Why Is There a 'Strand of DNA' on Massachusetts License Plates?

I thought this was a pretty cool technology as in my country people like to wear dark clothes, and at night they are basically invisible on the road (lots of residential areas don't have street lights). A law was brought in a few years ago that pedestrians walking at night need a reflective band, but most people don't care.

In Europe it depends from one country to another. Some have official plates, some official plate only for the back of the car (Belgium) while the front license plate can be manufactured by anyone and some have no official plates at all (Luxembourg): you can just order your license plates anywhere you want, as long as the colors are correct.

In some countries the plate must be rivetted to the bumper (as in France).

In other countries they have an anti-counterfeiting font: for example in the netherlands they're using weird 'O' and 'R' letters, to make it harder to pretend they're zero or 'B'.

Fun stuff.

Massachusetts is the opposite, you almost never see temporary plates. I don't even recall having one, and I've had a MA license and/or registration for most of the past 30 years.

The MA RMV has a setup where most car dealers already have plates on hand along with a computer system that links with the registry. If you walk in with no existing car and buy a car (even used usually) you will leave the lot with real plates and a real registration. If you trade in a car they transfer your plates.

We might still have temporary paper registrations for certain cases like private sales but it's really rare to see them.

Nearby NH is the opposite you see temporary paper plates all the time and they are good for a fairly long time. That said I have lived in NH as well and bought a car there and I don't think I ever had a temporary paper plate there either.

The article didn't mention it but MA has another quirk. The modern plates are white with red letters. They have the double helix. You are required to have them on the front and back of the car. Vintage MA plates where white with green letters, and you don't have to have one one the front. If you have an old one there are games you can play to make sure you never have to switch to the new ones and so you will see ancient really worn out old white/green plates on cars where people have kept the plates for 30+ years constantly switching, often to prove they've been around a long time or because they think a plate on the front of the car is horrible.