Maybe my memories are hazy, or maybe I’m having delusions, but ISTR seeing multiple (sometimes ten or more) license plates on 18-wheelers traversing the highways back when I was a wee lad.
Nowadays, of course, they only have one.
What was the reason for this, and when and why did the practice stop?
Interstate commerical vehicles with a Combined Gross Weight of more than 10,000 lbs have to be registered in every state in which they travel (so as to distribute the maintanence cost burden). This used to require individual registration in each state to comply with the International Registration Plan, but sometime in the Eighties the Single State Registration System which was a technically voluntary system coordinated by the Federal Highway Administration (or the Interstate Commerce Commission–the responsibility seems to have bounced back and forth) in which a carrier can register with one state and be covered in all participating states. It’s currently overseen by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, but is subject for replacement by the Unified Carrier Registration system next year. (Same song, different name?)
Stranger