Has your car license plate been damaged in an accident, has it deteriorated over time or has it been lost? It must be replaced as soon as possible to avoid unwanted fines.
In the eyes of the law, it is illegal for you to drive with a license plate that is not clearly visible. If it is tampered with, broken, cracked or faded, chances are you will be reported to the police or stopped by the police.
So if you’re looking for a quick fix, read on to get your vehicle back on the road and get back on the road in no time.
What does the highway code say?
The registration data shown on the plate they must always be legible. If these are no longer legible due to deterioration, the holder of the registration certificate must apply to the competent office of the MCTC the new registration of the vehicle, in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 93.
It must be said, however, that the obligation to read license plates does not only refer to damaged or scratched plates. This obligation is also configured in the event that one or both plates are presented as extremely dirty and illegible.
When driving on dirt or snow-covered roads, it is common to find license plates covered in mud, dust or slime. Another obstacle to reading license plates is represented by exhaust gases from carburetors. This means that, in order to comply with the highway code, it is necessary to regularly check the status of the plates to verify that all characters are legible.
Penalties for damaged license plate
Driving one or both of the plates that have been altered or made illegible will result in a fine from 41 to 168 euros. But that is not all. In theory, anyone caught in this situation also risks the administrative detention for three months and the confiscation of the license plate.
Therefore, a repeat driver who is fined a second time for the same offense will have his vehicle confiscated. In addition, vehicles that show up at the inspection appointment with a defective license plate can be refused.
How to fix a dented license plate
In Italy, the highway code requires vehicle owners to wear clearly legible number plates, at the risk of fines and hefty penalties. However, if the writing is illegible, the vehicle must be registered again, with a considerable waste of time and money. However, if the license plate is still legible, even if it has been a little dented by an unwary motorist, it can simply be removed and fixed.
Very often, we happen to notice dents on the license plate on the car, and this often prevents them from being properly displayed and authorized. However, if the license plate is not excessively damaged, the inconvenience can be solved with maintenance.
Maintenance
What we need is: a chamois cloth, a hammer, epoxy or fiberglass filler, a white permanent marker and transparent flatting.
The first step is to remove the license plate from the rear or front of the vehicle. To do this, use a screwdriver to remove the caps that hold the license plate in place. Take a detergent and a cloth and wipe the plate thoroughly. You need to cover it with a chamois leather cloth, like the one you normally use at home to polish furniture or your car, and you’ll also need to wrap the hammer in a cloth to further soften the impact.
The plaque is then placed on a flat surface and the freshly stuffed hammer is used to get started strike the area carefully where the license plate needs to be straightened. The dent must be repaired without damaging the writing. Work on the license plate until you can restore it to its pre-dented state.
Now you can insert the license plate back into the license plate holder. Remember to also attach the ear plugs removed in the previous step. At this point, your license plate is ready again and, depending on the intervention carried out, it will return more or less to its initial condition before the unfortunate dent at the hands of another driver.
Another intervention you can do on the car license plate, if a number is visibly damaged, can be repaired with fiberglass or other type of epoxy material, then build it again, wait for it to dry, sand the part and finally touch up with the white permanent marker. To optimize the result, apply transparent flatting to permanently protect the color.
