Off Topic: Police Cruiser License Plates?

[mdoerner]

Hi Guys,

This is a bit off topic, but I think the crowd here can answer my question.

Many municipalities' police cruisers do not carry state issued license plates. Instead it's just a tag with a number of the squad car. What in the ORC allows this? ORC 4503.21 does not exempt the police specifically from this regulation. What am I missing here? Or is this covered in the the Administrative Code? Thanks!

-Mike Doerner

[Mustang380gal]

Fire engines do not have state issued plates, either.

[Cruiser]

Can you name ANY Government owned vehicle that has a State plate?

[slowquest]

Any "vehicle" owned by police or fire isn't a "vehicle" for purposes of the ORC.

4101.01(A) "Vehicles" means everything on wheels or runners, including motorized bicycles, but does not mean electric personal assistive mobility devices, vehicles that are operated exclusively on rails or tracks or from overhead electric trolley wires, and vehicles that belong to any police department, municipal fire department, or volunteer fire department, or that are used by such a department in the discharge of its functions.

[slowquest]

Can you name ANY Government owned vehicle that has a State plate?

Yes, if it's not police or fire, it MUST have a plate on it. State and local vehicles will have a white plate with red characters.

[sodbuster95]

^^^ What he said. All the non-fire/EMS/Police vehicles owned by government entities have state-issued tags.

[MyWifeSaidYes]

...ORC 4503.21 does not exempt the police specifically from this regulation...

As mentioned, R.C. 4501.01 says police cruisers are not "vehicles" (http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4501.01)

and R.C. 4503 only deals with "Licensing of Motor Vehicles".

[SMMAssociates]

I can't comment on the need for a "State" plate - seems to me that this was changed some years back.

The brain trust at Youngstown PD used to run "undercover" vehicles that were older (and well used) Ford vehicles that were removed from Patrol service. License plates (to look "civilian") were often things like "YPD 3".... Between the plates and the "blackwalls & beanies" tire treatment, they weren't too hard to spot....

"Blackwalls" - white wall tires, or at least those with a stripe or two, had become very common by then. "Beanies" were (are?) very small in inexpensive hub caps that really only covered the lug nuts in the center of the wheel. The combination was quite inexpensive, but looked it ....

YPD bought a bunch of Mopars somewhere along the line. Nobody much liked them. One of the top brass was assigned a retired Patrol vehicle as his work car. They'd repainted the car with a half-decent gold color, but didn't bother to take the big POLICE decals off the side first.... Ooops....

For a number of years, back when OH first started with "keep 'em on the car until they rot off" plates, I had a set with just six or seven digits, instead of the letters & numbers combo that's common now. Plus side was that the average BG likely wouldn't remember the number. Downside was that I didn't either....

Regards,

[mdoerner]

Thanks for the clarification boys.

Mike Doerner