Ok for starters, I'm putting a big DISCLAIMER here, that all this is purely HYPOTHETICAL, just for giggles, food for thought, etc, basically to cover my a$$ lol, and this is in NO WAY meant to promote or aid anyone in felony evasion of law enforcement...

Having said that I was thinkin about somethin. Anyone ever seen that movie The Transporter, w/ Jason Statham? There's a part in the beginning when he's driving the getaway car, and he presses a button and the license plate holder rotates, revealing another license plate (prob. a fake/stolen tag). Now, seeing that this would prob be a very interesting and probably effective tool to utilize in the event one was *hypothetically* attempting to evade the po-po, it's also very impractical, in the sense that I imagine it would take a LOT of fab work to make work.

So, while I was just throwing that idea around in my head, I was wondering...has anyone ever considered running a switch to the rear lights that illuminate the license plate? Legally, they must work for you to pass inspection...but if you had a switch you could use to cut power to them in some *hypothetical* event, I'd think that might help obscure anyone's view of your plates...what do you guys think?

Sure, cops have big old spotlights, but I think they aim those primarily onto your rear windshield, plus if you used the cutoff switch to the lights in conjuction w/ some polarizable plate cover, I'd think it would be VERY effective...

 

That wouldn't stop anyone elses headlights from lighting up your plate. If they're in a position to be able to read it(Lights on or off), they're probably directly behind you.

 

Some of my buddies with bikes have a switch they hit and ALL the lights on the bike go out except the headlight... no brake lights, no tails, nothin.

 

Diablone, yea, I thought of that, but that's why I said in conjunction w/ a polarized license plate cover. Some of the plate covers I've seen are VERY dark...to the point that in broad daylight I have trouble making out the plate from close. (i'm not talkin about the one that's 100% clear, and polarized only from an angle). So that combo seems somewhat promising, no?

Brian, your car has the same button too, you know that?? It's the headlight toggle switch Turn off all your lights, use the toggle switch to leave the pop-ups up, and then pull back the light stick to put the headlights on. Not a single light on the car will be on, minus your headlights Granted, your brake lights will come on when you touch the brakes, but I'd be too damn scared to turn those off too...talk about asking for an accident...and my car's black too!!

EDIT: I meant to say pull back the light stick to turn on the HIGHBEAMS.

 

itd be way more effective to have a highpower beam of light coming from the back of your car to their eyes so they couldnt read it... like when they blind your *** with the mag light... ive already thought this through...

 

LOL!! Yo man, that's BY FAR the BEST idea I've heard of so far! lol. You get one of those *crucial* spotlights lol...and aim it right at their windshield, I *guarantee* you the chase will be over REAL quick lol (I wonder if they'd consider shooting out the light....hmm)

 

http://www.naimark.net/projects/zap/howto.html

Checkout the "Military" section.

 

Wow...good stuff. While it seems like a very good idea, it also makes the following points/problems clear, "Aiming was extremely critical, and at long distances, very careful fine tuning was necessary. If either the camera, or target, is moving, then some form of aiming and dynamic tracking is required."

That's gonne be hard to do, considering you're gonna be too busy focusing on traffic conditions and doing a 80 - 150 sprint rather than turning around to focus the laser at the po-po lol

 

yeah dog, that's how we run from the popo. bypass switch to get rid of all the lights and leave the front ones on. hey brian, do you want to help me put my roll cage in.

 

Not really. If you got a 1000watt bulb in the back, when you turn that biatch on, the only thing people are going to see is heaven shining down on them

Just like when someone comes at you with their high beams on. The high beam isn't aiming directly at you, but the damn thing is bright enough to cause irritation, discomfort, and eventually make you look away. Kinda like turning on the lights in the middle of the night

All hypothetical................of course

 

i think the broblem with a 1000watt buld would be more cooling and correct wiring.... but i dont think youd need a 1000watt laser beam of death to blind someone behind you. im sure you could just use the bulb from a mag light or even a 100watt headlight bulb, as long as it was shooting straight backwardaway from the plate.

