All of the vehicle license plates available in America | Hacker News Reader

All of the vehicle license plates available in America

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A relative had an immigrant colleague that was intrigued by different US license plates.

One day their manager had one that had a new colour scheme that he never saw before.

The intrigue overtook him and in a big group he had to ask how he got this new beautiful plate. And how could he get one themself?

Turns out the state required you to “wear” this license plate after your third DUI or something.

Oops.

Edit: looks like two states have these “whiskey plates” or “party plates”: https://www.tmj4.com/news/project-drive-sober/ohio-gets-toug...

that's so ... american. the vehicle version of public mugshots or perpwalk

I’m just wondering why they’re allowed to drive at all after 3 DUIs.

I would expect them to be in prison for 25 years or something after 3rd one. You know like 3 strikes...

In Mississippi, one of those two aforementioned states, it's perfectly legal to drink and drive (with an open container in your hand!) as long as you stay below 0.08 BAC.

(Nit: it's legal at a state level but municipalities and counties are allowed to dictate more rules on drunk driving - most don't, but YMMV)

I suppose it still looks a little bit like this then: https://youtu.be/2xcQIoh3FQQ

Except for the open container, most states allow you to legally drive with a BAC below a certain cutoff.

Not exactly. Most states, 0.08 or above is presumed guilty of DUI without any other impairment detected. You can still get a DUI with a BAC below 0.08 but it becomes a bit harder to convict since it becomes a function of the officer’s testimony and any physical tests administered before your arrest.

Right, it becomes a matter of impairment, not blood alcohol level.

But you can certainly have one beer on an empty stomach, have a BAC of 0.04 and drive around. As long as you aren't visibly impaired, it's legal.

True true - but to drink and drive, in the most present tense form of the word drink, only in Mississippi!

I don't know about America but in the UK people don't get their driving licence taken away that often, even if they have hit 12 points (ie: racked up enough offences to theoretically lose it). There is a lot of consideration as to whether removing the driving licence will cause hardship and defendants obviously usually argue that it will (with some truth) so judges sometimes don't remove the licence.

Anecdotally, I feel like it's actually gotten less common over the years. When I was a teenager I would meet adults who were riding the bus because they'd had their licence taken away. Often it would be for a 6 month period before they could re-apply (without retaking the test). That became less frequent at some point.

I think there has been a huge cultural change in how people regard drink driving - I'm old enough (50s) when i was almost regarded as a subject for humour. Now I don't know anyone who doesn't take it very seriously indeed - particularly here in Scotland where the blood-alcohol limits are quite a bit lower for driving than in the rest of the UK.

I feel a similar cultural change in Iceland, however in USA I feel no such change, quite the contrary. Moving to the USA was honestly a bit of a culture shock in observing how commonplace the practice is. What was more shocking is observing a practice of strategic drinking, that is try to drink just the right amount to keep your blood alcohol level at the legal limit. I’ve never seen anything like that before I moved here.

That will obviously vary quite a lot across a country the size of America. Local to me, DUI is extremely frowned upon.

But yes, it is somewhat common for people to have an idea of what it takes to get to a BAC of 0.08%, because that is the threshold at which you will be charged with DUI. For many regular drinkers, they won't be impaired at 0.08% and it takes less alcohol than you think to get there. Especially with modern microbrew beers. Getting a DUI will completely f*ck over your life, so if you like to drink socially, you are very careful.

In Lithuania the rules are fairly simple: fines up to a certain level of intoxication.Criminal record, car seizure,massive fine and lost licence if it goes above certain limit. Also, one needs to take a driving test at the end( after 2 or 3 years) if they want to drive again and the examiners are known to apply every rule in the book so they'd have hard time to pass.

>in the UK people don't get their driving licence taken away that often

In England and Wales, a drink-driving offence would attract a minimum of a 12 month disqualification unless there are very compelling mitigating factors. On a second offence (or a serious first offence), you would usually have to undergo a medical examination and re-take your driving test to get your license back.

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-co...

https://www.gov.uk/driving-disqualifications/disqualificatio...

One in five continue to drive:

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-10304829/Mo...

....illegally. That's a problem of nearly non-existing enforcement in the UK, not the toughness of law.

Illegally? It sounds like a judge has decided to leave them with a license despite having 12 points. That seems the definition of legally to me.

Good lawyers, basically. Either that or it's a small town and they know the right people.

I know someone who was woken up by a State Trooper, fast asleep in her vehicle on the side of the road, with the engine running so it was obvious that she fell asleep while driving.

It was by far not her first DUI. I assume that she lost her license after that, but I do know that she kept driving.

> I know someone who was woken up by a State Trooper, fast asleep in her vehicle on the side of the road, with the engine running so it was obvious that she fell asleep while driving.

It doesn't sound obvious to me. If it was cold out, you would run the engine for heat for instance.

It may not be obvious she was in fact driving, but it'll get you a DUI charge every time. Hell, even if you're in the back seat sleeping it off you're likely to get a charge if you have the keys anywhere accessible (and sometimes, even if you don't).

This is correct.

I also neglected to mention that the car wasn't neatly pulled over onto the side of the road but had driven itself into the ditch between the road and a field.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter>

I'm curious what others think of this? My own thoughts, is that after one DUI you should just not get any plates at all. Period.

It seems almost darkly comical that there would be a second and then a third time, and that the punishment would be an altered plate color?? Why not just put local graffiti artists to work, and give them a free pass to keep the offenders car in a constant state of "DUI" in scarlet letters.

My opinion is that DUI should revoke your license. I know it is common in Europe where first offenders loose their license for a few months, and then it gets progressively longer.

The USA has IMO a terrible system which punishes DUI drivers through the justice system regardless of if they caused any harm. This leaves people with pretty shitty lives and prevents people from calling the police on DUI drivers. They can still drive shortly after though.

Revoking their license does not stop them from driving.

This is a good argument for having a robust and useful public transportation system, as well as designing cities to support such a system. Won't happen in the US in my lifetime, but one can cream.

One can, but I think it is better to dream.

It stops by far most people from driving. The ones who are undeterred and keep on driving without a license are then fair game for the criminal justice system.

Even if this minority gets away with continue driving without a license and wont get punished, you still save many lives by taking the vast majority of drunk drivers off the road. That alone is worth it.

No, but it opens up the path to actual jail time, which would get them off the road for good.

I think in Europe you’re a lot less likely to get charged with a DUI.

Rare to see random checkpoints, and generally rare to have non-automated “mobile” enforcement of traffic rules in Europe (in my US, Canadian, French, German and Croatian driving experience).

Heck, in France most collisions don’t even involve police while they’re generally a mandatory report in US/Canada.

If you get a DUI in Europe, you were probably a bad driver on top of being over the limit.

My anecdotal experience is the exact opposite! I'm from some unpopular Canadian province and live in Switzerland. Lots of random controls in CH. I watch a lot of French television where they at least pretend to do the same in France, sort of the Gendarmes de Clermont-Ferrand. Anyway. I've also been a passenger in a car in Germany and the driver was controlled randomly. Now, in my wasted youth in a former capital of Canada, I wasn't once controlled when I should have been.

collisions in the US only have a "mandatory" report because your insurance company requires it. And you have like three days to go into the police station and file one, and the police don't really pay attention to them.

Many drivers think that the police will get involved in every car accident, and when two cars have a little bump, people will stop and get out to "preserve the evidence" for the investigation into "who is at fault" that they expect will soon commence, but when the cops get there (because of the traffic jam) they just confirm that nobody is injured and tell the people to get their cars out of the street, and exchange license and insurance information.

In Ontario Canada, we have "fault determination rules" - fault gets "Algorithmically" assigned, sometimes illogically. Anti-consumer, but saves the insureco a ton on lawyers and balances out for them.

Often police make you go to them. Tow trucks aren't supposed to bring unreported collision vehicles anywhere but a police station.

Cops here do like to take the interaction as an opportunity to issue a ticket, such as "improper lane change" or "careless driving" (which can be another "hit" on your next insurance renewal in addition to the "hit" from being assigned fault).

source: got summoned into court because the physicist who crashed into me tried to fight their ticket. They lost. My work treats this like jury duty and pays me, but I didn't realize until months later they took it out of my vacation. Grrrr.

