License Plate Stickers

[SP Cook]

I think the "gas station model" where you have to get a "sticker" on the windshield representing a safety or smog inspection from a private garage is more common.  A smaller number of states use the "inspection lane model" where the inspection is a government run deal operated by the DMV.

NC recently abolished the physical stickers.  You still have to go to a gas station and get an inspetion, but the garage then sends the information via computer to the DMV.  The computer will not renew your plate w/o the inspection.  They had a "transition year" where the inspection expiration was shortened or lengthened to sync it with the plate expiration deal.  (NC also will zap out-of-state cars with liscense plate frames, any frame must not cover any part of the state name, year or month).

In my state, inspection stickers are a hassle and a joke.  You have to go to a garage but the fee has not been changed since 1971.  Its $12 to the garage.  They cannot do any serious effort at it and make money.  Pretty much they ask you your mileage and if its under 80K or so and the car doesn't have a major visable defect, they let you go.  At the old junker level, there are busineses, including one three blocks from the state capitol, that rent used tires.  You pay them $40, they slap on four "guarenteed to pass inspection" tires, you go get an inspection, and then return the tires and put back on you unsafe scuffs.

In my state also, motorcyclists have the deal with stickers.  They have to have them to, but don't have a windshield.  The state's manual says to put them on the frame, but many of these guys don't like that, because of the chrome work.  There are shops that will "forget" and put the stickers elsewhere on the bike. 

[txstateends]

TX had stickers for their plates from the mid-1970s to the mid-late 1980s.  It got to be like other states--too much theft of the stickers.
(Or in the case of a few, like my late aunt, she'd stick the new sticker elsewhere on the plate...after a while you couldn't see the plate for the stickers!!!)

Since then, TX has used windshield stickers that have to be placed adjacent to (above or below) the inspection sticker.

IINM, one of the types of plates (the "dealer" plates?) in TX still have stickers.

TX also requires front and back plates; I think you have to sign something saying your front plate was lost or that there's nowhere to mount a front plate.

Inspections vary, the bigger cities/metros have more stringent inspections because of pollution and ozone, while the smaller towns aren't as strict.  I've heard of people trying to go to rural inspection stations to try to save $$ and grief but they'll tell you the license/insurance has to have an address local to that area or they can't inspect the car.

Up until the last couple of years, there was mixed enforcement as far as license plate frames go.  Now, as long as there's no deliberate attempt to cover the plate (I guess in case of video from electronic tolling gantries) and no obscuring of the number, you're all right.  I'm sure they'd prefer you not cover the state name with the plate frame, but most frames do cover at least part of the state name (that I've seen).

[Brandon]

Illinois has a single sticker with both the month and the year on it.  There is also an emissions test on vehicles older than (IIRC) 5 years, but has no sticker (done every two years).  The vehicle registration is run by the SOS, and the emissions test is run by the IEPA.  The emissions testing facilities are run under contract directly under the IEPA - no private garages.  There is no so-called "safety inspection" of a car.

Frames are legal as long as they do not cover the state name, and covers are illegal.

Some municipalities have a separate vehicle tax that require the display of a sticker in the windshield.

[mgk920]

Illinois has a single sticker with both the month and the year on it.  There is also an emissions test on vehicles older than (IIRC) 5 years, but has no sticker (done every two years).  The vehicle registration is run by the SOS, and the emissions test is run by the IEPA.  The emissions testing facilities are run under contract directly under the IEPA - no private garages.  There is no so-called "safety inspection" of a car.

Frames are legal as long as they do not cover the state name, and covers are illegal.

Some municipalities have a separate vehicle tax that require the display of a sticker in the windshield.

Wisconsin uses month and year stickers on the back plates only (both front and rear plates are required to be displayed, though) and the stickers are pre-scored to prevent their easy removal by thieves.  The only counties with periodic inspections are for emissions tests in counties along the Lake Michigan lakeshore (thank you NW Indiana!  ) and any local municipal 'wheel' tax is collected by WisDOT at plate renewal time and then remitted to the city or county (no city or village window stickers like in Chicagoland, hint hint  ).  Very few munis and counties in Wisconsin levy such a tax, though.

Mike

[The High Plains Traveler]

I know someone who got a ticket in DC for "improper display of a license plate." His offense? On his Virginia plate he had the "month" sticker on the right side (it's supposed to be on the left) and the "year" sticker on the left side (it's supposed to be on the right)–that is, it read like "12 DEC" instead of "DEC 12." Utterly stupid to give a ticket for something like that, although I also think there's really no excuse for some of the totally random ways people put those stickers on their plates (especially the increasing numbers of people I've seen lately who'll put both "month" stickers on the front plate and both "year" stickers on the rear plate).

Here we have a bunch of people that will stick the new sticker over the month sticker. So if their plate did say "JUN - 2012" they might stick it over the "JUN" sticker... so now it says "2013 - 2012". That should be ticketable.

