I just got my "I get 50 MPG. You?" custom license plate frames that I ordered from the GH CafePress store. Yay!

Well, I've just been informed by a friend of mine (who happens to drive an Insight) that the plate frames sold by CafePress are essentially illegal in Texas.

He pointed me to this Snopes.com article http://www.snopes.com/politics/traffic/texasplate.asp which in turn links to the text of the actual Texas Senate bill wherein this law was enacted. One is in violation of this law if anything obscures the license number or issuing state on the plate.

In essence, the top portion of the aforementioned plate frame obscures about 50-75% of the word "TEXAS", which would put it squarely in violation of this law.

Another friend, who happens to be a cop here in Austin, opined that I'm unlikely to get pulled over or fined ($200!) for this infraction, but he would not rule out the possibility. So, I put mine on anyway. I'll put them up for sale here at a significant discount in order to offset the cost of my $200 ticket if I ever incur one.