Live data from Hacker News

All of the vehicle license plates available in America

beautifulpublicdata.com

81–90 of 289 posts

Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America

#81
post #50

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 Vehic…

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.

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.

Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America

#82

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 ev…

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.

Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_Y…

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.

Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America

#84
post #73

> 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,…

"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.

Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America

#85
post #73

> 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,…

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

Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_Y…

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.

[deleted]

Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America

#87
post #73

> 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,…

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

Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

People usually drive their own car, and taking away someone's license 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

Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America

#90

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…

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.
Post reply on HN