I recently noticed that the State of Illinois has changed the font of the *stamping* on license plates.
The design is the same, but the stamped text is a bit thinner and the glyphs are blockier.
I am surprised how much this change is bothering me, to be honest. It has never occurred to me how much that is a defining feature. The first one I saw I assumed had to be fake!
But - I'm relieved they're still being stamped.
Shame on all the states that just print them now. Cheapskates.
@TechConnectify I can't remember which states they are, but some other states plates always trip me up because I mistake them for Illinois police plates because they have slightly different sizing and spacing
There's a few that have a similar blue to white gradient, yeah. Our current one got a lot uglier though!
I think what makes ours easiest to distinguish from the others is the burgundy text. As far as I know, we're the only state that does that.
@TechConnectify and it's nice that they're manufactured in a rehabilitation training facility for those with disabilities instead of prison labor like some other states!
@TechConnectify Maybe the new font is a little easier on the presses? Would be interesting to know why this changed.
@gudenau My guess is that it is slightly more legible, especially for cameras using OCR. Some of the letters were very similar to numbers (like Q and 0) and the old font was fairly dense.
Of course, there's lots of reasons it's bad to cater to that, but so many tollways across the nation are moving to pay-by-plate. I'm kind of fascinated by that, to be honest - last family trip on the Florida Turnpike resulted in a ~$20 bill showing up in the mail some weeks later.
@TechConnectify Does stamping them do anything for durability? Honest question.
I’ve seen vehicles with the old Illinois design peeling off portions, so the stamping might help with that?
@jterhorst I don't think the intent is for durability, I think the intent is more of an anti-counterfeiting measure.
It's a lot harder to make a fake plate look legit when real plates have texture to them. But, a side bonus is that if paint is flaking off the plate, you can at least see the lettering by the remaining shapes. By the time a plate gets that bad, though, you've probably been flagged for replacement.
@TechConnectify At least they still stamp them! Colorado just prints plates now. They used to only print custom plates and stamp normal ones, but seems like all plates are printed now
@nytpu we even stamp custom ones!
It's not like it's that hard to configure the machine to stamp anything in particular. In fact, as far as I can tell, it seems even weirder to have two separate processes for bulk plates and custom plates. Baffling.
@TechConnectify Interesting that the USA is still stamping licence plates. The UK stopped doing this back in the 1970s. There was a brief period of vinyl over metal. Nowadays it's black vinyl under methacrylate with a highly reflective backing. There has recently been a spate of barely legal "3D" plates with plastic letters stuck to the front of a reflective plate. (Now outlawed for new cars.)
And you don't need to get a plate made by the government. Most auto supplies shops can do it.
@nowster plenty of states don't these days, but to be honest I don't see a reason not to other than to make the process a little cheaper. It certainly makes fake plates easy to spot.
On the point of dealerships, some of them are given a supply of pre-made plates from the state. Others, though, register your car with a temporary plate and then you get a real one in the mail in a month or so.
@TechConnectify I somewhat miss the old style of Illinois plate (2001-2017 I think). I like the new one, too, but nostalgia. 🙃
@LemonKiwiCherry oh I really dislike the new one. The kerning on the word Illinois is atrocious. And it feels very designed by committee - the old one was simple and very tasteful.
But to be honest, the state is missing out on a ton of money by not offering retro plates. I would buy the pre-2000's one in an instant!
@TechConnectify There was a brief period here in Ontario (Canada) when a quality control issue on the plates meant that they had to temporarily order them from a different place - and they came with a different stamped font (I believe they came from Nova Scotia and used their font). Was really odd to see!
We also briefly had printed plates, but they were inverted (bright numbers on dark background) and cops complained that they were hard to read, especially at night when shining a light on them. So we went back to the old stamped plates.
@kepstin I suppose it's possible that's what's happening, but at the same time I can recognize there were legibility flaws with the old font. So I'm more inclined to believe this is a deliberate change.