As someone who read "The Scarlet Letter" in highschool, the lesson I learned is that the state really should avoid encouraging and supporting a culture of vigilantism and ostrization. I for one don't think that lasting punishment* for life are appropriate where addiction is likely the root cause. But if the goal is just that, the laws should be changed to do so more deliberately, rather than offload the dirty work to the public.

Also, I can't decide if "whiskey plates" are useful in any real way. As something that is socially stigmatizing, it's really unclear what the social response (if anything) is supposed to be. That said, I don't know of any PSA or public decree what went along with the launch of such programs. Now I'm just curious.

Hilariously, in Virginia, there are "Gadsden flag" ("don't tread on me") plates that can resemble whiskey plates from other states. So, across state lines, you have people inadvertently diluting this "DUI driver on board" message all while expressing a confused mess of other sentiments.

(* I should clarify this by saying that I'm all for one-time penalties for doing the wrong thing, including removing privileges. It's where we brush up against a person's rights, forever, that I take issue with. To me, revoking a driver's license for life is okay, but removing their sense of personal safety and autonomy through crowdsourced abuse, is not.)

> Also, I can't decide if "whiskey plates" are useful in any real way

Whiskey plates give police permission to pull over the (driver of the) vehicle and perform a sobriety test at any time, without (additional) cause.

Yes, if I took out my gun and fired randomly at a crowd I'm never getting my carry permit back regardless of whether I actually kill anyone. Fuck drunk drivers.

> never getting my carry permit back

27 states don't require a permit. At all. Ponder that.

What point are you trying to make here? You think in states that don't require permits, the state cannot bar that person from owning firearms? Obviously the person you are responding to is referring states that issue carry permits.

Most permitless carry states still issue permits. And like the other commenter said, that doesn't absolve you of responsibility for your actions. You're still probably going to prison.

I've experienced the same amount of violent crime via firearm after permitless carry, as before it: zero.

True but not relevant. I'm saying we apply a much more lenient standard to people posing a threat to public safety with a vehicle than we do to people posing a threat to public safety via other means such as reckless use of a firearm or a laser pointer.

Dependant on your criminal history.

Yes, but you can't legally carry if you have a felony on your record.

> Turns out the state required you to “wear” this license plate after your third DUI or something.

This doesn't make much sense because the license plate is attached to the car, not the driver. Couldn't the manager just drive his wife's or friend's car or something? What purpose does the plate serve? "Warning everyone! A serial drink driver might be in this car, but might not be, and if he's in it he might be driving, or might not!" Totally useless. As someone else mentioned, wouldn't it make more sense to permanently revoke someone's license after 3 DUIs?

You're right! We should make them wear a star or something to indicate their specialness!

Joking aside I imagine taking licenses away are a big part of it, but that doesn't stop them from driving, at least the license plate warns the rest of us not to drive too close to the guy.

I was thinking a Scarlet Letter. Maybe “A” for Alcoholic?

“Whiskey” plates in MN all start with the letter W (this why we call them whiskey plates). So there’s your scarlet letter.

People usually drive their own car, and taking away someone's license can be life destroying in most parts of the country.

Driving drunk can be life destroying in most parts of the country.

Wait, is it not possible to get banned from driving in the USA?

For comparison the drink driving penalties are here: https://www.gov.uk/drink-driving-penalties

But you have to get caught first. USA is bigger on pulling vehicles over for ??? reasons than most other places.

I’m figuring in UK if you get a DUI, it’s because you were driving allll over the place or got into a 3am collision.

I don't get your point. Are you defending people driving drunk in the USA because they are more likely to be caught?

In my country it's also common to get caught after being stopped for speeding or car malfunction (like missing headlight), after a minor crash, by driving in a suspicious way, or just during a random check (that police is allowed to do). In total, around 450 drivers out of 1000 are tested for drunk-driving every year. It's one of the higher numbers in EU, so drunk drivers here are also (hopefully) likely to be caught.

And the US DUI limit is insane - 0.08% BAC. In my country it's 0.02% BAC and if you get caught you lose a driving license for at least 6 months (with progressively more severe consequences for higher violations, up to a prison sentence, lifetime driving ban and losing your car permanently).

Generally, the more likely you are to get away with an offence, the steeper the penalty.

I can't speak for all EU countries, but I get the feeling that traffic enforcement is a lower priority by EU police than US/Canada.

Several hypothesized factors for this in EU: more competency-based licensing, more regular technical inspections of vehicles (so fewer missing headlights), more automated enforcement (so fewer in-person controls), less focus on revenue generation by police (again, fewer in-person speed/mechanical controls), and most collisions just being a matter of submitting paperwork to insurance without police involvement. In Ontario Canada, police interaction is mandatory if any injury, >$2k damage or public property damage, so 99% of collisions, which is far different than France at least.

So unless you have mobile alcohol checkpoints, even if drink-driving happens at the same rate as elsewhere, you're less likely to be caught in EU. And those that are caught probably did something more significant at the same time to warrant police attention.

But sounds like your country, testing 45% of drivers per year, makes up for those several factors I brought up. Doesn't seem to be the norm in my EU experience - I do ~25% of my driving there.

20 year old EU data on this on p. 21 here: https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021...

0.02 seems absolutely insanely low.

Being awake for 17 hours (working late) is similar to having a BAC of 0.05%. [1]

Being awake for 24 hours (working a double shift) is similar to having a BAC of 0.10%

Simply talking on a phone while driving has been shown to be similar to a BAC of 0.08%.

Texting while driving is equivalent to a BAC of 0.19%! [2]

It seems like 0.02% BAC would be similar to listening to the radio.

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/work-hour-training-for-nurses/long...

https://facilities.uw.edu/blog/posts/2016/07/26/texting-and-....

Average people can't estimate how much I can drink below the BAC limit. It's basically to ban drunk driving completely.

rather, you mean it is a ban on drinking anything and driving, right?

Yeah I guess that. If it's 0.00%, it may cause false positives with whiskey chocolate cake or mouthwash with alcohol.

> Wait, is it not possible to get banned from driving in the USA?

Yes, it is. I think the bar tends to be a little higher though. Also there are often work exemptions.

It is practically impossible unless one is in prison or something. In the future it could be enforced with biometrics authentication interlocks.

Hopefully the future will bring autonomous vehicles and drunk driving will simply not be an issue anymore

Effectively, not really. You can get your license pulled, for a limited (but long) time. But just because you're no longer permitted to drive doesn't mean you won't.

It's difficult to register your car when you don't have a license, so then you usually stop registering your car too. And it's hard to get car insurance if you don't have an active license or a registered vehicle, so that's another thing to skip.

If you get pulled over, and have no license, no registration, and no insurance, but that's all that's really wrong, you'll most likely get a ticket, probably have your license suspended for longer, and might have your car taken away, but won't likely be put in jail. So, time to buy another cheap car, private party.

Just because you don’t have a license doesn’t mean you miraculously no longer remember how to drive. I recently got my driver’s license renewed after it had been expired for at least 15 years. Never seemed to impact my ability to operate a car safely.

/I have a state ID and passport I use when I need to present valid ID

This sounds like a good reason to pursue policies that make taking away a license not life destroying, rather than pursuing policies that allow people to destroy lives by continuing to drink-drive.

Easier said than done, unfortunately. In suburbs, that'd require completely changing zoning, adding public transit, and waiting for new stores to be built in or near neighborhoods. In rural areas...I don't even think you can fix it, there's no infrastructure by design. (in cities, this usually isn't insurmountable, so there it'd just be incremental improvements)

The biggest roadblocks are the zoning and the public transit, because NIMBYs will come out of the woodwork to prevent any work being done. What it comes down to is that the people who can make laws affecting DUIs and the people who can lessen car dependency in an area aren't really the same people, so it's much more difficult to get done.

The theory is they'll just drive anyway without a license. Plus in many/most parts of the US, a car is effectively required to live, so removing one's ability to drive is a seriously major punishment. The whiskey plate indicates to other drivers that the car could be more dangerous than expected, and yes, I think the shame is supposed to be a component as well. It's harm reduction, not a perfect solution.

I don't know if the theory works in practice.

>>so removing one's ability to drive is a seriously major punishment.

Being caught drunk driving 3(!!!) times is a seriously major crime. I'm a strong advocate for a complete driving ban after a single drunk driving episode, 3 is just crazy to me. I get the argument that in US that basically makes it impossible to get anywhere without a car but I don't know - get a bicycle or something, literally anything is preferable to letting these people on the road again.

