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But - I'm relieved they're still being stamped.

Shame on all the states that just print them now. Cheapskates.

@TechConnectify Yeah, but look at all the REALLY COOL plates you can get in Arizona now! Seriously, I do think some are awesome and it's an easy way for the state to make money.

Now if only the other states could catch up and get rid of the front plate too!

I'd like to see something replace plates altogether. They have a lot of flaws.

@TechConnectify Hence my desire to replace, or complement, plates.

I argue that if safety was the requirement then we'd require plates on the sides. The number of times they would be more useful as a pedestrian is greater than the number of times I wish there was a front plate. I don't deny that front plates aren't useful, but they're not THAT helpful or all states would have them.

But seriously, there should be a better way to manage this now. Especially if cops don't enforce anything.

@weiln but why, specifically, does one more plate on the front bother you? If you think there should be a compliment to the one rear plate, and there is one (it's called the front plate) your argument feels incredibly inconsistent.

Would another identifier on the sides be a cool idea? Sure! But why specifically do you think putting another copy of the identifier we put on the back on the front is such a problem?

@TechConnectify Honestly, I really don't have a problem with them. If Arizona implemented them I'd put one on. I used them in IL, ID, and UT.

My bigger issue is actually how automakers implement front plates. It makes me sick to have to drill permanent holes in my bumper.

And still, plates aren't working. The number of vehicles I see in a week with no plates, or expired plates, is shocking. There needs to be a better solution, or complement, to plates. Especially if cops don't care.

@weiln there is a backup system, though. It's called the VIN.

And like, while I agree that lack of enforcement is a problem, when actual issues occur that could be solved by there being a front plate, I'm not very sympathetic to the notion that it doesn't matter.

@weiln @TechConnectify
It's much less good for:
- dashcams trying to ID a hit and run (resolution, front end collision)
- cops trying to get detailed vehicle info (requires lookup for most things)
- toll-by-plate (doesn't account for towed vehicles, transponders are more accurate)

That last point: we already have devices that wirelessly send information on a fixed frequency from a moving vehicle. This could solve all the above problems fairly nicely.

@ndm13 @TechConnectify Honestly this is where I was going with the comments about a complement to plates. So many things should be automatic at this point, and RFID in plates would be an interesting test case.

My thoughts also went to treating a car differently, in that each needs an ID, NOT the VIN, that would be associated electronically with the plate. Expired plates? No go. Reckless driving? Easy to identify.

But, IMO people REALLY want the ability to break the law without consequences.

@BrianEnigma you know what's funny? There have been actual solutions to this.

GM had a Buick I think where the rear license plate went in a slot that was only accessible from the trunk. So someone would have to break into the trunk to remove the license plate.

Something like that could be done on the front, too, if integration were considered something that needed to be done. But because of states that don't require front plates nobody bothers.

@TechConnectify @BrianEnigma seems like back and front plates could also be made visually distinct (a different colored blank) making it super obvious if they were installed in the wrong place. It would likely take a little education but seems like it might not be that hard.

@mark @BrianEnigma @TechConnectify Nice. The challenge I could see with it in the US is that our license plates are almost state branding a lot of the time which I could see leading to some opposition. That's not a good reason not to do it though.

@fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma I don't know. It seems pretty reasonable to me.

Here, the sticker changes color every year. So when you see a car with a sticker that's two colors old, you know at a glance that driver hasn't renewed their registration. No need to look anything up.

In fact, I would rather have mechanisms like that then require a bunch of cameras and or manual lookups.

@mhkohne @fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma The way Illinois does it, the cost is pretty close to zero.

The stickers are part of a pre-made form that goes through a laser printer. That same form then becomes the thing you keep in your glove compartment with your information about registration and stuff.

Granted, I don't know what the actual cost is, but it's been cleverly integrated into a thing they already have to do and it's a standard laser printer doing the printing.

@mhkohne @fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma (although, funnily enough, there was a supply issue last year and the sticker for some reason wasn't printable. So they all just said "Illinois 23" but the color mechanism is the most important part.

