Hey NJ drivers, is this even legal?

It's been the bane of many NJ drivers. Being pulled over and issued a ticket for 'obscured plate' because of a license plate frame that you didn't even put on the car. It's often placed there by the dealer when you purchased the car. You may know the drill. A police officer pulls you over and explains you're getting a ticket because a very slight piece, maybe the bottom 8%, of the lettering that makes up Garden State were not visible due to the frame.

This will cost you $47. In a recent year, 111,000 tickets were written for this in New Jersey. And that was a 15,000 increase from the year prior. It's an easy ticket for police because so many cars have the frames, but it's also incredibly petty in my opinion. If the important characters on your license plate are not covered in any way, you're really making a mountain out of a mole hill to issue summonses. Police know from the color and design of the plate that it's a Jersey tag.

So I was on the road the other day and came upon this car. Would this be illegal? This is clearly a bracket for carrying bicycles but it can come on and off the car. It's not meant to be permanent the way a license plate frame is. Yet it obscures much more of the plate. So does this person constantly get pulled over and ticketed? I hope not. With over 111,000 tickets at $47 each, I think the government getting over $5 million a year is enough already.

More from New Jersey 101.5