Depending on location, a bicycle is not a viable alternative. Driving is a condition of living if food is 30 minutes of driving into town.

I’m am not advocating for lax DUI laws, but a driving ban is the equivalent of house arrest or forced relocation for some people/locations unless they have people who can help them with transportation.

Moving to a city with public transit would provide the most autonomy, but would also mean uprooting one’s life, leaving family behind, etc.

The total impact is indeed very harsh, even if it is necessary for the safety of others.

>>Depending on location, a bicycle is not a viable alternative.

I understand. That doesn't change my stance on the matter.

> get a bicycle or something

So the suggestion was untenable from the start.

Driving drunk should be penalized, even harshly. But people should have a chance at rehabilitation.

In a car dependent society/region, a permanent ban without an opportunity for reform is cruel and unusual punishment.

If self driving cars were 100% here right now, or if we had better public transportation, I think it’d be a different story.

What about my right not to be murdered by a habitual drunk driver?

All rights are a balancing act between the rights of the individual and the rights of society. Thinking about them as one or the other is a pretty dangerous line of thinking IMHO.

If it makes you feel any better, you don't have much of a right in the US not to be murdered by habitually sober drivers either [0-4].

Other drivers are often very aggressive [5], there's not all that much you can do to mitigate harm at the time, there's practically nothing you can do to discourage that bad behavior if they didn't actually crash into anything, and even if they do your options can be limited.

[0] https://www.startribune.com/probation-for-negligent-truck-dr...

[1] https://www.annarbor.com/news/motorist-sentenced-to-probatio...

[2] https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/driver-in-hit-and-run-that...

[3] https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/driver-in-crash-that-killed...

(if you kill enough children you can get a little jailtime, but again the fact that you were driving really dials back the sentencing) [4] https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/man-accused-in-deadly-wi...

[5] Not a source; I'm just appalled at the utter disregard for human life I see every time I compare SF drivers to the rest of the country. It's not everywhere that you'll see a car speed >60mph around the shoulder (dodging pedestrians) to pass the car stopped waiting for the kids to cross at the well-marked flashing crosswalk in their school zone, but that level of misbehavior is commonplace here. Why? Is it a sampling artifact? Other major cities don't _seem_ so bad in comparison.

I can’t compare directly to SF, but I’ve noticed a similar trend in Chicago. Drivers here have always been a bit aggressive, but in years past, I wouldn’t have classified it as downright dangerous.

The things I see now are mind bogglingly stupid and dangerous.

I was specifically addressing the argument that driving drunk should automatically result in a permanent ban regardless of frequency.

If it’s happening habitually, the penalties are generally more severe, and that seems reasonable.

If someone reforms themselves, gets sober, stays sober and can prove that, they’re no longer a habitual drunk driver.

To add to a sibling comment, the level of distracted driving happening right now is insane. I’ve been almost hit as a pedestrian and as a cyclist about a half dozen times in the past year due to drivers looking anywhere but at the road. Something changed during/after lockdowns. I think people got more addicted to their devices, and take that on the road with them.

IMO, DUI needs to roll up to a “driving while dangerously distracted” category. Checking instagram, FaceTiming, etc. while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk, and seems to be happening everywhere.

To be clear, my argument is not that people should be excused for bad behavior. But penalties need to be balanced against basic human rights, and should be applied fairly to bad driving behavior across the board.

Take a ride on a tall (or double decker) bus, and just look down into random people's cars as they drive. Last time I did that, I'd say close to 80% of the drivers were scrolling through social media or texting while they were driving. It's a massive problem, and I agree it should be treated exactly like DUI and people should have their licenses revoked for repeatedly doing it. Playing with your phone while driving is probably even more dangerous than DUI because it's been so normalized that people doing it don't even realize how much of a menace they are.

We have ruined people's lives in this country for selling a bit of weed, but we wouldn't want to disrupt someone's life too much if they drove drunk THREE times!

Ruining people’s lives over weed is arguably immoral and not justice. I see no connection between that and penalties for drunk driving, which are necessary.

The point is that while a person should lose their driving privileges for driving drunk, we should take seriously the implications of the typical punishment given our car dependent society, and the lack of public transit options in most places that aren’t big city centers.

The comment was a reaction to the flippant “just get a bike”, which is clearly not sufficient in many cases. Driving drunk is stupid, dangerous, and should involve serious penalties. We should not ruin people’s lives over it.

> Driving drunk is stupid, dangerous, and should involve serious penalties. We should not ruin people’s lives over it.

After getting caught 3 times doing it? Meaning they do it very frequently and will never stop doing it? It's not an innocent mistake at this point.

Yes driving privileges should absolutely be revoked over it and if that ruins their life maybe they should have thought about the consequences of their actions?

I'd argue that we should ruin people's lives over it. Why stop driving drunk if there are no serious consequences?

Texting while driving (or other similar distractions) results in slower reaction times for drivers than even drunk drivers. Yet it doesn't carry the same stigma. I would even guess a big portion of the people who have absolute disdain for drunk driving are guilty of distracted driving from time to time.

I don't know what the answer to that is, since it's more difficult to catch and prove But at the least we should all call out our friends or family if we see them doing it, the same way we would if they were about to drive while drunk.

This is going to sound maybe insensitive but I've noticed driving drunk is a cultural thing. I've been with certain groups of people and pretty much it seems everyone and their cousin has a DUI and no one regarded it as a major crime.

It sounds crazy but I bet if you were born 40 years earlier, you wouldn't care. Drunk driving wasn't even a thing until Mothers Against Drunk Driving made it a thing in the 80s.

I don't support drunk driving at all but it seems our views on right and wrong are just products of society, lol.

There's also drunk driving the crime and drunk driving the act.

What I mean by this is that when people go out to eat lunch or dinner, they drive to the restaurant. They obviously need to drive back when they're done. They obviously also had some good drinks while they were there; beer, wine, the works. Even just a sip of alcohol will count as drunk driving, legally speaking.

The police largely turn a blind eye to this, because it's so utterly commonplace and a fact and part of life that policing this would quickly lead to a community and public revolt. Restaurants also happily serve alcohol because drunk driving is not their problem, and restaurants that don't will quickly go out of business anyway.

On the other side of the coin however, if you drive to a liquor store at an ungodly hour the police will be on you in an instant to check if you're driving drunk and arrest you if you are. Why? Because everyone wants or needs to eat and drink, but nobody needs to drop by a liquor store at 10pm.

The police will also check if you're driving drunk if they see you on the road and it's blatantly obvious you can't drive straight. This should go without saying, though; and it means most people who drink at restaurants can drive safe (FSVO safe).

Obligatory IANAL, obligatory don't drink and drive disclaimer.

In the US most states have a BAC requirement above 0.00 to be drunk driving (so "a sip" of alcohol doesn't qualify). Also the idea that no one should buy liquor at 10 pm or that it is strange to get drinks for someone's party is odd. Why would the liquor stores be open if no one needed liquor then?

Your statement seems pretty judgmental.

But yes, we agree don't drink and drive.

I speak from experience and what I've heard.

The police are almost never going to police restaurants, bars, wineries, and other such places even though there will obviously be plenty of potential drunk drivers to arrest. Meanwhile, a friend who parted ways with me after a night out stopped by a liquor store on the way home and was questioned and subsequently arrested (he was legally drunk) as he came out.

The point of this story is that the law states absolutely clearly that noone is allowed to drink and drive. On the other hand, practicality and reality means police will turn a blind eye to certain areas while enforcing the law elsewhere; knowing this is how the real world works is handy and important for what I hope are obvious reasons.

There are absolutely states where if the officer says you are impaired, you are going to jail. Even if you blow 0.00. Will you be convicted? Probably not but you’ll still get to deal with court costs and paying a few grand to a lawyer. Oh and you get to explain an arrest, that can never be expunged, for the rest of your life.

Why would you have to explain an arrest? And how does that differ from being arrested for a murder you didn't commit and being sent to jail?

Reminds me of what my dad told me on drunk driving: "It is no longer safe to drink and drive. It used to be the worst that was likely to happen was you would wrap your car around an oak tree and that would be one less idiot in the world. Now the roads are full and you are likely to hurt or kill somebody else."

and I'm sure there's a different timeline where you're a serial rapist.

It's irrelevant to the time and place that we live in now, and drunk drivers are a menace that should be purged from our streets.

