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Ontario's new license plates have a problem: you can't read them

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Re: Ontario's new license plates have a problem: you can't read them

#141

Post by mthoms »

rezgi wrote: post #53
stanski wrote: post #16

Had the good fortune today to drive behind two cars, side by side, one sporting the old license plate and the other the old one. I could only read the old, white background plate but not the new blue one. And that was in broad daylight. Anyone claiming that the blue plates are perfectly readable has either never seen them in action or is downright lying. Incredible that vehicle plates are a political issue but there…

It is apparently not illegal in Ontario to put these very, very dark plastic covers over your plates either, making them so dark that they're barely legible unless you have your nose on that car. Including the (now) old design. Really, all you can see is a dark, smoked, grey rectangle where the plate is. I'm amazed this is legal.

My bother in-law got a pretty nasty ticket for one of those. The officer made him remove it on the side of the road before driving off.

By "remove it", I mean "smash the plastic face" since there were no tools handy.

Re: Ontario's new license plates have a problem: you can't read them

#142

Post by mthoms »

pseudolus wrote: post #69
pszndr wrote: post #18

> The plates also had a new slogan – "A Place to Grow" – which drew the ire of some critics, who preferred the previous "Yours to Discover," which the plates had sported since 1982 Both are just as corny as they are useless in a license plate. Why put in novelty stuff? License plates are for identification, and should serve solely that function.

"A Place to Grow" - It's a pretty transparent move to encourage cannabis growers to set up shop in Ontario.

The (Conservative) Ontario government was/is opposed to legalization.

Re: Ontario's new license plates have a problem: you can't read them

#144

Post by moftz »

whalesalad wrote: post #130

Hey at least they aren't e-ink: https://www.reviewgeek.com/4225/california-unveils-new-e-ink...

There is clearly some sort of graft involved here. Some Sacremento official's sibling or spouse sits on the board for whatever company is building these.

If California is like other states, you get your little registration sticker in the mail, stick it on, and you are done for the year (or two). Paying $84 each year for someone to put the sticker on for me seems quite excessive.

Autonomous already have tracking systems built-in them. They call home so why bother with an additional tracking system, especially a state-run one? It can't even control the vehicle so you wouldn't be able to do anything important. The battery life on those can't be very long either so I'm sure it isn't reporting it's position very often. To run a system for managing autonomous cars and their routes, you need fine location and you need it often (i.e. the built-in tracker that runs off of a huge rechargeable battery).

Turn the license plate into a giant tamper-evident sticker if you're worried about theft, it could be designed to still show the plate number if someone tries to rip it off.

Spending over $1000 over a five year life of a car, per car, is a little much for a redundant tracking system, the convenience of changing the registration year for you, and the PRIVILEGE of running ads on the back of your car (making even more money off you). You could probably save money hiring someone to run all over the city putting yearly stickers on the fleet once a month.

Re: Ontario's new license plates have a problem: you can't read them

#145

Post by ornornor »

mthoms wrote: post #141
rezgi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is apparently not illegal in Ontario to put these very, very dark plastic covers over your plates either, making them so dark that they're barely legible unless you have your nose on that car. Including the (now) old design. Really, all you can see is a dark, smoked, grey rectangle where the plate is. I'm amazed this is legal.

My bother in-law got a pretty nasty ticket for one of those. The officer made him remove it on the side of the road before driving off. By "remove it", I mean "smash the plastic face" since there were no tools handy.

Looks like he encountered the one officer assigned to enforcing the HTA in the whole of the province.

Re: Ontario's new license plates have a problem: you can't read them

#147

Post by adossi »

adtac wrote: post #48

I wonder how well this translates to the readability of white text in dark background to dark text in a light background that we see in text editors. Which one is better for the eyes?

Legibility of text on a reflective surface (i.e.: license plate) and the eye strain caused by staring at a light emitting screen don't necessarily relate. You can still have a sufficient contrast ratio between the background and text colors in your text editor, using a dark theme, while reducing eye strain, while still keeping things legible.

Re: Ontario's new license plates have a problem: you can't read them

#148

Post by mfoy_ »

lreeves wrote: post #64
mfoy_ wrote: post #30

Ridiculous situation: MPP Lisa Thompson defends new Ontario licence plates. Video clip from Question Period, she calls previous license plates "Liberal plates". https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/f5xbtt/mpp_lisa_th...

The previous plates, and every other plate re-launch in Ontario, were under Conservative governments.

True, and absolutely the most crazy part of this whole debacle so far. Even if the old plates were launched by the previous Liberal government... so what? They were as neutral as possibly imaginable.

Re: Ontario's new license plates have a problem: you can't read them

#149

Post by bryanlarsen »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #119
bryanlarsen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most greenbelts are almost completely environmental failures. Designed to concentrate development on the inner core, they simply encourage the spread of the massive bedroom communities that develop outside of the greenbelt. They're also generally too small to support a viable large animal population which are a critical part of any ecosystem. But AFAICT, the golden horseshoe greenbelt has neither of these problems: i…

To wit, the Ontario greenbelt contains some essential watersheds. https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/greenbelt/pages/383/at... The last time the province's water needs weren't properly cared-for resulted in what's known as the Walkerton Tragedy. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/walkerton-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak

Completely unrelated. Cattle farming is allowed within the greenbelt, and feedlots were the source of Walkerton's E. coli.

Re: Ontario's new license plates have a problem: you can't read them

#150

Post by aldoushuxley001 »

aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #94
52-6F-62 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone thinks this is hyperbole, there is a CBC interview with Doug where he claims Trump "took a page out of their book" and not the other way around. There are other occasions where he has spoken about his admiration for Trump, and opted to stay at Trump's hotel while on a diplomatic visit. Edit: Since this is drawing some ire I thought I would clarify that this is no remark on either politician in itself. They…

Rob Ford was populist before Trump, so in that sense he’s right.

Facts < Ideology, right? HN readership showing their true colours
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