It's not like the month on the sticker helps anyone out but the owner to know when their car is about to expire (or I guess maaaaybe parking lot enforcement)

@TechConnectify @fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma Tax and yearly mandatory vehicle testing information stored in databases. Vehicles that aren't taxed need to be declared as off road. Registration information held on cars which must be updated to the new owner when sold. Information such as vehicle colour, make and model also held on the registration database. If you respray the car a different colour, you'd legally need to get the info updated.

Not sure if it's better or worse, maybe just different...

@MWelchUK @fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma personally, I would say that something that exists only in a database doesn't functionally exist.

For many things this doesn't matter. But for something like, say, this car is driving around unregistered and you don't know for sure whether or not the driver of that car should actually be driving that car, having a flag for that that's immediately visible without needing to look something up seems important.

@TechConnectify @fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma Um, enforcement vans have cameras with OCR and a network connection to the database. I believe any officers stopping a suspicious car can call in a check too.

@MWelchUK @fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma and we want more of these?

@TechConnectify @fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma there's definitely a very different social acceptance to databases of "things that can kill people" in our countries. Since there's a legal requirement to tax and have vehicles pass a yearly road worthiness test here, I personally have no issue with a database that attempts to make sure all vehicles are complying with the rules in an as efficient way as possible.

@raymierussell @TechConnectify @BrianEnigma You also should be notifying the licensing department that a vehicle is off the road, thus not taxable. and undoing that when it's not.

@justNickoli Essentially yes, but it also validated that someone looked at the registration within the last year.

This all varies from state-to-state, but in Illinois the sticker means your registration is valid (which includes a $150 annual registration fee, which is the only state tax on the car).

When the registration expires, it not only means that the owner hasn't paid the fee but it also indicates the information about who is responsible for that car may be out-of-date.

@justNickoli

That can happen for plenty of innocent reasons, but it might indicate the plates were stolen, the *car* was stolen, or some other problem.

It's by no means a perfect solution - stickers can be forged, though they do have some anti-counterfeit measures - but I'm more comfortable with that serving as a flag for extra scrutiny than I am a system where every car is scrutinized all the time a la a database lookup.

@justNickoli You mean is the information checked? Because... not really. You are attesting that it's correct when renewing and there are consequences for not informing the secretary of state's office of an address change. But it's not like it's routinely audited.

If you mean are stickers checked... absolutely. Granted, we have armed police doing basic traffic enforcement which is... not good at all. I'd like to see that changed. But the stickers are a huge "check this car out" signal.

@justNickoli additional context: the secretary of state's office handles car stuff in Illinois but that's pretty weird. Most other states have a department of motor vehicles but we have this weird division of the SOS office called "driver services" or something like that.

Not really important but I thought I might have confused you by without this context.

@kazriko @justNickoli Interesting. We do pay sales tax on the car (and even on the purchase of used cars above a certain amount) upon initial registration but that's a one-time thing. Annual renewal is fixed based on vehicle class

(and annoyingly EVs are an extra $100/yr but we're not paying fuel tax so I'm not bothered - just... slightly irritated)

@kim @BrianEnigma I like that! Here the only differentiator is that you don't put the renewal sticker on the front plate. But it's easy to fake a sticker.

@TechConnectify@mas.to @BrianEnigma@xoxo.zone It's one of the few things about British number plates that makes sense...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_the_United_Kingdom

@najakwa @weiln ugh, barf

@AbsolutelyDerek @TechConnectify Yes, my real issue!

@weiln @AbsolutelyDerek so what we actually need then is a consistent requirement to have a front plate so that designers will think about that.

We don't solve this by saying let's not do front plates anymore.

@TechConnectify @AbsolutelyDerek Well if we're talking about fairy tales and make believe...

There are always solutions, and some are very easy. But hell will freeze over before the states can agree on anything.

Personally the older I get, the more I think it's not 1776 anymore, and how much we would benefit from a different arrangement of states vs federal power. Oh look, now we don't have 50 different ways of doing the SAME DAMNED THING. Plates is an example of that.

@zymurgic @TechConnectify @weiln it is the damn holes! Sticky pads would be great or brackets.

Look at my poor i3