It's a good point.. furthermore, there have been studies that show texting or other distractions while driving are considerably worse, but you don't see many people arguing for someone to lose their license when they text while driving

Drunk driving is way more common than you might think.

If we’re ready to cut off ~10% (or more) of drivers for life, we should bite the bullet and mandate ignition interlocks.

Driving is a privilege, not a right. But enforcement needs to help people make the right choice, not just be a lottery for ruining lives in car-dependent places (unfortunately most of the US).

I've mentioned it before on this forum, but before I was a software developer I spent over 10 years as a land surveyor.

I mention that because it involves a lot of road layout and roadside work setting control points, &c. I used to find so many empty flasks of booze, empty syringes, and empty pill bottles in the weeds on the side of the road that drivers had thrown out the windows of their vehicles. Even in some rural areas this was the case.

The point is that there's still a lot of Americans driving impaired. There's a certain amount of risk involved in operating or riding in a vehicle even if you are stone cold sober. You never know if other drivers are impaired until it's too late.

I was curious how many people caught driving durnk go on to drive drunk again, and a NHTSA study found an average of about 25 percent of people arrested for drunk driving had a prior arrest. About 30 percent of people with a drunk driving conviction had a prior conviction [0]. This is pretty high. I'm not sure if it's high enough to warrant a permanent ban, but long-term suspensions and mandatory interlocks seem justifiable.

(Edit) As philwelch points out, the recidivism rate of all drunk drivers is technically different than that of first-time offenders. Accounting for this doesn't seem to wildly change the recidivism rate, though.

[0]: https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/811991...

“Proportion of offenders who previously offended” is not necessarily an indication of “proportion of first-time offenders who will reoffend”.

That's a good point. Since it's looking at offenders and not offenses, I don't think they can diverge too much (but perhaps I'm not thinking of the math correctly). I did find a study looking at just first-time offenders, which found a similar level after five years: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3095888/figure/....

Being drunk on a bike is probably even more dangerous than drunk driving a car. Unfortunately, one doesn't need a license to use public roads with a bicycle.

More dangerous for whom?

Dangerous for all parties involved. Being out in the open with no safety belt, no crumple zones, a bicyclist can be easily killed in an accident. Drivers attempting to swerve out of the way can cause a greater accident with other vehicles, not to mention the possibility of killing a bicyclist. Add to that, the hypothetical of riding a bicycle while drunk, you've now just worsened the problem.

Moral of the story: don't drive drunk, don't ride a bike drunk. Ideally, don't get drunk at all, but if you do, don't operate any kind of vehicle.

Distracted driving is just as bad (or worse) than drunk driving in terms of reaction time. Texting, social media, doing makeup, fiddling with stereo/maps. People routinely do these things and while they are doing them, they are putting themselves and other drivers at serious risk. And yet they don't carry anywhere near the same stigma as drunk driving. My point is, if you're going to be that draconian about drunk driving punishment, you'd better be consistent and adopt the same attitude towards people who text and do tiktoks while behind the wheel.

Personally I don't think either should result in losing a license, at least not for the first offense

In my country the state now confiscates cars of drunk drivers if their BAC is above 0.15%. And they also get criminally prosecuted - having a criminal record can seriously fuck up their lives.

But some people still choose to drive drunk.

Punishments are not an effective deterrent. That is, you could increase the punishment ten fold and people would still do it. What matters is if people think they will get caught. You put up driving check points every weekend around the nightlife areas and you will see a decline, because people will feel more certain they will be caught, even if the punishment is not as bad.

In Minnesota drivers recovering from DUI revocation are required to use the "whiskey" plates. (Incidentally the license plate database is incomplete because it does not include the Minnesota "whiskey" plate.)

While "whiskey" plates are on the vehicle police officers can legally stop the driver of the vehicle for a impairment check without cause (e.g. without any indications that the driver is under the influence or any traffic violations.) The idea is that the extra enforcement is incentive for the recovering DUI driver to continue to drive safely and re-develop that habit.

> While "whiskey" plates are on the vehicle police officers can legally stop the driver of the vehicle

Not any more. They changed this part of the law a few years ago. Probably around the same time that they (MN) began to implement breathalyzer interlocks where you can't start or drive the car if you're above a certain threshold.

However, I think that if you're pulled over and you have an active DUI but are not driving a car with whiskey plates, then it's an immediate loss of license.

Being unable to rent a car or borrow a car while having a license seems like a weird combination of outcomes, so I looked it up.

> What happens if I drive a car without whiskey plates?

> It is a misdemeanor to drive a car that should have whiskey plates but doesn't. If you illegally remove whiskey plates from your car and are caught, you will go to jail.

> When you register for whiskey plates, you'll need to disclose all cars that you own or plan to drive and get whiskey plates for each of them.

So, it seems like you could incidentally drive a random car that you didn’t have a reasonable expectation to drive that specific car at a time of being forced to get whiskey plates.

https://www.ssdpa.com/articles/plate-impoundment-understandi...

Well, you can do anything as long as you're not caught but the only exception that I'm aware of is if you must drive a vehicle as a part of your job, then it can have regular plates.

The median is 1.8 cars per household in the US, so I'd say, from intuition and experience, that in these states the targeted vehicle will be +95% of the time driven by the DUI offender.

But it doesn't matter, because "whiskey plates" are just plain wrong – they are a tongue-in-cheek, populist lawmaker's kool-aid. As a deterrent whiskey plates work best for conscious, god-fearing folk who rarely go over the limit. Besides these types of public shaming schemes can also have just the opposite effect, ie a university bro that looks cool with that whiskey plate or by creating enduring self or public confirmation that you are now that person the plate says you are. Adequate punishment would be to combine fines that are proportional to one's income, use tech like ignition interlock devices and invest on the individual's rehabilitation as a responsible driver, including participating in social services and education programs, among other ordinary measures.

Furthermore, permanently revoking a drivers license is a serious punishment in a country where transportation/commute is primarily done by car. Also not all DUI's are the same and there's a principle of proportionality that always applies when sentencing offenders. So strike-3-and-you're-done would be very harsh for the great majority of DUI/DWI cases in the US.

Typically part of the sentence is to require an ignition interlock for multiple years. Driving a car without an ignition interlock is a lifetime driving ban, plus up to two additional years in prison. The details vary by state

The plate is there to shame the driver primarily and dissuade them from DUI, secondarily so the police pay more attention to them.

If an unlicensed driver drives a car in Michigan, they remove its plate:

> Unless the vehicle was stolen or used with the permission of a person who did not knowingly permit an unlicensed driver to operate the vehicle, the registration plates of the vehicle shall be canceled by the secretary of state on notification by a peace officer.[1]

Similarly, this follows the car rather than the driver.

[1] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(s5t1ajhoq2c543ccg5zeslmb))...

I think the state requires all the cars you are likely to drive to get whiskey plates. So it's possible the managers wife was the drunk driver.

I wish we had something like this in the UK.

More than 6 points on your licence and you have to drive a yellow car with a 1l engine or smaller.

Restricting vehicle size after a DUI would make a lot of sense. Same for “novice” drivers licenses.

Lawmakers with poor understandings of physics think speed is the only factor in energy.

> Lawmakers with poor understandings of physics think speed is the only factor in energy.

Given that v is squared in the equation, their understanding of physics seems okay to me.

Half the mass = half the energy… co-efficient gonna co-efficient.

(Tho I know some places do limit highway speeds for novice licenses)

Probably have to be something a lot smaller than 1l - how about a Citroen Ami:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_Ami_(electric_veh...

I'm sure Citroen would do them in yellow for a bulk purchase?

So, did he end up getting the plate?

I hired someone on Craigslist for something (I don't remember now exactly what it was for) and he turned out to have a breathalyzer interlock on his car, presumably ordered by a judge or something after multiple DUIs. If I remember correctly, he had to periodically blow into the tube while driving. I don't think I had realized that was a thing before that.

Though I have never seen one, I believe it only checks at ignition. Needing to do anything extra while driving is a recipe for disaster.

I'm concerned with the "in Ohio, first time OWI offenders are required to stay in jail 3 days"...

Like, post-conviction? Or are they punishing before conviction here? It's sort of fucked, considering that there are several medical conditions commonly mistaken for drunk driving.

Yes, post conviction.

That's interesting. Ohio's party plates are similar to Oregon's old yellow plates (which are still used for some niches, including official vehicles). The red font is different, but some of those party plates have very dark red numbers.

