No, it was just a way of showing that the way that license plates are set up, not setting a numerical limit. It’s a 2 digit county number plus a plate number up to 6 digits.
[QUOTE=Driver8]
Does this mean a maximum of 1,000 cars per county? Surely not!
QUOTE]
there are up to 4 digits available, after the county code. However, yes, in many counties, there are still less than 1,998 vehicles (Trucks get a county code plus a T, as in 25T- NNN, so that doubles the available numbers) to license. There are fewer than million people in the state, and most of them live in the Billings, Helena, Missoula or Bozeman areas.
Oklahoma uses LLL NNN, though in rare cases older cars have LL NNN.
“Special” plates (vanity plates which can support various causes or identify you as a firefighter, former POW, etc.) are generally L NNN (there’s a pretty picture where the first two letters would be).
The first one or two letters of the tag stand for the county where the car was registered. Depending on population, a county may have several different letter designations. For instance, Pontotoc county has PC, PN, and I think PT-- the third letter on the plate is random, and I’m not sure if it’s some kind of check digit. It would make sense, because otherwise a single two-letter code would allow for 27,000 cars to be registered and the total county population is only about 20,000.
Cars registered in Oklahoma City or Tulsa bear a first letter of X or Z respectively, the other two letters being random or check digits. No other counties in Oklahoma use the X or Z designators.
Corr
Michigan used to have LLL NNN for passenger cars and LL NNNN for trucks. I think we’re running out of numbers fof cars because I have seen LLLL NNN.
On a related note, do any states force you to change your plate at any time? We haven’t done that in years, now you see some people with plates so rusted you can hardly make them out. You can replace them if you wish but some won’t.
Norway uses LL NNNNN for cars, LL NNNN for trucks, motorcycles, and trailers. The two letters indicate where the vehicle was first registered. The plate stays with the car as long as it remains registered in the country, so if the owner moves or the car gets sold to someone in another town, the plate can end up a long way from “home”.
Denmark, incidentally, uses the same numbering system. You can tell which country a car is registered in by the color scheme. Ordinary Norwegian plates are just black letters on a plain white background. Danish plates are also black-on-white, but add a red stripe around the outside of the plate.
DC has LL NNNN.
The letters on my car’s tag are “BS.” It makes me giggle.
The standard license plate numbering for West Virginia is
LLL-NNNN
Where the first letter stands for the month that you do your annual car registration - the first 9 months are 1 through 9, then 0, N, D. I’ve never figured out what the next two letters are for. The numbers are sequential, as far as I know.
On my new “Wildlife” license plate, it has
LL-NNNN
The first letter is a “W” stands for wildlife, I suppose, then the month, then the sequential numbering.
Tennessee:
Most plates: LLL NNN
Some plates: Ham radio call letters
Some others: vanity shit
May I inject a little funny from days past when I lived in Alabama? Predates the current system.
There used to be a prefix number that (except for the top three) indicated the alphabetical placement of the county name.
The first three went (based on population):
1- Jefferson (Birmingham)
2- Mobile
3- Montgomery
When Huntsville overtook Montgomery in population, they abandoned the system.
Much like how Montgomery solved the integration of public swimming pools: they filled them with concrete.
Be careful how you introduce change.
In good old Indiana it’s NN L NNNN, where the first two numbers are your country number (as determined by alphabetical order) and the letter is the town (or township [I think] in more heavily populated areas) you’re from. So, with the exception of vanity plates and that sort of thing, all of the plates from my hometown should read 23 A ####.
I had to go out and look at my car. You’re absolutely right. I got it exactly bass ackwards and I apologize to whoever is keeping score.
If your whole post is in CAPS, it makes the whole thing mixed case.
Iowa holds its license plate numbering convention at the IDOT offices in Ames on the first Friday in April. Free coffee and sticky buns!
New York – Currently, LLL nnnn
In the Netherlands it’s currently NN - LL - LL. Before June 1999 it was LL - LL - NN. Before September 1991 it was LL - NN - LL. Any Dutch license plates with four numbers and two letters were first issued before October 1978. Also, the background color differs (the lettering is always black, with one exception; see below) depending on the type of vehicle. Normal cars have a yellow background, taxi’s have a blue background, trailers have a white background, dealer plates have a green background, and antique cars (first registered before 1/1/78) have dark blue backgrounds with white lettering.
Interesting little trivia fact: the letter combinations SA and SS are never used (due to a little scuffle with Germany in the fourties). Also, if you go to the website of the “Rijksdienst voor Wegverkeer”, you can see a picture of the last plate that was issued in the Netherlands.
