If you’ve purchased a pre-owned certified Toyota, you’ve had to get a license plate for it. Pretty much every car has special places on both the front and back bumpers for you to install your license plates with ease and keep them safe. Do you really need two plates, however?

In Missouri the answer is yes. While not every state requires you to display two plates on your certified Toyota, when you’re driving in MO you’re going to need those two plates. This really shouldn’t be an issue since you receive two when you purchased your plates. While you are required to display them both so that your car is easily identifiable anywhere in the St Louis area, there’s another reason you need two plates. If you only needed one, you could put one plate on one car and the other on another vehicle. This would be illegal, and you’d probably get caught eventually, but to stop this from becoming a problem at all Missouri requires that you use both plates on your vehicle.

In Missouri, you are also required to display month and year tabs on your license plates as well. The month tabs are color coded so they are easy for police officers to glance at and know what month they expire. January through June has the month abbreviations written in color on a white background; July through December have white lettering on colored backgrounds. There are also tabs that show the year of expiration. It’s important that you keep these tabs current on your certified Toyota.

If the tabs on your certified Toyota are stolen, be sure to contact the police. This is a crime, and it needs to be reported. In order for you to avoid being ticketed you will also need to obtain new tabs for your plates. You’ll need a notarized Application for Replacement Plates/Tabs as well as a copy of the police report and $3.50. You can replace stolen tabs up to two times in a year.

Be sure to keep both plates on, keep them secure, and to update your tabs. You’ll be obeying the law and hopefully avoiding getting pulled over.