Didn't see mention of Delaware's (in)famous black plates:

> Delaware is the only state that allows private manufacture of plates for legal registration purposes, and the only state to have retained the famed porcelain plates in the modern era.

> Delaware ... remains the only state with non-standard size plates in current use.

https://www.dmv.de.gov/About/history/index.shtml

Peek into the insanity:

https://www.dhptags.com/

https://www.lowdigittags.com/29.html

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2022/10/28/d...

https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/2019/06/10/delaware-i...

I work in automotive. It's annoying dealing with US to Europe plates. I'm sure there is someone in the design dept that really wanted to deal with Delware plates and now just drinks.

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/delaware-license-plates/

NC has a weird plate law.

> Any motor vehicle of the age of 35 years or more from the date of manufacture may bear the license plates of the year of manufacture instead of the current registration plates, if the current registration plates are maintained within the vehicle and produced upon the request of any person.

This means that you are issued regular plates and must carry them in the car, but can display a year of manufacture plate as the only plate on the car which is not registered with the state at all. Good luck getting a parking ticket or toll-by-plate.

Northwest Territories wins best plate every time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of...

> Awarded inaugural "Plate of the Year" for best new licence plate of 1970 by the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association.

Second place seems to be missing from the site: https://duischoolnv.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Nevada-Au...

Ouch, that hurts. Did that designer fail to grok the Moebius strip?

Perhaps it would be hard to paint that with different colors on each side ...

I don’t think it was meant to be a Moebius strip. Looks like a twisted ring made into an infinity symbol.

If you see a car with those plates in 'the south' (ie where 90+% of the country's population lives), you can presume that a car has physically travelled thousands of kilometres across a vast, nearly unpopulated wilderness to get to where you are. People who live in remote areas seem like hardy people; seeing that someone drove that far proves that they're a hardy person.*

*Of course, the effect is greatly reduced if you see a tourist sample plate that someone bought, with all zeros. That just means the person's been there. Far more impressive if the car's been there.

On a long road trip last year, we logged all the plates we noticed. That included all 50 states plus Guam, Puerto Rico, federal government, and diplomatic plates. The article missed those not issued by states. What we didn't expect, and what the article also misses, is that we saw several distinct plate designs issued by Native Americans. We saw them in multiple states, but more in Oklahoma than anywhere else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of...

Just did a very similar road trip with a similar experience. Saw several Caddo plates around Craters of the Moon and an overland vehicle with plates from Brazil. Never did spot a District of Columbia one though and it appears there are no "standard" plates for DC?

Finally a reason for a custom plate:

The explosion of full color images on special plates has also created some concerns for law enforcement’s use of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs), which automatically scan the plates of cars as they drive down the road or through tolls. Many police cars are equipped with ALPRs that scoop up all of the plates that drive by. A report by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators warned that high contrast backgrounds in these special plates can cause readability issues for ALPRs.

Also, with hundreds of legal variations, how can the police keep track of them all? Counterfeiting a plate wouldn't require a very exacting match, just close enough to fly under the radar.

Personally, it’s all the other plate readers I care about too. I’m more a privacy nut than trying to evade police detection.

I’d imagine, as with so much, cops just outsource it to a data broker type service. They feed the camera footage to a third party API that spits back matched data. Either plate info or human info. My data doesn’t need to go into so many tracking DBs.

No way so many small agencies can do anything themselves.

May I ask why your plate information being out there concerns you? If it's 3rd party "plate readers" tracking your travel, your vehicle is already sending telemetry data outbound regardless, after you give the manufacturer 40 grand and you don't even get to pick which fancy picture goes on your car.

Nothing especially rational, although generally I like to minimize what I can. If I can easily reduce one form of data leak I will.

Your point is correct. There are many sources that we each hemorrhage data from, and it’s likely a lost battle.

Thinking a little more there are aspects of choice and consent here. I know I bought a car with telemetry, a cell modem in it, and a gps receiver, so it can be tracked. I’m not willingly opting into continuous surveillance by various third parties. It happens and driving is worth more to me then my loss of data tantrum, so I have a car and drive.

It’s not all rational.

That said, I also have an older car with no electronic monitoring and love it too.

> your vehicle is already sending telemetry data outbound regardless,

Not anymore, thanks to the 3G cutoff :P

All the responses seemed to go straight to scanners and such, but I'm just thinking about the cops using their eyes. A fake-looking plate would attract a cop's attention, but with so many real variants, how is a cop going to recognize a fake out of all the possible legal looks?

They don't care about the design, only the letters/numbers.

I've ported my plate numbers from design to design several times in two states.

Georgia reuses plate numbers, both on specialty plates and when there's a new general issue of plates. The combination of plate design and number/text is what is unique, meaning scanners cannot work properly if they don't recognize the design. In practice, it's common for violations to be assigned to the wrong vehicle because of confusion over plate design.

I see fake plates on an almost daily basis IN California (for whatever reason the white on black look is pretty popular,and not just with the Reviver plates).

Although fun fact - in California you can legally get a wrap of your license plate instead of having to physically affix one

The white on black is so popular that I've heard people inquire about it at the DMV and get upset when the person working there tells them it doesn't exist!

The Reviver "RPlate" is strange to me. I can't imagine paying that much myself. BUT, I can see a huge market if they're marketed toward lessors. I have to imagine I'm not the first to think of this, and maybe this is already out in the wild...but if someone missed payments and the car was to be repo'd, it'd be hilarious if the Reviver plate changed to "REPO ME" or something.

I’d never heard of Reviver till now. Seems to be solving problems I’ve never had.

“ Reimagined convenience, personalization, and safety.” a metal plate I got effectively for free from the DMV and screwed to my car is very convenient, and never posed a threat. Sure, I can’t change it from my smartphone, but never wanted to either.

But if you pay them $20/month, you'll be able to save 30 seconds a year by not having to put a new registration sticker on your car

Don't forget the Diplomatic plates

https://diplomacy.state.gov/items/diplomatic-license-plates/ https://i.etsystatic.com/12654735/r/il/dd7fb3/1754142363/il_...

Or Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana, and the Virgin Islands

Or the Native American Nations

Wikipedia has those:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of...

Not sure if it's still this way but it used to be that in Georgia if you got the "save wild dolphins" plate, the first two letters of your plate would be 'EE' which is hilarious. (It's supposed to sound like the noise dolphins make)

The state tries to avoid plate number collisions by using prefixes on specialty plates but pretty much every in-state university president has plate number 1 with their school's design. The governor and leaders of each chamber of the legislature also get their own plate design with assigned number 1.

This is correct, and in this case, the E E is for EarthEcho.

Ah so this is the plates not the numbers. Just for moment I was kind of confused...

I've always been surprised that there are so many licence plate number formats in use across the US. And some of the plate designs are pretty elaborate: I wonder to what extent they affect readability at a distance?

manufacturers of red-light cameras do not wonder, they have quietly made fortunes in the past 20 years.. more recently "mandatory license plate scanners at major bridges and toll roads" it seems. edit

Most US states do not have red-light cameras, and some that did, have withdrawn them. For example, see the Redflex bribery case, and other legal challenges.

YMMV in other countries: some are packed full of red-light and speed cameras, with phone-use detection expanding rapidly.

Most toll systems use different tech (e.g RFID), reinforced by plate readers to identify violators.

However, plate readers will always be a part of national security, and certain local law enforcement tactics.

Plenty of toll roads recognize number plates in Europe, but it may well be that it's easier to implement this system when there are typically only two or three plate designs per country, and they're generally all pretty much the same — black letters on a white or yellow background.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_vehicle_registration_...

rapidly multiplying red-light cameras at every major city intersection here in California -- see San Diego County technology plan and others. Zero discussion of withdrawing any of them, quite the opposite -- "no public debate evident." Roughly one-in-ten residents of the USA live in California. Secondly, a trend of physical restriction for entry, exit and travel of whole portions of counties, via declaration of disaster from Sacramento.

It probably is largely familiarity, but I find them all a lot harder to read than European numberplates, at any distance. The font (family), colouring, spacing, etc.

Sometimes when they're in a film or something and seem significant (the shot hovers on it, or zooms in on it or something) I've had to pause or go back to read it.

Traffic cameras usually have to recalibrate for every single one (e.g. for AI, retrain with new designs in the training set).

