same situation if the "40" is taken down. Or the police should have put up repeating signs every two miles, but put them every mile. If one sign is down, they could still be within the legal limits. And last, assuming the police didn't put the sign up just for fun, there is probably something making it unsafe to go 60mph if there was a sign 40mph. If that is something you should have seen, and doing 60mph was dangerous for reasons you should have seen, then you might get a ticket for driving at an unreasonable speed. Even if there never was a speed sign. You are never allowed to drive at a dangerous speed.
I would inform the authorities about that loss as soon as possible (consider that your lost license could be found by a criminal who then conveniently "loses" it during a bank robbery), and ask them how to get a replacement license as soon as possible. See here: http://www.dmv.org/ok-oklahoma/replace-cdl.php That website actually recommends having a copy of your CDL with you at all times, or your company should have a copy on their files they can fax to you, so it would seem legal to drive with a copy. There is a difference between "driving license" in the sense "the permission given to you by the state to drive a car on public roads" and "driving license" in the sense "a piece of paper or plastic giving evidence that you have permission to drive". In most countries, driving without license is a serious offence, while driving without the piece of plastic is a minor offence.
Interesting question! I believe all of the examples can be addressed by the following rules: A vehicle on a roadway has the right-of-way over a vehicle not on a roadway. Therefore, the vehicle leaving a parking lot always yields to a vehicle in a parallel road. Absent another rule, the vehicle on the right always has the right-of-way. So if two vehicles are leaving adjacent parking lots, the left one waits for the right one to go if there is any potential conflict. Of course, not enough people know these rules, so in practice if you can't get the vehicle with the legal right-of-way to take it I teach drivers to be as decisive and cautious as possible: I.e., take the right-of-way, but not so fast that you can't avoid the other vehicle if it decides to go after all, because legally you will be at fault in a collision. (Though it's anyone's guess how police and insurers would settle the tricky scenarios you illustrate.)
When the LEO violently assaulted the citizen on the easement is he out of his jurisdiction? No. Federal law enforcement officers' jurisdiction generally* includes the entire US. Federal and state jurisdiction are said to be concurrent with one another. If the federal law enforcement officer has a lawful basis to effect an arrest, the arrest can be effected on a state† highway easement. Is there any immediate or long term consequence for an officer committing crimes or doing so egregiously (with or without qualified immunity) out of his jurisdiction as opposed to doing so in his jurisdiction? If the officer were outside his jurisdiction (which isn't the case here) then the officer is generally treated as any other private individual. In this case, &quot;outside his jurisdiction&quot; means &quot;in another country,&quot; which brings up all sorts of additional complications that aren't really in scope here, largely because the laws and legal systems of other countries are different from those in the US. Are there any nuances to jurisdiction and law enforcement by LEOs that a first amendment auditor should be aware of? There are plenty, but perhaps the most prominent one, if the internet is any guide, is that an officer is not required to articulate the basis for reasonable suspicion or probable cause at the time of a Terry stop or an arrest. The time for this is much later, after a judge is involved. Arguing with an officer on this score is just going to make things worse. Instead, one should cooperate while stating one's objections clearly and calmly, especially making it clear that cooperation does not imply consent. * Some categories of officers do have more limited jurisdiction: thanks to cpast for the example of park rangers, whose jurisdiction is essentially restricted to national parks. The officers in this case are CBP field officers. There is a wide misconception that CBP officers' jurisdiction is limited to within 100 miles of the border, but that 100-mile limit only applies to their power to board and search vessels and vehicles without a warrant in order to prevent illegal entry into the US. Their power to make warrantless arrests &quot;for any offence against the United States&quot; committed in their presence is not geographically restricted. † The original video was filmed in South Portland, Maine, and the roadway is a municipal street, Gannett Drive, to be precise. The point remains, however, that it is a public right-of-way, and federal officers are not &quot;out of their jurisdiction&quot; simply because they've left a federal facility and entered a public place.
"I don't know" is a better answer than most, but you should only say that if it's the truth. The three most important rules to follow when being questioned by a police officer are as follows: Do not lie. Do not incriminate yourself. Be cooperative (to the extent that you're not lying or incriminating yourself). "Do you know why I pulled you over?" or "Why do you think I stopped you?" are perfect opening questions for law enforcement to ask because there is no good answer. Any answer you give puts you at a disadvantage for the rest of the stop because you've tacitly accepted the officer's assumption that you did something wrong. The best response would be to simply reply back with their own question. "Why did you pull me over, officer?" If you say it right, it's rational, polite, and cooperative without actually answering anything. Your position from the very beginning should be that you did nothing wrong (even if you know that you did). It's the officer's job to make the case. It's not your job to help them.