@kepstin although, speaking of quality control issues, there was a run of plates where the paint would flake off very prematurely. Not helped by the fact that we use road salt in the winter!
It was free to get a replacement, but a lot of folks would end up just repainting their plates. Which was kind of adorable.
@vorboyvo @jterhorst well, I probably shouldn't have used the word flagged. As far as I know, there wasn't a mechanism for that but there has always been an easy* way to request a replacement.
*there was probably some bureaucracy involved but there are posters about it at the registration offices. A run of bad plates years ago was particularly susceptible to premature wear so it was A Thing
@TechConnectify Fake plates aren't a huge problem. Criminals have been known to steal real plates off a similar looking car. Reputable plate makers ask to see your vehicle registration documents before making a replacement plate.
German plates are fun. The font is designed to make it incredibly difficult to use black tape to change one character to a similar one (eg. 1 to 4, 5 to 9).
@nowster I mean, it's not like it's a /huge/ problem but it is a problem.
But also, in much of the US the plate has nothing to do with the car. There is no encoding in it about make, model year, registration date, anything like that. It's just a serial number, and you are able to save money when you get a new car by transferring your old plate to the new one.
Here in Illinois, the plates belong to you. And when you sell the car, you take them off. Don't want em? Drop them in a mailbox
@mark @nowster mmm that's not really what I mean by temporary.
Dealerships do have a special dealer plate (which changes color every year) they can slap on any car to move them around or for test drives or whatever.
But at least in Illinois, the plate only serves to reference who the car belongs to. It doesn't stick with the car, it's the driver's property. So a temp plate is just a laminated piece of paper to serve that purpose between when the car is bought and the state issues a real plate.
@mark @nowster and every time the car is sold, the owner is obliged to take the plates off. If they're getting a new car, they can be transferred to the new one for a fee. Or they can just keep them as a souvenir. Or recycle them at registration offices or stick 'em in any mailbox.
If you wake up and find your plates were stolen you report them as stolen and are issued new ones. The state handles all of it and it's honestly surprising to me that that's delegated in other countries.
@TechConnectify @LemonKiwiCherry my understanding is that most states that offer - or allow using - vintage plates when registering a car do so only for "classic" cars (by one definition or another) so people can use a plate that looks appropriate to the car's age.
Around here, the current rules are 1975 or earlier :/
@kepstin @LemonKiwiCherry oh there are plenty of states now where you can request an older design. I know for sure Iowa does (they have a simple white on black scheme if you want) and so does California.
@mark @nowster adding on here that this does not work the same in every state. I believe in California the plate stays with the car.
But to be honest, that has always felt wasteful to me. I don't really know what value there is in assigning a plate to a car rather than the person who drives the car. The car has a VIN and it's printed in SO many places so it's not like it can become a ghost.
Of course, in the grand scheme it's not like a plate matters much.
@Willow @mark @nowster it could be this is just an Illinois thing! But the idea that you can look at a plate and gauge how old the car is or anything about it is just not a thing here.
You see plenty of old cars with brand new plates on it. And the fact that the plate stays with the owner and not the car makes vanity and specialty plates a lot easier to deal with.
🏳️🌈
@TechConnectify What's bizarre to me is that Washington still embosses their standard plates, but only prints custom plates. Like, why are they running two separate production lines?
@SDWolf Missouri does this too! I do not get it, how hard can it be to stop the machine for a bit and have it do some specific sequences?
@TechConnectify @mark @nowster here in Romania it's even more ridiculous - the technically belonging to the car, but you're required to take the plates off and return them to the registration authority when you sell the car.
The new owner can then explicitly request to use the same number, and I think end up picking up the same plates that were dropped off by the person they got the car from but with an extra trip and paperwork involved 💀
@hazelnot sometimes it's nice to know that our government actually has a few things it's doing *better* than other places!
Mark Rober just did a video where he found out how much people steal plates from similar models and colors of cars in order to misdirect people who write the plate number down when people break into things.
