Vote for Florida's new tags.

[tubby34]

Another thing that sucks about the orientation of North American license plates is that too many frames cover up part or all of the state name, making it difficult-to-impossible to report a plate to police if you had to. I know that obstructive frames are technically illegal in most places, but they're still all over the place, and due to some of the new plate designs, even seemingly benign frames can obfuscate the state name.

That's a foolish statement.

If you had the first two, last two, third and fith or first and last letters of a plate and the Model, Color or the type of vehicle (SUV,Car,Truck) you can find what vehicle it is a

Right down to the registered owner.

You could even get the car with only one letter if you know what your doing.

And I've never seen a plate that has a frame that covers the letters- which is more important than the state. You guess first the state your in and go from there.

My job involves law enforcement and this is flat out wrong, at least in Georgia. IF it's a Georgia plate and IF there are a few accurate characters given and IF we know the make and model, a police agency can contact the state and get a list of relevant vehicles with those characters in their plates. That's when the fun of sorting out what's what begins.

I never said it was easy, but it can be done. I had to do it a few years ago with pretty much only google. It was a mission, but after two days I found the guy who hit and ran. This was as a civilian.

Like you said, the sorting out starts and you use judgement and discretion to figure out the most likely suspects. If its absolutely an emergency, I'm sure you can have a few GA officers visit the known addresses for some of the vehicles to eliminate them. Say for instance in an Amber Alert.

A list of 10 cars can easily be narrowed down to a list of 3 through legwork.

I'm not flat out wrong, but it's not easy. It can be done. What really matters is if the situation requires all the legwork.

To go through GA's process or the process I described (a generic one) to collect on a toll violation would seem excessive and a waste of the governments resources.

[Legend]

Well, now I want to get a speciality plate because that new one sucks, bad. Way too boring and plain. Must have taken cues from the Lightning. And now we are a 7 number/letter state too huh?

Really dumb how every state has been doing such a simple design now. New Yorks new plates are awful, and now Florida followed suit. It doesn't have to be outlandish, but at least something creative and distinguishing.

[tBBP]

Dude...it's a license plate, not a college football uniform—why does it need to be decorative??

That said, yeah, the new Florida plates do suck something fierce. Rockwell and Florida do not fit together, at all. Neither am I feeling the Futura character font for these.

[BlueSky]

Another thing that sucks about the orientation of North American license plates is that too many frames cover up part or all of the state name, making it difficult-to-impossible to report a plate to police if you had to. I know that obstructive frames are technically illegal in most places, but they're still all over the place, and due to some of the new plate designs, even seemingly benign frames can obfuscate the state name.

That's a foolish statement.

If you had the first two, last two, third and fith or first and last letters of a plate and the Model, Color or the type of vehicle (SUV,Car,Truck) you can find what vehicle it is a

Right down to the registered owner.

You could even get the car with only one letter if you know what your doing.

And I've never seen a plate that has a frame that covers the letters- which is more important than the state. You guess first the state your in and go from there.

My job involves law enforcement and this is flat out wrong, at least in Georgia. IF it's a Georgia plate and IF there are a few accurate characters given and IF we know the make and model, a police agency can contact the state and get a list of relevant vehicles with those characters in their plates. That's when the fun of sorting out what's what begins.

I never said it was easy, but it can be done. I had to do it a few years ago with pretty much only google. It was a mission, but after two days I found the guy who hit and ran. This was as a civilian.

Like you said, the sorting out starts and you use judgement and discretion to figure out the most likely suspects. If its absolutely an emergency, I'm sure you can have a few GA officers visit the known addresses for some of the vehicles to eliminate them. Say for instance in an Amber Alert.

A list of 10 cars can easily be narrowed down to a list of 3 through legwork.

I'm not flat out wrong, but it's not easy. It can be done. What really matters is if the situation requires all the legwork.

To go through GA's process or the process I described (a generic one) to collect on a toll violation would seem excessive and a waste of the governments resources.

Standard license plates in Georgia now have two elements: 3 letters followed by 4 numbers - ABC 1234. You said, as one example, that if I knew AB and that the vehicle was a red SUV I could narrow it down to the registered owner. Not true without more information. You could narrow it down to a whole bunch of red SUVs and yes, if you knew enough about the circumstances (where, when, and what happened) and spent enough time, sure, maybe you could identify one specific vehicle. With that said, the degree of certainty could fall within a very wide range and in most cases wouldn't hold up in court.

And BBTV's original point was the state name being obscured. Your answer said the state name wasn't necessary with a partial plate and the other data you mentioned. I'm saying you'd have to know the state to have any reasonable chance of identifying the vehicle.

On a related note, one of my prized possessions is one of these from when we lived waaaaaaay out west. Or east depending on your point of view. ;-)

That's not the one I own but it's identical other than the numbers. It's extra special I think because my dad helped make it possible. He fought there as part of the Army's 77th (Liberty) Division. The Army then proved it had a sense of irony by sending him back 20 years later.

[BBTV]

My point is that if there's an emergency and I have to give a plate to a cop who needs to radio it to his cop buddies to get on the road and look for someone, if I can't give him the state or can't read all of the characters it can impact the effectiveness of the chase even though they might eventually be able to figure out what plate I was trying to report.

[OnWis97]

Another thing that sucks about the orientation of North American license plates is that too many frames cover up part or all of the state name, making it difficult-to-impossible to report a plate to police if you had to. I know that obstructive frames are technically illegal in most places, but they're still all over the place, and due to some of the new plate designs, even seemingly benign frames can obfuscate the state name.

That's a foolish statement.

If you had the first two, last two, third and fith or first and last letters of a plate and the Model, Color or the type of vehicle (SUV,Car,Truck) you can find what vehicle it is a

Right down to the registered owner.

You could even get the car with only one letter if you know what your doing.

And I've never seen a plate that has a frame that covers the letters- which is more important than the state. You guess first the state your in and go from there.

My job involves law enforcement and this is flat out wrong, at least in Georgia. IF it's a Georgia plate and IF there are a few accurate characters given and IF we know the make and model, a police agency can contact the state and get a list of relevant vehicles with those characters in their plates. That's when the fun of sorting out what's what begins.

Further, to whatever extent it can be done, it should not be needed. State patrols should not have to remember the colors/designs of other state's plates (and all of their "speical" plates). There is no reason not to make it as easy as possible...why waste anyone's time figuring out the blue Chevy Tahoe with a partial print and an unknown state? The bolded part, even if correct, should not be needed. And if I had a nickel for every frame I saw that covered the state name...

There has to be a better way to display your favorite team, alma matter, or the deal from which you purchased your vehicle.