In the future, I might expect designs (and fonts) to converge towards AI legibility, but these plates raise money for states, so that will provide a dampening effect.

I know at least one other country that has recently initiated a program to redesign plates for AI legibility.

> I might expect designs (and fonts) to converge towards AI legibility

Why would you expect that? AI is getting more capable faster than our legislative systems are likely to address something like this.

US plates aren't expected to be readable (like they are in Europe).

> Yes, license plates are still made by cheap prison labor in most states. 80% of all license plates issued in the U.S. today were made by state prisoners, with only 12 states opting out of the practice. According to a 2022 ACLU report on prison labor in the U.S., many states offer no pay at all to prisoners, while the average hourly wage across the country was between 13 and 52 cents per hour

So slavery's not dead, I guess.

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

America literally has an exception for slavery.

People who commit crimes are not entitled to the same rights as everybody else nor ought they to be

Pro-slavery take. Don’t see those around here so often.

I’m anti-slavery, myself. Even when the government decides the person did something wrong, not really in favor of it. Sometimes the government gets a bit fast and loose on what a crime is and who has committed them.

So if you want free labor, you just create harsh penalties for minor crimes.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." 13A

A. I guess I'm confused you ever thought it was dead.

B. The license plate programs are optional, and as I understand it most work details are a desirable distraction from the all encompassing boredom of prison life.

So I'm not sure it's anything but typing just to type to call it slavery, knowing full damn well it is nothing like the history you're tying it to.

A: Easy mistake to make. Let's take google results for "abolished slavery":

> When did slavery end around the world?

> After centuries of struggle, slavery was eventually declared illegal at the global level in 1948 under the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Mauritania was the last country to officially abolish slavery, with a presidential decree in 1981.

This is also what I was taught at school. Most people in my European country probably know that "legal" slavery (for example debt bondage) still happens in third world countries, but I'm almost sure most don't realise slavery is legal in the US too.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime"

Mince words all you want, the constitution doesn't and makes it very clear that there is an exception for slavery. Of course we could simply pay people for work, as is our custom, and end this depressing argument once and for all.

Well they are getting paid 13 cents an hour, so I guess they aren’t literally slaves.

Or something.

When slavery was outlawed, they carved out a special exemption for prisoners.

But the real question is did they design a special license plate only available to those people?

There's a reason Ava DuVernay's documentary is called 13th.

If this is "slavery"... why should anyone care? The idea that they can be forced to work without pay bothers you, but that they can be forced to live in a cage doesn't?

Because literally no prisoner in the USA has been explicitly sentenced to this. If you are in prison your sentence is almost certainly restriction of your freedom for a period of time, and not imprisonment + "being forced to work". The fact that the prison system can benefit off of that should offend you and you should be outraged that this is happening across the country.

It's not only license plates. It's wildland firefighters protecting California mansions and assemblers of furniture to be sold at Walmart. China points this out as unethical labor practices, and they're exactly right.

> Because literally no prisoner in the USA has been explicitly sentenced to this.

I think it's implied in the "incarceration" part of their sentences. But when and where it isn't, I'd be happy to include that in the sentence, if that's your only objection.

For the record, some sentences do seem to include the term "hard labor" and the like.

> I think it's implied in the "incarceration" part of their sentences.

The legal profession and justice system is anything but friendly to things 'implied'.

> But when and where it isn't, I'd be happy to include that in the sentence

Are you a judge or a legislator?

> For the record, some sentences do seem to include the term "hard labor" and the like.

I have searched but can find no source which will cite anyone in the recent era sentenced to 'hard labor'. If you can find one I would be grateful.

> Because literally no prisoner in the USA has been explicitly sentenced to this.

False. Arizona law, for one example, specifically provides for sentences of “hard labor”:

https://www.azleg.gov/ars/31/00141.htm

Ok, I stand corrected - but I imagine vast majority of prisoners haven't been sentenced to such(in fact have any such sentences ever been handed out in recent times?).

It provides a perverse incentive for those running prisons (usually the government but also private owners) to put more people in prison for their slave labor.

It costs a lot more to incarcerate a prisoner than their labor will ever pay for, so there’s no meaningful incentive from the government itself.

Private prisons have an incentive to incarcerate more prisoners regardless of prison labor—as do corrections officer unions—and I can understand abolishing both of those (the unions are probably an even bigger problem). Nonetheless, judging by our high rates of violent crime, it seems clear to me that the United States isn’t incarcerating enough people.

My understanding is the work is voluntary. You aren't forced to work in prison.

In Kentucky, the old, pressed metal plates were made by prisoners at the state pen. A combination of COVID shutting down the prison along with running out of number-letter combinations forced the state to switch to printed license plates. The new "flat" plates are made by the same company that makes every other states' flat plates. No more prisoner labor for plates in KY.

I searched for Wisconsin in the table and found that Maryland and Pennsylvania have University of Wisconsin alumni plates, which I found odd.

Large universities have large alumni associations with local chapters throughout the US. In states where custom plates are easy to get, those associates will often ensure their universities have their own plate designs.

It looks like the University of Florida has plates in at least six different states besides its home state: FL, VA, TX, GA, NC, MD, SC.

That at least makes sense geographically!

Well, Maryland is clearly just out of control with the plates: https://www.beautifulpublicdata.com/content/images/size/w160...

By the way, the majority of out-of-staters at UW are from neighboring Minnesota (with tuition reciprocity) and Illinois (the FIBs).

I've never heard of FIBs but I just Googled it and see that I correctly guessed what it means.

;-)

One of the top results in a web search (apparently FIP and FIB are interchangeable):

> the Chicago Reader observed in a 1988 article titled “Invasion of the FIPs: boom time in southwestern Michigan.” “One local newspaper estimates that Chicago-area residents, all of them nonvoters, make up more than half the area’s taxpayers and pay more than 60 percent of its local tax load.

Those inconsiderate jerks should stay home (or go somewhere else). The locals really want to experience the full cost of their town services.

[1] https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/how-illinios-became-fip...

A quick Google search suggests that there are 760 000 living University of Indians alumni, 640 000 living University of Michigan alumni, around 500 000 living University of Wisconsin alumni, 450 000 living University of Florida alumni, 350 000 living University of Georgia alumni, and 170 000 living Georgia Tech alumni. I think that is all the schools people have mentioned so far.

It does seem reasonable that most of those would have some states, besides the home state of the university, with enough of their alumni that a custom plate would be worthwhile.

My school (Caltech) only has 24 000 living alumni so probably no custom plates for us in any state, even California. MIT has around 150 000, so maybe there is hope that at one nerd school gets a license plate somewhere. :-)

I wonder what the smallest group of people is that gets a special plate in every US state?

There are around 780 000 ham radio licensees in the US and every state offers ham radio plates, but I'm not sure that counts as a special plate because in many states a ham plate only differs from an ordinary plate in that the license number is your ham radio callsign.

For example here in Washington normal plates are of the form ABC1234. A ham callsign in the US is N letters, a single digit, and M letters, which is called an NxM callsign. The possible NxMs are 1x2, 2x1, 2x2, 1x3, and 2x3.

Someone looking at a ham plate would only know it is a ham plate if they recognized it was an NxM that matches one of the aforementioned NxMs. Anyone else would probably just think the state ran out of ABC1234 numbers and started a new format.

MIT is hard to search for because lots of states have a "ducks unlimited" plate, but Maryland (which we've already seen is plate-happy) has plates described as "Maryland - MIT Club of Washington".

Re "nerd schools", there are five schools with "Technology" in the name that have plates in their own states: Rochester Institute of Technology (New York), Georgia Institute of Technology, Florida Institute of Technology, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Indiana Institute of Technology. (Before doing this search I'd only heard of the first two.)

> I wonder what the smallest group of people is that gets a special plate in every US state?

If I had to guess, it would be military in nature. Perhaps the Congressional Medal of Honor? Less than 4000 have ever been awarded.

But I just checked 3 different states and only 2 of them offer a special plate for that. So you need something more common to have such a plate in every state.

Hawaii has the fewest plates (14).

Three are things that won't exist elsewhere in the US: Polynesian Voyaging Society, Haleakalā National Park, and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.

There's the standard plate, of course.

And there are ten kinds of veteran plates: Purple Heart, Pearl Harbor Survivor, Combat Veteran, Korea Veteran, World War II Veteran, (generic) Veteran, Persian Gulf Veteran, Gold Star Family, Vietnam Veteran - Motorcycle, Vietnam Veteran.