@TechConnectify @mark @nowster In Massachusetts, plates are issued when an owner registers a vehicle with the registry of motor vehicles. The plate includes a year of expiration sticker, which must be updated every two years when the vehicle registration is renewed. The registration and renewal processes also require proof of current insurance, so the sticker serves as proof of insurance as well. We don’t have insurance cards in our cars, just a printout of the registration form. Emissions and safety inspections are required annually, but that is a sticker on the lower right of the windshield.
When a car is sold, the owner can take them off the car and transfer the registration to a new vehicle. Or, they can return them to the RMV or attest to the RMV that they were destroyed.
@bhawthorne That's pretty similar to how we do things here. But I believe you only have to show proof of insurance at initial registration. Then it's up to you to keep it up to date.
However, if you live in the counties where emissions testing takes place (which is basically just Metro Chicago), the way that works is it becomes a block on renewing your registration. You don't get a separate sticker, you just won't be able to renew your registration until you pass an emissions test.
@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 You usually don’t have to show proof of insurance at registration renewal here any more, but that’s because renewals are handled online and the registry and insurance companies have integrated computer systems. When I go online to renew, the registry looks up the insurance company information last provided and queries the company as to whether it is still in force. If it is, your registration is renewed. If not, you have to fix your insurance before the registry will let you renew. If you renew in person, you have to bring the renewal application form to the registry pre-stamped from your insurance company.
@bhawthorne hmm. I suppose that could be what's happening here in Illinois. My parents have had the same insurance company for like 20 years, and I've had the same since I've had my own. So I haven't encountered what happens when you switch insurance providers.
That said, I'm inclined to believe the registration office doesn't care at all. I honestly don't recall providing them with insurance info when I registered the Figaro, and being an import with a weird VIN the process was very not normal
@bhawthorne and because I have an insurance policy on that car as a collector car, it's not with my main insurance company.
Now you have me curious. Curious enough to look into this? I regret to inform you probably not.
@weiln I disagree so hard on the front plate thing.
Several hit-and-runs get solved every year because the front plate fell off and was left at the scene. I really do not understand the aversion to putting another $1 piece of metal on the front of your car other than aesthetic preferences, and when we're dealing with machines that can kill people aesthetic preferences like that can go eff allllll the way off.
@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.
@TechConnectify I'm with you on this. It shouldn't be difficult to identify a car unless you're directly behind it. And stamping an additional plate can't be _that_ much more costly.
@aires no. It's not. You just run two plates through the stamper, or the printer if your state is being a cheapskate.
And because of states like Illinois, most every car has a bracket designed for it meant to hold a front plate.
Designers who don't account for that are just being lazy and/or deliberately want to make the integration clunky because they're on team "front plates are gross."
Meanwhile, to me, cars without them look wrong. I'm so used to it it's not even a thing I think about.
@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 The one downside I’ve seen with front plates in Portland, because they also have registration stickers, is that they get stolen and re-used as illegal back places on similar-model cars. But that seems like a minor downside and ultimately fixable if the front/rear plates had distinctly different design elements.
@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 @weiln I live in a state where trucks can get away with one plate and that plate is on the front! Reason being that you might have a trailer sometimes. You see white dudes mostly do this because racist policing practices. One plate policies make no sense.
@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.
@TechConnectify Also, there is some vanity. Vehicles without front plates do look better. 🤷
But as I've matured, the vanity has taken a back seat to safety.
@TechConnectify @weiln agree with safety aspect!
Please stop drilling holes in our bumpers though… can we agree to stop that? 🥹
@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.
@BrianEnigma @TechConnectify The US system for plates is weird. replacement plates or stickers every year? That seems just a bit dumb and backwards. It's all on computer already, so why not deal with it there? You didn't pay this year? They'll already know, and could flag your number.
@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.
@BrianEnigma@xoxo.zone @TechConnectify@mas.to With a few exceptions for things like classics with really old plates, British front plates are white, while rears are yellow.
Though I suppose it just means that you have to steal both plates...
@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.
@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.
@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.
