Alaska Has No Plate Cover Ban, Only a Clearly Legible Rule

The prohibition Alaska drivers expect to find does not exist. Searching the vehicle registration chapter AS 28.10 and the offences chapter AS 28.35 for "obscure" produces no hit relating to registration plates at all, and the word appears in the Department of Public Safety equipment regulations only about lights, projecting loads and slow-moving-vehicle emblems. The one place the regulations do forbid covering something is 13 AAC 04.225, which bars driving with a sign, poster or other nontransparent material on the front windshield or window. The drafters plainly knew how to write a covering prohibition and did not write one for plates.

That leaves AS 28.10.171(b) doing all the work, and it is a performance standard rather than a device list. Three separate requirements sit in one sentence. The plate must be securely fastened to the vehicle to which it is assigned. Its upper edge must be horizontal, which rules out an angled or tilted mount as much as a tinted lens. And the bottom of the plate must sit no less than 12 inches from the ground, so a low tucked frame is an offence in its own right, independent of visibility. The section closes by letting the commissioner provide by regulation for another method of installation when that is considered necessary to insure legibility.

Alaska's plate placement rules are also worth knowing before choosing a frame. AS 28.10.171(a) puts one plate front and one rear when two are issued. When only one plate is issued, it goes on the rear of a noncommercial vehicle but on the front of a commercial vehicle, with "commercial vehicle" taking the meaning given to "commercial motor vehicle" in AS 19.10.399. The direction reverses with vehicle class, so a commercial operator who mounts the single plate in a rear frame has put it on the wrong end of the truck.

At night the governing rule shifts to the lighting regulation. 13 AAC 04.025(c) requires either a taillight or a separate light to illuminate the rear registration plate with a white light "so that it is clearly visible from a distance of 50 feet to the rear," and the light must be wired to be illuminated whenever the headlights or auxiliary driving lights are on. Fifty feet is the practical test a trooper applies after dark, and it is where smoked, mirrored and photo-blocking covers actually fail: they can pass a daylight glance and still kill the plate at 50 feet under a plate lamp.

Enforcement reaches a covered plate through two statutes rather than through a cover-specific one. AS 28.10.461 makes it unlawful to drive or move a vehicle required to be registered unless valid registration plates, decals or permits for the current period are "attached to and displayed on the vehicle in the manner required by this chapter," and the manner required is the clearly legible standard of AS 28.10.171(b). AS 28.10.451 adds that a person may not wilfully attempt to defeat the provisions of the chapter, which is the hook for a deliberately obscuring device rather than a merely dirty plate.

451 for wilfully attempting to defeat the registration chapter. 010 applies: under subsection (a) a violation of a provision of Title 28 is a misdemeanor unless declared a felony or an infraction, and under subsection (b) the punishment is a fine of not more than $500, imprisonment for not more than 90 days, or both, with the driving privilege or the vehicle's registration open to suspension or revocation. 010(c) makes an infraction with a fine not to exceed $300 and no jail. 030(a) doubles the maximum fine for any Title 28 violation committed inside a highway work zone or a traffic safety corridor.

Enforcement is roadside by the Alaska State Troopers and municipal police. 011(3) authorises the Department of Public Safety to regulate the inspection of vehicles other than commercial motor vehicles and the removal of vehicles found in a defective or unsafe condition, but the equipment chapter the department actually adopted, 13 AAC 04, contains no periodic inspection scheme, so a plate cover is checked at a traffic stop rather than in a lane.