Posting County Names on Licence Plates

[webny99]

Some discussion in another thread got me thinking. Does your state do this, and why or why not?

New York doesn't, but I wish they would. It would make road trips so much more interesting knowing which county each car originates from. I can think of plenty of trends I would watch for, if only.

[MNHighwayMan]

Nah. No one needs to know which part of the state I'm coming from/reside in.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

Ohio has been back n'forth on this topic.
From the late 70s till 2000s, Ohio licence plates had the counties on them
Some point in the last decade, Ohio decided that instead of county names, we all would put county numbers (1-88, based on alphabetical order) on the plates.
FWIW, I have noticed that some Ohio plates are showing the county names again this year.

[21stCenturyRoad]

Florida does it. But I have NEVER seen a Miami-Dade plate. It seems like cars registered here are given the words "sunshine state"  instead.

[cjk374]

Louisiana never has. But, Mississippi does.

[Highway63]

Iowa does, I hope it never goes away, and I think it should be mandatory.

[Road Hog]

Kansas at one time had a two-letter county code on a sticker on the plate (JO = Johnson, etc). They may do so still – I haven't seen a Kansas plate up close in a while.

When I lived in Arkansas, the state issued letter combinations to "revenue offices"  (DMVs) in blocks of 1,000, sometimes with three or four succeeding letters (Ex. WBA, WBB, WBC). So if you knew the letters associated with that office, you could know where the car was from.

[ilpt4u]

IL is a no on this one. Same plates from Cairo to South Beloit

[US 89]

Utah used to have a decal that went next to the registration month/year on the rear license plate, and it contained a two-letter code for the county of registration. That was eliminated around 2003 or so in 2002, and since then the county has not appeared on license plates in any form.

EDIT: here's a list of the county codes.

[Brian556]

Florida does it. But I have NEVER seen a Miami-Dade plate. It seems like cars registered here are given the words “sunshine state” instead.

They somehow opted out. Back when they were just Dade, they did it. I have one of their plates from around 1990

[DandyDan]

Iowa does, I hope it never goes away, and I think it should be mandatory.

Iowa even does on specialty plates. The only ones without are the ones for colleges and universities.

Nebraska plates begin with a number which denotes the county, but Douglas County (Omaha), Lancaster County (Lincoln) and Sarpy County (south Omaha suburbs) do not do that. Dakota County (South Sioux City) was going to at one point, but there was a backlash against it there, so it was never implemented.

I believe South Dakota has a similar system to Nebraska, as does Montana.

[formulanone]

Florida does it. But I have NEVER seen a Miami-Dade plate. It seems like cars registered here are given the words “sunshine state” instead.

Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach offered "Sunshine State" or the option of "In God We Trust" sometime around the mid-1990s or so. Broward and Palm Beach offered the county as an option, if you picked up your plate in person. (I think I've seen a "Miami-Dade" plate once or twice, but maybe my eyes just played tricks on me.) Florida used a county-code system until 1978.

Alabama had used the county code number system since the 1950s. If it's issued in Jefferson, Mobile, or Montgomery counties, then they start with 1, 2, or 3, respectively. This left more room for for the largest* counties to have more plates to issue. The rest of the counties get a 2-digit number in alphabetical order; 04 goes to Autauga County on down to 67 for Winston County. There's a few special issues with higher numbers.

* Things change...Presently, Madison County is the second or third-largest county in terms of population, but their code is "47".

[MNHighwayMan]

Iowa does, I hope it never goes away, and I think it should be mandatory.

But why? What benefit does it provide?

[Flint1979]

Michigan doesn't. Michigan has about 3 or 4 different looking plates though. It usually says something Great Lakes related though on the bottom and Michigan in all caps or Pure Michigan written more in cursive on the top with the tag in the upper right corner.

[tdindy88]

Growing up, Indiana had a county number as the first one or two digits of the license plate number. The numbers were in alphabetical order, 1 for Adams County, 92 for Whitley County. Marion and Lake Counties had their respective numbers (49 and 45) plus a few overflow numbers. Marion County had 93, 95, 97, 98 and 99 and Lake County had 94 and 96. No other county had an overflow number but soon they had to get creative with the license plate numbers of the next few largest counties (Allen, St. Joseph, Hamilton, Vanderburgh and Elkhart.)

At several points in the past there was a county name sticker used in the upper left corner, along with the county-coded license plate number. Somewhere in the 90s that stopped and the license plate number alone designated the county.