@TechConnectify @fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma Yea, but you have to balance that against the cost (non-zero) and the expectation of whether that sticker is ever going to catch anyone at all. PA gave up stickers several years ago, but I don't have data on whether that's a net plus or minus.
@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 @weiln In some cases the plate doesn’t even need to fall off.
Example: salvage car from salvage auction.
@weiln @TechConnectify this is a funnily very americal problem. In europe cars always have had two plates and I dont think anyone has any issue with that.
@Dietrichw @weiln another reason to keep stamping them!
@TechConnectify @fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma in the UK car receive a registration plate when it's initially bought. It identifies the car until it's scrapped, unless an owner gets it changed for a vanity plate. Mandatory front and back, front and back are different colours white front, yellow back). As they don't usually need to be removed, anti tamper screws are used. Doesn't stop them being removed, it happens, but I guess makes it harder.
@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.
@fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma @TechConnectify This is how Pennsylvania does it, they switched in the 2010s. No more registration stickers, it's looked up if someone runs your plate. I'm a huge fan, and I'm sure it cut down on petty tickets.
@ndm13 @fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma I'm not exactly one to want to give cops more reasons to give citations to people, but people driving around with an unregistered car does seem like a large enough risk to make obvious.
@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?
@sxpert @fuzzysteve @ndm13 @BrianEnigma sure, but that's harder to enforce.
I am going to proudly waive my American flag here and say that I'm not super thrilled with all of the automated enforcement mechanisms with cameras and stuff. That feels like surveillance.
@TechConnectify @weiln My issue with the front plate when I had one was it messed with the sensors on the car. I spent a lot of them researching to find an option that would not block adaptive cruise control and collision avoidance sensors. I found one that mostly worked, but when it was raining I would get constant false positives, which was distracting and led me to stop trusting the alerts, or simply turning them off. This made my car less safe.
@undergroundbeef @weiln That's a problem with the design of the car though. Surely you see that?
Somebody at that car maker did not think through what's going to happen with a front plate bracket.
@TechConnectify @f4grx @weiln You can also read them from a good distance away. I don't know all US plates but some of them seem to use tiny text 🤷
@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.
@TechConnectify @weiln The way I see this is if your car doesn't look good with a front plate, that's a failure of the designer to understand the assignment. They know it's required in many states - this is not a surprise constraint.
@SDWolf @TechConnectify Do the embossed plates have the retroreflective helices on them? (part of ALPR helpers)
@TechConnectify I believe Virginia still stamps their license plates....for now...
@compuguy oh but Virginia has the weirdest font ever. Seems so pretentious to put that on a license plate!
@TechConnectify @fuzzysteve @BrianEnigma
Do the stickers really mean anything other than the vehicle tax being paid? We we used to use coloured paper discs in the windscreen in the UK for this - it's not really the same type of information as the number on the plate, it doesn't need to be in the same place.
We no longer use them but I think it was a mistake - we seem to have more cars without valid tax now (though I haven't checked if we actually do).
@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.
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.
@TechConnectify is it actually checked, though? My work involves enforcement where I'm looking up registration details and find deliberately false information far more of an issue than expired.
I don't think it's hugely common in general, but it is an issue among the vehicles likely to come to my attention.
@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)
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@gorplop @f4grx @weiln I think it's good to make the front and back distinct so someone can't steal a front plate and pass it off as a rear plate.
But, it is utterly baffling to me that private companies print license plates in other countries. That is handled by the states here, and I wouldn't have it any other way
@TechConnectify It does seem like since I moved here that a lot of the standards set in place by the Illinois DoT imply a greater quantity of brain cells than one per DMV facility. I can't say the same for DMV staff, but I feel it's made less bad than it otherwise would be.
@TechConnectify @weiln I think it has to do with car manufacturers aversion to having adequate front bumpers these days.
Have you seen the new BMW front facias on their SUVs? I'm not sure how you're expected to put a front license plate on that piece of futuro-brutalist engineering.