That is a relatively common error. It's amazing how people can disregard the instructions that are right on the envelope. What makes it worse for Colorado is that month stickers here use only a number for the month, though "EXP [month name] is on the sides in fine print, and year stickers use only the last two digits of the year. Month stickers are only white, while the year stickers rotate colors, so anyone who knows that much can tell if a month sticker is being displayed.

For states that have month and year on a single sticker, I've seen both the month in large type with the year in small (South Dakota), and the year much larger than the month (Louisiana). South Dakota's is particularly confusing at a distance because they use a two-digit number for all months, making it look like a vehicle is registered no later than, say, 2005 when it has a May registration.

[DaBigE]

That is a relatively common error. It's amazing how people can disregard the instructions that are right on the envelope. What makes it worse for Colorado is that month stickers here use only a number for the month, though "EXP [month name] is on the sides in fine print, and year stickers use only the last two digits of the year. Month stickers are only white, while the year stickers rotate colors, so anyone who knows that much can tell if a month sticker is being displayed.

We have the same kind of drivers in Wisconsin.  It also happens to be one of my pet peeves as well.  Some apparently feel that their license plate is supposed to be an art project...some worse than others.  I've seen quite a few where they have made a border with the stickers, others have attempted to cover every sq inch of plate space with them.  The funny thing is, a few officers have told me that not only does it look dumb, but will also gain them more [unwanted] attention from the law enforcement community, since they have to look harder for proper registration, or in some cases, the state and plate ID.  (Sure, they have their computer database, but looking at a sticker is much faster).

I had to laugh at one of my friends who asked why they make the stickers so hard to take off (he believes in removing the old sticker before applying the latest one).  Duh, so it's harder to steal them    Either way, apparently he's never heard of a razor blade before.  I let a couple years build up, then start fresh.

[6a]

Not a bad idea if you're facing a spike in sticker thefts.  IIRC, Missouri actually had a problem with stickers being taken.  They had a rather interesting solution, moving the sticker "well" to the center of the plate.  Apparently, theives were clipping the corners of the plates that had the stickers.   

I had heard that as well...what's the deal with that, are registrations ridiculously expensive or something?  Plate theft is not something you hear about in these parts, so I'm genuinely curious.

[PHLBOS]

But the most ludicrous thing DC did was the way they treated their own residents when the city scrapped license-plate decals. Seems the city was plagued with a rash of plate-decal thefts and so they switched to a windshield-mounted sticker that includes registration expiry, parking-permit info, and maybe inspection data (I'm not sure about that last).

Not a bad idea if you're facing a spike in sticker thefts.  IIRC, Missouri actually had a problem with stickers being taken.  They had a rather interesting solution, moving the sticker "well" to the center of the plate.  Apparently, theives were clipping the corners of the plates that had the stickers.   

I actually kind of like the idea of windshield stickers, having had stickers taken off my plates once here in CA (I've since started putting an X across then with an Xacto) but it seems to work well in palces like NY and NJ.

Southeastern PA (Philly area) has had plate/tag sticker thefts for quite some time.  Usually, the thefts involve a part of the plate (where the sticker is located) literally cut off.  A short-term remedy offered for Philly residents about a decade ago involved using a "Post-It" sticker placed on the back window.  This option was short-lived for 2 basic reasons: 1.  The "Post-Its" didn't stay on for very  long and 2.  It opened another can of worms for Philly drivers... traffic-stop profiling and/or their vehicles being vandalism targets.

IMHO, and I even wrote to my state Rep & Senator on this a while back, the best solution would be to scrap the plate stickers and just use the windshield sticker.  Until a few years ago, the listed month on the PA inspection stickers had to match the month on the plate sticker so the safety sticker and registration renewal could've went hand-in-hand.

if I recall correctly, Mass has separate inspection and registration programs as well.

PA does as well although, as I stated earlier, the months for each renewal used to be mandated to be the same.

Most MA registrations are renewed every 2 years vs. annually for the safety-portion of the inspection.

reply:
That why I like what Massachusetts does.  They embossed the Month in the upper left corner of the plate, and only give out one sticker.

They didn't always do that.  There are still plenty of older plates (of both the current 1987 scheme and the old 1977 green-on-white/single rear plate scheme) that don't feature the embossed month.  The plate on my mother's car is one of the last of the older green-on-white (with the state name still embossed) style issued; she got the plate during the early 90s.  The older-style plate stickers used to list the month (in 3 letters next to the latter 2-digits of the year).  MA started embossing the month on their plates sometime during the late 90s or early 2000s.

The reasoning behind embossing the month on the plates was likely done due to reduce costs (one style sticker per year rather than twelve) and to reduce the likelihood of a multi-vehicle household placing a sticker for one month on the rear plate and accidentally placing another (intended for another vehicle) month on the front plate of the same car.

