I never noticed this actually :) But we mainly tested and ran this in Europe and not in the US, maybe there is a difference in how the front plates are mounted.

I never noticed this actually :) But we mainly tested and ran this in Europe and not in the US, maybe there is a difference in how the front plates are mounted. I don't think I can recall any European plate I've seen that is mounted so it could get bent in that way (the bumper usually covers the entire plate height). Some bending and distortions are tolerated, so maybe it would work. One of the design goals I had was that if the system fails, it should fail in a way a human would understand (like dirt in the wrong place turns an F into an E, or something like that). And if a human can't immediately see the bent chars (and had to "reason" about them), probably my system would have problems as well.