I much prefer the style of European license plates over their American counterparts. They seem easier to read and I find them much more attractive. Is anyone aware of any efforts in the US to get the standard changed to the European style? I’ve never heard of this before and am wondering if it’s just me.
TIA
I doubt it. The choice is made by individual states and there’s no groundswell of people demanding a change.
There’s also a issue of where to put them: the place on US cars where licence plates are attached have been set for decades. Any change to Euro style would not fit on any car on US roads right now. Since the change would be purely cosmetic, I can’t imagine anyone would go to the trouble.
no, it’s just you. there’s decades worth of cars and trucks on the road which couldn’t mount the EU style number plates.
and really the only times I see them here are on the front of BMWs so the owner can say “lookit me with my EU plate lawl!”
I don’t think Euro plates have much to offer except misplaced snob appeal.
I just wish U.S. states would stop issuing plates with generic whitish backgrounds and busy little designs that require tailgating the car in front of you to make out (this is my nominee for the dullest and dumbest).
Seriously - cops can’t read license plate numbers unless they are dark on a whitish plate? How the hell did they manage to track down offenders in the (for example) 1950s?
RealityChick gave the main issues, I think, but one minor issue is that some states offer special license plates to raise money for special causes (example: Illinois’s Environmental plates), and I’m not sure that would work with the European-style plates.
License plates have gotten white, plain and reflective…
…to increase the range and accuracy of laser speed guns.
The goal is to make plates easy for computerized scanners to read from a distance. That busy half-bleed background you linked to works well for the computer spy-eyes but still gives us humans some aesthetic value beyond plain black on white.
I would not be surprised to find many / most states slowly converging towards simpler and higher contrast designs.
WTF?
I’ve never understood the UK/European license plates. To me they look ridiculous. That is they all look amateurish, unofficial and handmade, and I guess they kind of are(?) They’re like the boat registration numbers we use in America, just generic stick-on sign letters/numbers you buy at the hardware store stuck to any old piece of square-ish or rectangular white or yellow plastic.
In America, although they vary by colors per state, license plates are considered official State-issued documents similar to driver’s licenses or police badges. The idea of ‘making’ your own license plate is akin to counterfeiting (even if you use the right numbers/letters). They’re always made of metal, they are all exactly the same size, they must be bolted on (not tied, glued, or welded etc.) and they are all coated with a highly reflective form of paint. Most importantly they are* more intrinsically linked to the owner, not the vehicle.* IOW when you sell your car you always remove the plates (and either turn them in to the DMV or transfer them to your next vehicle). The idea of a car having the same license plate thru different owners just seems crazy to me…
Nope, they’re not. They are embossed using special equipment and not home-made or anything like that. In fact, in some countries licence plates use a special font specifically developed for the purpose of preventing tampering with the plate (such as trying to turn an F into an E by adding a third horizontal bar, for instance).
I’m not aware of any EU country that uses licence plates made that way. Which country, specifically, are you having in mind?
The same is true for Europe.
Practices vary in that respect among EU member states. In some countries it is indeed true that the vehicle keeps the same number throughout its life span even when sold to someone else. In other countries the car is usually unregistered and re-registered by the buyer with a new number (this is the case, for instance, in Germany).
Now let me see if I have this correct.
Someone who does not live in the USA?
Does not like the license plates on the vehicles here?
And wants the USA to do it like Europe?
Really???
ZomZom lives in Washington, D.C. Last I heard that’s part of the USA.
In 2004, my grandmother gave me her old Ford Escort as a gift when she upgraded to a newer vehicle, and I didn’t have to replace the plates - we went to the DMV and did a formal change of title and all, and it was never mentioned. This was in California, so maybe it’s a state-by-state thing.
Absolutely false.
*Some *US states do as you suggest, where the plate is assigned to a single specific person and can be transferred to different vehicles over time as vehicles are bought, sold, or scrapped.
*Many other *US states use the system where the plate is assigned to a single specific vehicle and can be transferred to a different person over time as vehicles are bought, sold, or scrapped.
Both systems equally connect a vehicle, a person, and a time interval of ownership.
Lived in the USA my entire life.
Some more research revealed this City-Data thread indicating that Puerto Rico has been issuing European-style plates since 2012.
Nitpick: any car? I can say with a fair amount of confidence that every European car in the US could easily mount a European sized plate. Along with any other model car sold both in the US and Europe would just need a different bracket.
Puertop Rico is the only American jurisdiction, as far as I know, that has already started issuing European-style, on request, to fit European cars with a plate holder made for that style of plate. They started this several years ago, but I think very few have been issued so far.
Right – as pointed out, it’s an “on request” option and most people will just take whatever will mean the least amount of time in lines at CESCO (what we call the place where we are made to expiate the sin of driving) or what the dealer himself puts on the car.
However: If you look at that beemer in the link, you’ll notice it has the lower bolts that would fit the bottom of the shorter-but-taller US-standard plate.
We issue officially only the rear plates (you can use a decorative front plate or none); our yearly registered/inspected/fees-paid sticker goes on the inner windshield. As mentioned, the recent changes in US license plates are intended to make them more machine-readable for traffic cams, police plate scanners, and toll-by-plate systems.
Personally, I think it makes more sense for plates to stay with the car, not with the owner: A person can have zero, one, or many cars, but every car has one license plate number. And either way you do it, you’re going to have to give the state some paperwork whenever a car changes owners.
For the run-of-the-mill plate this might be true, but this would certainly bother vanity plate owners. And even though I have a run of the mill plate. I’ve had the same number for almost 30 years on a series of cars so I can remember it easily. That’s a nice benefit when I’m asked on occasion.
