Unfortunately, buying an extra licence plate to mount on your bike rack isn’t an option anywhere in Canada.
“Drivers can’t obtain a third licence plate for display on a vehicle in [British Columbia],” Lindsay Wilkins, spokeswoman for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), which regulates drivers’ licences and vehicle registrations in B.C., wrote in an e-mail.
In every province, you can get a ticket for having your licence plate obstructed by anything, including mud, snow, plastic covers and rear-mounted bike racks.
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Generally, you can move plates around the rear of the vehicle to make them visible as required by law – higher, lower, to the left or to the right – including onto the rack itself, said Kyla Lee, a Vancouver criminal defence lawyer.
If you’re using a rack-mounted plate holder at night, it will have to be lit to follow provincial safety regulations, Lee said.
Since buying an extra plate for your bike rack is prohibited, could you display a photocopy or sticker of your plate on your rack instead? Nope. That won’t work either. You need the original plate.