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license plate lock
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A few years ago, the license plates (front and rear) were stolen off of my
pickup truck. The day I discovered the theft, I reported it to the police.
I also bought license plate locks for all of my family's vehicles:
(I've no association with this company, or the advertised lock kit, just
including this link so people will know what I mean)
Now my primary vehicle is a Suzuki motorcycle (some call it a 400cc
'scooter', but not the DMV). I read a thread in another ng about license
plate thefts for purpose of gas drive-offs. I also read someone in this ng
had their daughter's scooter stolen recently. Anyway, I realized that since
I bought the motorcycle, I have not secured the plate to the back of it,
other than with ordinary bolts that could be removed in seconds.
I searched web-search, but couldn't seem to find if somebody makes a plate lock
for a motorcycle. Anybody know where I could find one? Similar to the car
kit I linked to above, but specifically for motorcycle use??? Or anything
else that would work? -Dave
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Pan head torx bolts with nylon locknuts (stainless preferred). It won't
really stop anyone, the idea is to make it just inconvenient enough that the
thief moves on to an easier target.
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Pop rivets.
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Red locktite.
Or, do what ol' sensory overload used to do: have the plate so it
can unclip off the bike and carry it with you. At one time in
nEwy Orkcity the stickers on the plates could come off pretty easy,
so the problem wasn;t the plate being gone, it was the sticker being
gone. Which would get you a ticket just as fast as driving with
no plate.
Hence the 'bring th eplate with' approach to security. It was also
said to substantially reduce the nubmer of parking tickets received.
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Try that these days, and the vehicle would be towed, as abandoned. -Dave
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In most cases it would be locked to a phone pole, with a cover locked
over it. That was the std approach to security at the time. A highly
non-descript cover.
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No matter what you use for fixings, a pich bar will rip the plate off in
no time.......the plate will rip before the bolts let go.
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Well yes, but wouldn't that kind of defeat the purpose of stealing the
plate? If you mangle the plate in the process, it's a base for your
sidestand, and not much use otherwise. -Dave
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It will only distort around the holes when they rip, and the bend in the
middle where the pressure is applied can be flattened out. A crim will
only need it to be legal 'looking' until the crime has been commited.
I'm no plate thief, I used to work at a wreckers and the removal of
plates before wrecks went to the dump was done in this fashion. I have a
bit of a collection of plates that have been straightened out.
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Weld the plates to the bike.
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I don't know what state you live in, but here in CA I use the same
hardware to bolt the plates on my cars that I do for by bikes. IOW that
car kit that you linked *should* work on your bike.
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I guess my bike is different. All my cars (and my pickup) have threaded
openings in a body panel, or a plate holder that is blocked by the plate
itself (so you can't remove the plate by removing the plate holder). So the
pl8 loc kit (or whatever it is called) has bolts that fit the threads, and
those bolts require a special tool to install and/or remove the bolts.
Nobody's going to remove the plates from our "cars" without extraordinary
effort. It can be done, but the average plate thief isn't likely to bother,
as it's going to take too long.
On the back of my motorcycle, there is a flat, stiff mudguard type thing
(for lack of a better word) behind the rear tire with holes in it to match
the motorcycle-sized license plate. There are no threads in the holes, they
are just holes. Hardware that came with the motorcycle included
bolts/nuts/washers to mount the license plate. There were also red
reflective covers that snap over the heads of the bolts after the plate is
installed. It looks good that way, but it's not secure at all, as far as
protection from plate thieves goes.
Come to think of it, I probably could use the same plate locks on the
motorcycle, but first I'd have to go to a hardware store to find nuts of the
right size/thread size to match the bolts.
I like someone else's idea though, just get some non-standard bolts from the
hardware store, since it looks like I'll be going there anyway. :) -Dave
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Get those funny screws they use in mens rooms stalls, with the
2 holes for a special driver. No gas thief will hvae the ddriver for
it.
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That's not a bad idea!!! I could get something a bit more common like hex
head bolts or something. If it's not flat-head or philips, thiefs probably
won't bother. I think that will work. -Dave
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Get Allen head instead of hex. Any old wrench can grab a hex
head. Get something that won't rust out on you.
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Doh! Yup, that's what I was thinking, but not what I wrote. -Dave
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And how is he supposed to steal those screws without the speacial
driver? ;-)
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