So it has to be some sort of veteran, but searching for "Korea", "Gulf", "Vietnam" makes me think it's not veterans of any specific war.

They've got ham radio plates. Like most other states they look just like the standard plate except they have a ham radio callsign instead of something in the format of their normal sequence.

So I guess it will come down to what is the smallest subset of veterans that gets a special plate in every state?

Here in Washington there isn't actually a veterans plate. There are 6 military plates (army, marines, navy, air force, coast guard, and Washington national guard) and a gold star plate.

You also get a decal to indicate status (veteran, retired, active duty, reserves, disabled veteran, army guard, air guard, army retired (for Army National Guard retirees), air retired (like army retired but for Air National Guard), fallen hero (for family members of someone killed in action), family, and gold star.

I'd say a military plate plus the state issued decal that identifies you as a veteran would count as a veteran's plate.

If it is just "veteran" that gets a plate in every state that would be something like 16 million people, which is more than ham radio license holders (under a million).

It is starting to look like there might only be two groups that have plates in all states: veterans and ham radio license holders.

Governors?

The subset of this data set which is just out-of-state alumni plates is interesting. Running through some midwestern flagships:

- It looks like the states that have U of Michigan plates are New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas, DC, North Carolina, and Delaware. - Nobody has plates for the universities of Illinois and Minnesota. - the only states with Indiana University plates are New York and Tennessee. - you can get Ohio State plates in Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, South Carolina, Delaware.

My understanding is that states will only make a custom plate if there are a certain number of buyers, so this is probably some weird function of where alumni tend to live, where alumni clubs are more active, and what those limits are in various states. But it's very strange that you basically can't get plates for those Midwestern flagship universities in the Midwest.

Searching for Georgia (because it's where I live): - Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas have University of Georgia plates. - Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, and South Carolina have Georgia Tech plates.

Virginia and Maryland showing up for Georgia Tech is interesting - perhaps engineers are likely to work for the federal government or companies that are near DC because they want proximity to the government?

Too bad the plate cost data wasn't presented. Was wondering which was the most expensive. In Oregon the cost varies pretty wildly, and some don't have a renewal surcharge.

Generally, if the plate is for a special-interest group, part of the registration fee is a "donation" to that group.

In Kentucky, part of the registration/renewal fee is an "ad valorum" tax (based on the assessed value of the vehicle). The state constitution requires taxes to be based on assessed value. This value drops every year until it hits the minimum assessable value of $200 for (land) vehicles and $100 for motor boats.

I forget it now, but I believe we pay an extra flat $30/yr for our "NC Aquariums" plate. The price is the same regardless of which optional design you get and the fee goes to the cause on the plate.

Do they do NPR, number plate recognition, in the US. There is a lot of it in the UK, in fact I think average speed checks are based on them. I would have thought it would be hard with all that decoration.

We call it ALPR - Automatic License Plate Recognition and it is both controversial and omnipresent. Average speed checks are not a thing here, ALPR is used primarily for toll collection ("pay by plate") and secondarily for law enforcement and asset reposession. (If you drive with a suspended license or don't pay a car loan, a mobile ALPR may bust you) Most plates are still legible to these systems despite the decorations - the remainder are verified by hand for applications such as toll processing.

People do stuff like obscuring the plate with a bike rack, a magnetic leaf, tinted license plate cover, etc, but it's a risky game to tempt the toll collector like that.

There are average speed cameras on the A9 here in Scotland - which I think have been a good thing given the reduction in insane driving I've seen on what was already a very dangerous road.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9_road_(Scotland)

I personally am a huge fan of average speed cameras and think we should adopt them but that is a hugely unpopular opinion here in the states... it would be career suicide for a politician to campaign on that, quite possibly even for the deadliest roads with the most insane drivers. (For me, instantly thinking of the 'Robert Moses style' New York state parkways [1])

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkways_in_New_York

It's easier to just use the beacons from the tires, anyway. Doing it from cameras seems like going the hard way.

When I lived in Texas, toll roads were just starting to become fashionable. People worried that the toll tags would be used to give speeding tickets, so a law was written preventing police from using that data for that purpose.

Parking enforcement too.

> People do stuff like obscuring the plate with a bike rack, a magnetic leaf, tinted license plate cover, etc

Just get a Tennessee plate -- they decided to use a background color with a text color that both show as the same under IR, so most ALPRs can't read them (at night at least). They refuse to change it, last I checked.

* https://www.newschannel5.com/news/capturing-new-tennessee-ta...

I recently saw a car with an antique license plate on it.

It was a model that was popular among my high school classmates.

Time is a bitch, man.

Every generation has their own hooptie. That one budget car of which millions were made, which trickled down from parents or grandparents, and became the defining automobile for the 18 year olds of that generation. Eventually they become more and more rare until the sighting of one takes you right back to your teenage years, and you instantly smell that particular French econobox cloth interior smell again.

Time is a bitch huh.

Tangential story time on how I "accidentally" got out of numerous parking tickets that would have prevented me from graduating university.

I went to school in a state that required both rear and front license plates. My car, however, was registered in my home state...one that only required a rear license plate. So, I affixed a vanity plate to the front of my Jeep.

Our University also had some requirement that you pay all parking tickets in order to be eligible to walk at graduation.

Well I found out pretty quickly that the parking authority mainly only checked the front license plate when writing parking tickets. And as it turns out, I was fortunate enough to receive three (3) parking tickets my senior year, ALL ticketed against the front vanity plate (two for exceeding time limits, one for parking in reserved parking that ironically my actual plate granted me access to). They never recorded my actual, rear license plate. Never recorded my VIN. Just the front vanity plate.

Some 10+ years later, to this day, if anyone in North Carolina has a legitimate Colorado license plate with the tag "VAIL" on it...well, my bad...hope you aren't trying to graduate!

EDIT: turns out, NC does NOT require front plates...so maybe the parking authority people were just cutting me slack. Or lazy. Probably lazy. Either way, I appreciate it!

Oohh, a lot of states have really cool plates for amateur radio operators! Check out Alabama's[0] -- radio symbol and even morse code "dits" and "dahs" -- seems they forgot to change the morse code to something generic since they say "AL2C" at the top, which is Alabama Bicentennial Amateur Radio Club's callsign, and ARL50 at the bottom, which I just found out apparently means "greetings from amateur radio"[1])

[0] https://www.revenue.alabama.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/2...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARRL_Numbered_Radiogram

> There were 50 possible plates to see (plus D.C.)

50 states, plus DC, plus Canadian provinces. Je me souviens. Tu ne te souviens pas?

The geekiest book I own (according to my wife) is “Registration Plates of the World” by Neil Parker [1] - there’s an older version on the IA [2].

Respect to the collectors club - the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association [3].

Projects like this and the book are great at seeing a tiny slice of another part of the country/world which you may never see. Nice job!

[1] https://www.alpca.org/halloffame/neilparker/

[2] https://archive.org/details/registrationplat0000neil

[3] https://www.alpca.org/

I saw a e-ink license place last week in LA. Anyone know what's up with that? Seems kind of hackable.

Probably a reviver plate (https://reviver.com)

They're semicommon as a dealer add on to jack up car prices. IIRC the hardwired version is on the CAN bus and both versions let you set the slogan text from a list of preapproved phrases in the app over Bluetooth. It would be fun to reverse engineer, but not fun enough that I want to pay $400/year for it.

I always assumed they could be used by the dealer to "mark" a car that was delinquent on its lease/finance payments.

Obvious when you think about it but this is just current plates available for order, and lots of states (all?) let you keep old plates around as long as you want and they don't fall apart or something. Virginia used to have a few different "400th anniversary" plates in the mid 00s (Jamestown was founded in 1607), which I still see around regularly. I used to still see the even older standard 6 character plates around too -- those are mostly gone by now but every once in awhile one goes by.

Currently a good 5% of license plates I see parked on the streets of nyc are out of state paper licenses. Somehow I don’t think they are all newly purchased vehicles.

A few times in my life, I've lived near U.S. military bases. That gives you a chance to see all kinds of license plates from all around the world as people who live off-base are transferred in and out.

Once when I lived in the desert, I had neighbors with plates from Hawaii and Guam.

One neighbor had a German plate. Not on the front like some chav adornment. But on the back as his legal plate.