With the exception of the old '77 design green-on-white plates, MA mandates 2 plates per vehicle; hence, 2 stickers-one for each plate.

[Mr_Northside]

PA does as well although, as I stated earlier, the months for each renewal used to be mandated to be the same.

Maybe it's just cause the registration sticker goes on the back, and inspection on the front (in PA), but it's kind of redundant, because to get the inspection sticker, you must have a valid registration (and proof of insurance) anyway.  (Unless you obtain inspection stickers thru underhanded means).
But having the sticker on the license plate just makes it easier for the cops.

[PHLBOS]

But having the sticker on the license plate just makes it easier for the cops.

And for sticker thieves and/or vandals as well.

[elsmere241]

But having the sticker on the license plate just makes it easier for the cops.

And for sticker thieves and/or vandals as well.

What if you print the tag number on the sticker?  Some states already do this.

[PHLBOS]

But having the sticker on the license plate just makes it easier for the cops.

And for sticker thieves and/or vandals as well.

What if you print the tag number on the sticker?  Some states already do this.

That was actually done with the short-lived Philly "Post-Its".  However, PA's current plate sticker style doesn't allow much room for the plate/tag number.  Although, they could replace the lower sticker serial number with the corresponding plate number.

[allniter89]

But having the sticker on the license plate just makes it easier for the cops.

And for sticker thieves and/or vandals as well.

What if you print the tag number on the sticker?  Some states already do this.

That was actually done with the short-lived Philly "Post-Its".  However, PA's current plate sticker style doesn't allow much room for the plate/tag number.  Although, they could replace the lower sticker serial number with the corresponding plate number.

Florida puts the license plate number on the sticker.

[Brandon]

But having the sticker on the license plate just makes it easier for the cops.

And for sticker thieves and/or vandals as well.

What if you print the tag number on the sticker?  Some states already do this.

Illinois does this.  My plate number is on my sticker.

Now about that waste we call a front plate...

[adt1982]

I saw a car the other day that had stickers on all 4 corners of the rear plate. Apparently they started in the upper right (correct location) and then just went clockwise each year.

[agentsteel53]

some cars around here (California) with year-of-manufacture plates have the registration stickers on a specially made frame with two tabs, as to not disturb the original plate. 

[PHLBOS]

I saw a car the other day that had stickers on all 4 corners of the rear plate. Apparently they started in the upper right (correct location) and then just went clockwise each year.

Many PA drivers do similar (correct location for the current plate design is upper-left).  Some even resort to placing stickers towards the middle of the plate as a means to thwart plate cutters. 

Yesterday, I saw one plate that had a bunch of stickers placed so that the state name (which is located along the top) was literally covered.  The plate in question was of the early 2000s design (which differs slightly from the earlier-posted current version).

[Mr_Northside]

And for sticker thieves and/or vandals as well.

Actually... someone tried stealing my registration sticker a couple of years ago.  go about 75% of it... but I had to shell out $4 (I think) for a replacement sticker.  Just glad I noticed it on my own, and not by getting pulled over.

[6a]

I saw a car the other day that had stickers on all 4 corners of the rear plate. Apparently they started in the upper right (correct location) and then just went clockwise each year.

In some states, Maine comes to mind, this was a mandatory past practice. 

[builder_J]

But having the sticker on the license plate just makes it easier for the cops.

And for sticker thieves and/or vandals as well.

What if you print the tag number on the sticker?  Some states already do this.

Add Missouri to the list of states doing this now.

[realjd]

I don't get the purpose of plate stickers or paper registrations anymore, especially in states like Florida where the stickers aren't color coded for month/year. Since the police check everything electronically anyway, it seems like a waste of time, effort, and money to also have stickers and paper registrations.

[kphoger]

I don't get the purpose of plate stickers or paper registrations anymore, especially in states like Florida where the stickers aren't color coded for month/year. Since the police check everything electronically anyway, it seems like a waste of time, effort, and money to also have stickers and paper registrations.

Well, let me tell you, paper registration sure comes in handy when I drive to México.  Without it, the Mexican officials have no way of knowing that I legally own the car I'm temporarily importing into their nation.

[agentsteel53]

Well, let me tell you, paper registration sure comes in handy when I drive to México.  Without it, the Mexican officials have no way of knowing that I legally own the car I'm temporarily importing into their nation.

I was just thinking the other day about having a valid registration to import the car into Mexico.  a CA registration is just a flimsy piece of paper - I could make one up in 10 minutes at Kinkos.

[realjd]

Florida is like that too. It's printed on standard 8.5x11 paper with no signature, seal, or other certification on it. Anybody with a laser printer could easily counterfeit one.

[kphoger]

Two years ago, our other driver owned his car outright, so he used the title instead of registration.  Nowhere on it, of course, was his license plate number.  So they just had him write it on there with a pen.  Now THAT's official!