An additional hassle with this trailer license law is that if you want to use a "reactivated" plate it must be from not only the exact year, it must be a trailer plate. Also, unlike the reactivated plate for motor vehicles which allow a one year either side of the vehicle year, this law does not allow that leeway.
Makes it very hard and very expensive to benefit from this law. If you expect to ever recover your costs, you better be 18 years old when you license your trailer and keep it until you are 65.
The State is going to get its pound of flesh for granting you this "privilege".
Umm...
A few issues with this..
1.
Restored license plates don't require tabs.. so, if you bring in a license plate without tabs, they can't tell you it doesn't fit that year provided that it's that SERIES
2. See above - As long as the plate matches that SERIES, Ie the group of years in which the plate was the same, you're good to go..
3. Tied to above, what if you get a 79 plate, but it was registered 79,80,81,82,83,84, and finally an 85 sticker on top, but you have an '82, they gonna make you peel off the last 3 stickers to 'prove' it was an '82? No, of course not.
3.What the LAW says and how it's applied is usually quite different.
Ie, if you have an '82 trailer, you must use a plate that was used in '82. So if the trailer plate from 1979-1990 is white with green lettering, in ##-ABCD, then it must be white with green lettering matching ##-ABCD format.. Just as an example, I don't know the color scheme or years.
I have a trailer tag assigned to my M1031... Didn't even realize it until afterwards... brought it to the county assessors office and they assigned it to my truck no issues whatsoever, after the verified it was for that GROUP of years...
http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/spcollector.html
[h=2]1. Plate requirements[/h]
- You must be a WA state vehicle owner, to get these plates.
- They can only be used on the vehicle they were purchased for.
- The plates are displayed on the rear of the vehicle. If you provide a set of restored plates, they may be displayed on the front and rear of the vehicle.
- You don’t need to display month/year tabs on the plates.
Also, be aware that restored plates WILL NOT RETURN TO ANYTHING if the officer runs the license plate, the officer must run the tag as the equipment #, NOT the plate #....