Nebraska…
Ha, this was actually the subject of much controversy over the past couple of years.
Forever, Nebraska’s plates would be designated by “n - xxxxxx” where “n” was the number of your county and the x’s were a combination of letters an numbers.
The counties were originally numbered by population from some decade long ago, so if you were from Omaha (the most populated county (Douglas)) your plate would read something like 1-EX92DC… if you were from Lincoln (Lancaster County, 2nd in population), your plate would read something like 2-WEJ73D. Originally, I’m from 9 county, and damn it, I’m proud county number 9! (just as somebody in 93 county would be just as “proud” – (don’t get me started on 69-county :rolleyes: ))
However, the population increases in Omaha and Lincoln (and suburbs etc) areas has forced two of the most populated counties to change to the NNN-LLL format (along with a third area county).
The problem here is that people no longer know by your plate if you are an Omahan, a Lincolnite, or even if you’re from Bellevue. So people are paying vanity plate prices just to retain the 1-xxxxxx format of their old non-vanity style plates 
So the state issued these tiny stickers (clear w/ black lettering) that are to be placed in the lower centre portion of the plate (labeled DOUGLAS, LANCASTER, or SARPY). You could supposedly get into big trouble by not having these stickers applied to your plated, but the state had to forget about it when everyone’s stickers started peeling right off (ala Seinfeld and the label maker). . .
Oh, the drama.
In Utah, prior to 1985 the standard plate was LLL NNN (black letters on white). Some of these are still in use.
In 1985 they introduced the “Ski Utah” plate and changed to NNN LLL.
Beginning in 1982 Utah started issuing “Centennial” plates as an option, showing a picture of the famous “Delicate Arch” from Arches National Park. This plate is also NNN LLL, but they started the letters with ZZZ and began working toward the front of the alphabet.
The original plan was that the Centennial plates would only be issued through 1996 when the state celebrated it’s 100th birthday. They cost extra, and the money was used for the centennial celebration fund. However, the plate was so popular that they kept producing it, and now you can choose either the Centennial or Ski Utah plates for the same price.
As someone already pointed out, New York’s got an LLL-NNNN system, which has been in place for a few years. They started with AAA-0000, I guess, and worked their way up. I don’t know if they skip any sets of numbers, or if they pack in 10,000 four-number combinations for each three-letter combination. They’ve been gradually moving along. When I moved here in November 2003, new plates began with CS or somewhere around there; the latest plates I’ve seen begin with DH.
There’s a number of New York plates that have peculiar combinations—LLN-NNN, LLL-NNN, and so forth, which apparently came out before the current system, but I can’t figure those out for the life of me. New York plates don’t use the letters I, O or Q (except for vanity plates.)
I lived in New Jersey for a number of years, and I keep current with their plates, too, so I’ll add them. They go LLL-NNL, which they’ve been doing since 1999, I think. Previously they were LL-NNNN, and you can still see some with those plates. This system is apparently a continuation of the system used on the old blue plates, which ran from AAA-00A to HHH-99Z, some of which are still on the road. The yellow plates picked up with the LL-NNNN system, and then picked up with JAA-00A and are still going. The most recent one I saw began with SV. Like New York and Pennsylvania, New Jersey doesn’t use the letters I, O or Q, though I’ve seen the letter I on the old blue plates.
Ohio’s regular plates, beginning with what I can remember:
Was LLL NNN
Then LLL NNNN
Then with the bicentennial plates, for a few years it was LLNNLL (at this time many of the older LLL NNN plates had to be changed)
Now I think it’s back to LLL NNNN again.
Maryland’s used to all go LLL-NNN, but I think they started running out about 6-8 years ago, because there’s a whole series of different schemes.
Cars are:
LLL-NNN, but I have seen a few NNN-LLL.
Recently, they “offset” the letters a digit: NLL-LNN
Pickup trucks like mine have their own:
NNL-NNN
Trucks and SUVs have:
MNNNNNN or
NNNNNNM or even
NNNMNNN
where “M” is the letter between “L” and “N” in the Latin alphabet.
Dunno about things like commercial vehicles.
Also, in my last terse reply I forgot to add that my licence plate is shaped like a polar bear and says “Explore Canada’s Arctic” across the top and “Nunavut” across the bottom. Apparently when Nunavut seceded from the NWT there was some commotion over whether or not Nunavut could still use the polar bear plates.