Portland parking ticketing for lack of license plates may cause City a big problem
Interesting piece here on the City of Portland parking patrol’s ticket writing campaign for vehicles lacking front license plates. Apparently, our parking cops have written 3,000 high-dollar tickets on parked cars without front plates.
Assuming the report is accurate–and sometimes they aren’t–here’s the problem. While I could be mistaken, I believe that the basis of these tickets is found in the Oregon Vehicle Code violation at ORS 803.540. The problem is that the statute is makes it a traffic infraction when a person “operates” a vehicle without proper license plates. A vehicle sitting parked isn’t being operated by anyone. (ORS 801.370) So how the parking patrol can legally ticket 3,000 people in our fair is a question that occurs to me.
It’s been years since I found myself appearing in traffic court. (Talk about adventure!) So it’s possible that my take on this is off the mark. Still, I would be really curious as to whether the City is citing vehicles based only on ORS 803.540, and–if so–how they get around the “operates” requirement. They wouldn’t have illegally ticketed thousands of parked vehicles….
David Sugerman
Tags: license plate tickets, parking patrol, Portland, sugerman
March 16th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I have received one such ticket. The citation stated that the license plate was not affixed the front of the vehicle nor visible in the front window. Since then I have been placing the plate in the front window. Today, officer 115 left me a warning that a citation would be issued as it was not affixed to the vehicle. Is this the law, or is the front window a defense?
Ted de Looze