> 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.
All of the vehicle license plates available in America
241–250 of 289 posts
Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America
#242On 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:…
Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America
#243I 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.
Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America
#244Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-dri…
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. ht…
Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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.
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.
Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
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.
Re: All of the vehicle license plates available in America
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. ht…
Average people can't estimate how much I can drink below the BAC limit. It's basically to ban drunk driving completely.