That nice frame around your license plate telling passers-by your favorite sports team, your alma mater, or free advertising for the dealership where you bought your car is probably going to have to go.
Unless this particular form of expression is worth more than $150 to you.
Starting Jan. 1, it will be illegal to have a license frame that covers the "Arizona" at the top of the plate. If the state name is even partly covered, or in any way not clearly legible, you could be pulled over and cited.
The good thing is, it's a quick fix. Just unscrew the bolts from the car, take the frame off, and put the plate back on the car with the bolts. Also, not all frames cover up the state name.
The new law joins others regarding state license plates, including how they need to be illuminated, how high off the ground they must be and how they should be attached to your car.
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If you're cited in Tucson, the fine for this violation will be $160. If you're cited in county jurisdiction, it's $151.
It's also a primary offense, meaning you can be pulled over just for this, said Sgt. Harold Sanders, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.
The new law eliminates one more hurdle for officers identifying a vehicle, Sanders said.
But it's unlikely Tucson police will be so focused on the plate laws that it's the only thing they'll look for to pull drivers over, said Sgt. Steve Culbertson, a supervisor in the Tucson police traffic section. "Are we going to go out and specifically look for this violation? Probably not, but you can get pulled over for it."
This new law only applies to vehicles registered in Arizona.
Before I moved here, I didn't think about license-plate frames much. They never caught much of my attention.
But as soon as I got here, I noticed right away how many people use the license-plate frames. They're all over the place.
What really surprised me was how many people leave the car-dealership frames on. I always thought the first thing to do after driving off the dealership lot was to remove the advertisement.
But I'll be one of the people with a screwdriver out in my carport before Jan. 1, removing my University of Arizona alumni license-plate frame. It covers up half of the state name, which legally means it's not clearly legible.
On StarNet: Find traffic updates and other transportation news on the Gridlocked blog at go.azstarnet.com/ gridlocked
RoadQ
Question: "I have a question regarding the I-10 construction. Why is it that on the eastbound side of the frontage road they put the portable flashing sign way past the Miracle Mile exit that Grant Rd. is closed, so now the only option is to take Speedway and come way back up to Grant, when we are trying to conserve fuel, if we knew at Miracle Mile we would be able to exit then and go down to Grant," wrote Michael Sniffen.
Answer: The state places the signs so people can see them after they've turned onto the frontage road from the preceding surface street, said Linda Ritter, spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Transportation.
"That guarantees that everyone will see the sign," she said.
The state has received a few complaints about sign placement, but adding more signs means adding to the expense of the project, Ritter said. Besides, more signs can lead to more confusion, and also more signs can mean people pay less attention to them.
If the state gets a lot of complaints, it may consider changing the placement of the signs, Ritter said.