 

LOL...well I took that right off the website. And I believe they were saying aiming was critical because they're using a laser beam, not a bulb, and thus the light isn't dispersed as it is from a bulb. So anyone around the laser won't see it (or be blinded by it at that) unless it was aimed directly at them.

LOL...suuuure

Hmmmm...very interesting. You make a good point. My question would be... as the law books stand now, is this illegal? Cuz if you don't run from them, you're not committing felony evasion...you're just blinding them, effectively prohibiting THEM from following YOU he he he

 

gimmie a little while and ill look up florida laws on it!

 

yup, its illeagal. under florida state statute 316.221 section 2.

(2) Either a taillamp or a separate lamp shall be so constructed and placed as to illuminate with a white light the rear registration plate and render it clearly legible from a distance of 50 feet to the rear. Any taillamp or taillamps, together with any separate lamp or lamps for illuminating the rear registration plate, shall be so wired as to be lighted whenever the headlamps or auxiliary driving lamps are lighted.

also there was another one that said you werent allowed to place a light that points at someones windshield mirrors and other things. but the ststute that i posted above would apply to our little scenario.

with all ive read you would be able to have a light on the inside of the car and with the use of mirrors project a light on the plate that produced so much glare on the plate it would be unreadable, but there are also laws that say you have to have a readable plate on the rear of the car. but if you hooked up the light that makes glare on the plate from the inside of the car to a sensor that only turned it on when headlights were pointed at the rear of the car you could probably get away with saying that the headlights of the car behind you were making the glare so bad they couldnt read the plate. or it would seem that the plate had too much reflective matterial on it (which would be a defective plate made by the state...

 

LOL...That's some good info you got there. I wonder if VA has the same stature... (or similar)

 

i got my in from florida cause i used to live there and im still running FL tags so i dont have to pass emissions (i have a few bills sent to my gfriends house in florida and say im just going to school in OH). but all you have to do is search on google for "(whatever state) statutes" and each state usually has a web site for all the laws regarding that state.

 

Well then, couldnt you just get a 1000 watt bulb and aim it at the license plate, then its technically legal but im sure it would be hard to look at, our plates are a bit reflective lol.

 

I have an even better idea...along the lines of scheistermeister's efective plate made by the state idea. If you placed an extremely reflective coating on the plate (I dunno...laminate it maybe? lol. Or even better, something that's spray on, but permanent, maybe even sparkly haha...so the more light they put on it, the worse it got? LOL. Oh man, that would be nice.

On a serious note...you know how people have transition lenses that change shades in the light?? he he he. I'm telling you...if there's a way to make a 100% clear plate that can become polarized and thus tinted incredibly upon demand (maybe upon stimulation of an electrical current, or stimulated by a light hidden somewhere, I dunno), but basically that you could control when it transitioned to very dark (and thus illegible plates), that would be perfect. I honestly believe the theory behind this makes it possible. Is there any such thing as windows you can control the tint on?? (Like Knight Rider LOL!)

 

very popular with Bike guys

 

My idea was to make a custom passive LCD panel that would black out the plate when energized - never got around to fabbing that up... maybe I'll head over the lab one day and prototype it. Anyone interested?

 

Interested? I say patent that junx! My only concern would be debris & heat... how well would an LCD withstand rocks and what not flying up and hitting it (yes unlikely, but still a concern), and being in direct sunlight? Say, a couple of hours in the hot Cali sun?

 

well the shinning the light on the plate would have to come from the inside of the car. the statutes i read said that any light on the ouside of the car that shinned on the plate would have to make it legible from 50ft... but it didnt say anything about a light on the inside of the car. the only problem with spraying something reflective on the plate is that you are technically tampering with government property. but then again the blinding light or the bright light shinning on the plate is still only a ticket, not really any type of REAL trouble.

 

Well, we all know from having left a calculator in the front seat of the car that hot LCD's align and turn black just like they do when voltage is applied.

Hmm.... perhaps colder climates only?

 

I remember hearing of a company that planned to make LCD window shades a long time ago. I don't think they actually produced anything. I thought it'd be great to have one over the license place, rigged to a temporary switch, when you run an automated redlight camera. (Not that I'd actually consider doing something like this, though. ) Good luck trying to find something large enough with enough opacity differential, and for cheap, though.