California Is About To Run Out of License Plate Numbers
California Is About To Run Out of License Plate Numbers
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California Is About To Run Out of License Plate Numbers
Just changing to a new numbering system when they run out.
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42 comments
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I wonder what the practical reason is for not just allowing full alphanumeric number plates. Each digit would then have 32 possibilities (I, O, Z, and S should be avoided to prevent confusion with 1, 0, 2, and 5). This gives 34.36 billion possible number plates which seems sufficient for at least the next couple years.
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Or put the letters and numerals in set spots, ex. ABC-123, next move onto 123-ABC once you’re done with the first bazillion combinations , AB3-12C, etc.
That way you can tell your 1 isn’t an I because it’s not in the right spot.
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But once you've got cars on the road in both the first and second combination (or first and third, or whatever) then you can't easily tell if it's 111-III or III-111 or II1-11I.
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in australia we had alpha and numeric divided and then a few years ago we switched to just alphanumeric everywhere… the font used is made to be machine readable - an I and a 1 look very different; it’s a non-issue
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Yeah, using a smart font is a good solution.
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In my state of my country the plates are colour coded. So like for most of the 90s it was green, now they're blue or something? I dunno, if you knew what to look for you could figure out what generational combination its from.
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This is also a clever idea!
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This is literally what CA does. 1AAA111, they've simply exhausted the pattern - 9ZZZ999 will go out sometime this year, according to the article.
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Washington state had that for a while. They changed around a decade ago or so, maybe a little less. Now it's just a seven character plate, ABC1234.
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UK includes the year in it, so it shouldn't ever really run out. Ok I guess eventually it will loop but I expect most will be available for reuse by then.
One issue could be if more cars are registered than the digits would make available for that year but you would probably just design it in a way there is significantly more space than you are ever realistically going to need.
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We actually did loop in Denmark a decade or so ago. It was quite easy to guess the production year of the car by just looking at the first two letters. It was a bit trippy seeing new cars with "AA 11 111” all of a sudden when we ran out of ZZ's.
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That would be pretty nice. Our plates are expensive over here (US) so we just put a new tiny year sticker on each time and keep the plates for a long time.
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I think you might be mis-understanding slightly? In the UK the date is on the plate as part of the number e.g. AB25 6CD would be on a car registered in 2025. We don't have anything on cars like a registration (tax disk went long ago) number plates are big and plastic here for some reason, someone smart could probably explain why it's good or bad.
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Harder to remember than if they group letters and numbers.
Right now remember 1 digit that’s usually 8 or 9, then 3 letters and 3 numbers So 8WTF420 is easier to remember than WT842F0.
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I guess that's true but number plates are typically read by cameras anyway. They are primarily used by speed/red light cameras, toll collection systems, and law enforcement.
If you assign random numbers to cars, it's pretty likely that the last four or five digits plus the make and model of the car will uniquely identify a vehicle or at least narrow it down to just a few possibilities. If the assignment software is smart it could probably even guarantee this uniqueness.
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In hit and run accidents, human memory is what needs to be supported by the technology.
Therefore license plates should be designed for maximum mnemonic potential, not CPU efficiency.
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I think you're grossly exaggerating the difficult of memorising alphanumeric number plates:
GL7KKUQTHUP70123WD2C1WWQG21AP92BTQY
These were randomly generated and really not that bad to remember. Especially if the system is designed so that you only need to remember the first/last four or five digits. Compare to these (found at random on the Internet) number plates under a mix of the two current schemes:
752EPS47WMT5139AYE877648GDG6
Edit: What I really mean to say here, is that random number plates makes memorising the entire number plate unnecessary. You can get away with just remembering the first four digits and the car's make, model, and colour. As long as fewer than 1 million (32^4) cars of the same model and colour are registered, this system guarantees that a car is uniquely identified by its colour, model, and first four of its number plate (i.e. "I was hit by a red Tesla Model X whose plate starts with
EL0N")-
If you don’t have time to get a photo you probably don’t have time to get the make. I’ve seen plenty of hit and run news reports where the witness just says “dark colored SUV”.
License plates need to be easy for humans to read and remember.
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Electronic plate readers are an illegitimate anti-privacy technology and should be banned imo. License plates are already too hard to remember, I have a hard time remembering my own license plate number let alone one I had a two second glance at.
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Say what you will about electronic plate readers but they do make speed and red light enforcement and toll collection much easier. And be honest, most people only dislike them because they make it harder to get away with bad driving habits that people previously took for granted that they could get away with.
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Well I dislike them mainly because they further enable scalable mass surveillance. There should be more barriers to having records of where everyone is. As for automated enforcement, the way it works is often a blatant scam. I once had a commute where I passed by an intersection that ticketed people turning left, the amount of time it allowed was noticeably shorter than normal, and you could see the flash indicating they were ticketing someone basically every time the light changed, for multiple cars, because it activated if you were in the intersection at all after the light turned red. There was always a long line to turn left at that intersection. I mostly avoided getting ticketed but I did get one once, it was through a private company and I just ignored it and nothing happened. I really think most of those get set up because of corrupt relationships between people in government and the people running those companies that handle the tickets.
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That issue is not really the problem of the camera though. That's like saying you don't like running water because people have drowned in water before. If the cameras are being misused then that is a political issue.
In my city, the police department operates the cameras and they will send at least one warning before you get a fine unless the violation is very egregious (e.g. double the speed limit in a school zone)
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The issue is probably that those I, O, Z, and Ss are already on plates since the system is different?
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It doesn't matter if there are number plates that already have those letters, but the idea is to stop issuing new ones with them.
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Currently there is a system. One number, three letters, three numbers. So no chance of mixing up certain characters. If you introduce a different system you will need to make sure you know what system is being used. With your plan you could get a plate that looks exactly like the old system except it's using 0 instead of O.
I suspect there is also a lot of benefit in knowing where numbers and letters will be for having more accurate plate recognition cameras.
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The current system does not issue plates with
IorO.-
Ah, interesting. Thinking about it, do they have vanity plates? If so then all my arguments are invalid.
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42 comments