We are beginning to get used to living in our new home near Portland. There are still things we need to learn. Among them, how to get along with the police.
Cars in Oregon have a license plate on the back and the front, which seems pretty reasonable to me. When we first got here, Lee Ann dutifully went to the MVD, registered our car (actually Anika's car), and received two new plates with beautiful Crater Lake as a background.
Update 2016.06.12!
At the end of May we received a check for $80 from the State of Oregon Judicial Department. There was no explanation, but the only thing that makes sense is that it was a reimbursement for the fine I paid. Nice and thanks!
Maybe I have more blog readers than I think ;-)
Our Honda is from New Mexico where front license plates are not required. So, it doesn't have a front mounting bracket. I didn't think that would be a big problem. I bought some mounting hardware and was ready to drill some holes into the front bumper. When I inspected that closer, I saw that the drilling part would be easy, but there would be no way to get my hand behind the bumper to insert the mounting hardware.
Because we were still busy moving in, I simply put the front license plate behind the windshield and put off properly mounting it. Then it got cold and I didn't want to lay around on the hard concrete outside to make another attempt.
All was good until James came to visit for Thanksgiving. One afternoon he took the car into Portland, parked it there, and went out with his friends. When he came back, there was a ticket on the car with a $80 fine for not having properly mounted the front license plate!
That was harsh. Wouldn't a warning be sufficient? It was time to visit YouTube to watch a video on how to dismantle the front of your Honda; and put it back together without too many pieces left over.
Taking the front bumper off was surprisingly easy and quick, but I was worried about putting it back together. I already had visions of driving sheepishly down to the dealer, bumper in the trunk, and paying a fortune to make it look like a car again.
There are a positive side effect. A while back in Albuquerque, we had the car serviced and they discovered that rodents had chewed through a water line that went up to the windshield wipers. They wanted $122 to fix it, which I thought was a little bit much for a piece of plastic tubing. But now that I had access, it was $2 for a new tube and five minutes of work.
Putting the car back together was also successful without further costs. When I mailed in the fee, I wrote an apologetic letter and included the before and after pictures of this adventure. I read on the Internet that they often waive the fee if you fix the problem that caused the issue.
I guess the Internet has it wrong. A few days later the $80 were taken from my checking account. Since I saved $120 on the water tubing repair, I guess I'm still ahead -- maybe enough for a speeding ticket -- but I'm still miffed.
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