Here's a good read about NYC's temporary license plate black market: https://www.streetsblogprojects.org/ghost-tags-part-1-the-de...

I think they should civil forfeiture the cars.

A few years ago, I set out to take a snapshot of a plate from every state. My rules were that I had to take it personally, it had to be a regular set of numbers and letters for that state - no vanities - and I had to be able to clearly see the whole thing.

I’m down to 3 left to get - North Dakota, West Virginia and Delaware. It’s been more than a year since I caught the last one (South Dakota) so I’m not sure I’ll ever be done.

Go to the parking lot for Niagara Falls on the US side (Goat Island I think it's called?). You should see all the plates except for Alaska and Hawaii on an average day I think as well as a decent number of Canadian provinces.

We were there about a month ago looking at plates and ran into another family looking for plates while we were there!

Thank you but that's a bit far from me in SoCal.. I do see a lot of out of state plates in shopping malls here for some reason so one day, I plan to explore a couple.

Been to the Canadian side literally dozens of times, holidays and weekdays, but by far it's Ontario, New York or New Jersey repping most of 'em. A few Texas here and there, but never something like Alabama. Always wondered why that's so.

Yellowstone is the place to do this. You'll even see some European plates (on motorcycles).

Interesting - thank you.

Near the top of my bucket list too.

They need a new section for paper license plates[1].

[1]: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/politics/2022/0...

So Illinois has St Louis Cardinals MLB plates, presumably for downstate residents that relate to STL more than Chicago… I guess in addition to being a question of state pride it’s probably also a matter of public safety that they don’t have Green Bay Packers NFL plates for Lake and McHenry residents, though!

The other out-of-state MLB plates, if I've searched properly, all make similar geographic sense: - Red Sox in CT and RI - Mets, Yankees, Phillies in NJ (you can get Mets and Yankees plates in New York but you can't get Phillies plates in Pennsylvania) - Nationals in MD and VA

Also you can get Brooklyn Dodgers plates in New York but you can't get Los Angeles Dodgers plates in California.

I’m slowly getting a different plate in Minnesota each year. Our Critical Habitat plates are ready popular and pretty.

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/features/plates/index.html

I'm very much in favor of local governments raising additional funds by selling cosmetic upgrades (rather than outsourcing enforcement of speed limits to privately owned traffic cameras, for instance).

What I found interesting is that both Louisiana and California put out strikingly similar license plates in 1993. Both had red script at the top on a white background with dark blue lettering.

If there are so many valid licence plate designs - it's easier to make fake ones. An ordinary cop is unlikely to tell the difference.

Interesting how many states offer out of state university plates. E.g. New York and Tennessee both offer Indiana University plates

And in that case, only New York and Tennessee.

Pennsylvania, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, and Deleware offer Purdue plates -- and that's just looking up the universities I know well from growing up in Indiana

I thought it was amusing that California has a Horseless Carriage license plate. Doesn't that just mean it's a car?

"Horseless Carriage" is generally the name for license plates for vehicles over 50 years old. "Historic Vehicle" is generally the name for vehicles 25-50 years old. Neither plate is intended for driving on the road. If a cop wants to be a jerk about it, your car is getting towed.

I used to work for a state motor vehicle agency.

Lots of great plates out there. My favorite so far that I've seen is the NC watermelon plate.

My favorite one that I’ve seen is the Montana Glacier NP one.

I have the California Historic Vehicle plate on my NA Miata and I love the way it looks on the car

Hmmm... if America I would expect to see plates from, say, Bolivia too ...

As coming from country with actually working IT, I always wondered about those year and month tags... I get my yearly tax directly as bill to my bank...

It's to notify police to stop the car if they see it on the road. The US has a lot of infrequently used or unused cars that gradually transition to a sedentary life in a garage or yard. It's not illegal to let your registration or inspection lapse if the car isn't being driven. If you drive a car with a lapsed registration or safety inspection sticker, police will notice, stop you, and issue a ticket.

Nothing prevents DMV and police having interconnected database. Which would allow automatically communicating vehicles removed from use or with lapsed MOT.

The tag is to indicate that the vehicle has paid the appropriate taxes for using the roads. If the tax on the vehicle is not paid then it should not be used on the roads.

Without the tag there is no way to enforce that without the police having to manually enter the plate number for every vehicle they see. Hence the tag: if the police see a vehicle without an up-to-date tag applied it is not legally allowed to use the roads since the owner hasn't paid to keep the roads maintained from the wear incurred by the vehicle while driving on them.

There is an argument to be made that the police could simply use a system that reads license plates up and checks the information automatically, but there are so many 4th amendment abuses/workarounds that the police already use it's hard to imagine much public support for such a system.

While I have no problem with the tag, your claim is false:

> Without the tag there is no way to enforce that without the police having to manually enter the plate number for every vehicle they see.

Police have automatic systems that scan vehicles. I was pulled over once due to an inconsistency in my vehicle registration data (not anything visible on the plate/exterior) because the computer in the police vehicle flagged my car and they decided to follow up on it.

In my case, it was just a quirk of the vehicle owner being unlicensed to drive and there was no violation - but the system correlated the DMV registration details and license status of the owner and flagged the car.

fast accurate plate scanners are relatively new. At most, only on police cars for the past 10 or so years. Many police cars still don't have them, only dedicated highway patrol cars. The sticker system has been in place for over 80 years. Systems that work, that are are generally not difficult to implement stick around past when they're technologically outdated.

In Massachusetts they do, but we still use those stickers as another form of labeling.

That works fine if you live in a tiny country. But in the United States there are tens of thousands of law enforcement agencies authorized to write tickets. Some of them are massive organizations like state highway patrols. Others are towns of 200 people, or even individual schools that don't have the time, money, or infrastructure to integrate with a national system.

Sounds like perfect market for some SaaS. Pull relevant information from everywhere and automate showing failures.

Sure, but do we really want to encourage ubiquitous LPR on every police vehicle? It's already becoming the norm in some cities but that's not exactly an unmitigated good.

They do, the stickers are mostly to make it easier for cops to see expired reg without having to type in every license plate or have a vehicle fitted with LPR. They can also look up the vehicle status in the DMV database, and via an interstate compact.

The US's anti-surveillance laws and sentiment keep ubiquitous camera systems from existing in many places, and keep the ones that do exist, quiet. In my state, Massachusetts, traffic cameras legally cannot be used to issue citations. Automated toll collection, which uses highway mounted plate scanners, faced substantial backlash from people for privacy reasons. And Massachusetts is one of the least anti-government states in the country. If it got out that the police were monitoring which cars were on the road and how often they were driven, there would be literal riots.

> It's not illegal to let your registration or inspection lapse if the car isn't being driven.

True in many states, but California wants vehicles to have valid registration even if the vehicle is not at all operational. The owner gets a break on the cost, but Sacramento still wants their due.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-registration/vehicle-r...

Ontario Canada finally did away with them.

Lots of people decry the loss of government revenue, but I’m happy to see some red tape/bureaucracy cut down for the consumer. I thought governments only did that for big business.

Would have made more sense to just increase gas tax by 0.1 cents/litre.

Tho you’re still supposed to register for free online every year or two, which I’m sure 90% of the population is going to forget to do.

>decry the loss of government revenue

you got rid of the registration stickers and the fees?

in alberta they got rid of the stickers, but kept the annual fees. and the private contractors who collect those fees.

> you got rid of the registration stickers and the fees?

Correct.

(Though I always wondered why they just didn’t make the insurance companies send the stickers, or eu style where you put your insurance slip in a little window packet)

increase gas tax? from the government that spent a bunch of money printing stickers decrying gas taxes, forcing private businesses to use them, and then defending the practice in court before having it struck down as unconstitutional?

They really are many law firms’ best friend.

In lots of states, the annual fee is based on the age and value of the vehicle, making it a somewhat progressive tax.

My car's tax is an annual bill, as you describe.

That's not what the tags are for though, the tags are registration tags indicating your plate is active. In Massachusetts, it's $30/yr for active registration and the plate cannot be renewed without active insurance, etc.

So, if you fail to renew your insurance then you won't get a new registration sticker and your plate will eventually be easily identified as lapsed. The automated systems will see it immediately – and they do! But we still apply the sticker for manual identification.

> In Massachusetts, it's $30/yr for active registration

… plus the excise tax. (A variable-rate tax rather loosely based on the value of the vehicle.)

As coming from country with actually working IT

Which one is that?

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