As of 2008 they changed the format of the license plate numbers and placed the county name on the top of the plate. It featured both the county number and the county name. This was the only time that the name was featured prominently at the top or bottom of the plate as it's done in some other states.

In 2013 with the next series of plates they put the county number on the lower right corner of the plate where it is now, numbers 1 through 92. All specialty plates and the In God We Trust plates feature the same format.

[webny99]

Iowa does, I hope it never goes away, and I think it should be mandatory.

But why? What benefit does it provide?

Other drivers will know if you are a local, or from another area of the state. I would have more tolerance for people weaving or making last minute decisions on the road if I can tell they're a non-local.

I also mentioned how it would be more interesting on road trips. Not that you will ever meet the people you see in cars along the road, but it's just kind of cool to know where they are coming from. It also makes it easier to spot people from your hometown when you are away. Take Kinzua Bridge State Park, which is a couple of hours south of me in PA. I wouldn't bat an eyelash at seeing many, many other NY plates, but if I saw a Monroe County plate, I would be more willing to say hello to them, find out what suburb they are from, what brings them to PA, etc. etc.

Essentially, it's just a piece of information and point of connection with others that you wouldn't otherwise have.

[corco]

Iowa does, I hope it never goes away, and I think it should be mandatory.

Iowa even does on specialty plates. The only ones without are the ones for colleges and universities.

Nebraska plates begin with a number which denotes the county, but Douglas County (Omaha), Lancaster County (Lincoln) and Sarpy County (south Omaha suburbs) do not do that. Dakota County (South Sioux City) was going to at one point, but there was a backlash against it there, so it was never implemented.

I believe South Dakota has a similar system to Nebraska, as does Montana.

As does Wyoming and Idaho.

South Dakota's is unique though because the plates are still formatted 1A1 A11 or 11A A11 or similar but the first numbers before the first letter represent the county so it's more hidden.

NE/SD/WY/MT go purely numeric based on population when the system was established (so a "1" plate is Sioux Falls/Casper/Butte/used to be Omaha, "2" is Rapid City/Cheyenne/Great Falls/used to be Lincoln and so forth) while Idaho uses an alphabetized alphanumeric system.

[jeffandnicole]

Iowa does, I hope it never goes away, and I think it should be mandatory.

But why? What benefit does it provide?

Other drivers will know if you are a local, or from another area of the state. I would have more tolerance for people weaving or making last minute decisions on the road if I can tell they're a non-local.

Maybe it's a good thing they don't do that then.

Also, you're treating counties as other countries.  I work in a county 4 counties away from my home county.  What difference does my home county make?

I also mentioned how it would be more interesting on road trips. Not that you will ever meet the people you see in cars along the road, but it's just kind of cool to know where they are coming from. It also makes it easier to spot people from your hometown when you are away. Take Kinzua Bridge State Park, which is a couple of hours south of me in PA. I wouldn't bat an eyelash at seeing many, many other NY plates, but if I saw a Monroe County plate, I would be more willing to say hello to them, find out what suburb they are from, what brings them to PA, etc. etc.

[/quote]

Creepy stalker mentality there.  Realize that most people probably aren't going to know their license plate signifies what county they live in.  It's one thing to listen to someone's accent and to talk/joke about that.  Looking at someone's car and seeing they're from another state may be someone normal, but creeping in to someone's county and discussing their life is not.

[LM117]

Virginia doesn't and neither does North Carolina (where I'm from).

[Scott5114]

Oklahoma used to use a system where the three letters on the plate indicated the county the plate was registered in. When Oklahoma went to flat plates, they also changed to a simpler serial system where the AAA plates were issued first, then AAB, etc. Law enforcement apparently didn't like not being able to know what county a plate was from, so a two-letter code is printed next to the numeric month of expiry (my plate has a "CL 06" sticker, indicating Cleveland County, expiration in June). The name of the county is printed in tiny text under the codes.

If you don't want your real county on the plate, it is pathetically easy to game, as plate stickers are given out by third-party tag agencies, so all you have to do is get your plate issued from a tag agency outside your home county (if I wanted to, I could go to a tag agency in Goldsby or Newcastle and get an "ML 06" sticker, for instance). Also, if you move, nothing forces you to get a new sticker; you have to be proactive in asking for one.

Some dipshits put their year sticker over top of the county/month sticker so they have two year stickers showing and no county/month. I guess that works too.

[1995hoo]

Virginia doesn't and neither does North Carolina (where I'm from).

What Virginia does have instead is the county or city decal. Many, but not all, jurisdictions have done away with those stupid things. Alexandria still has them. If there has to be something indicating county or city, to me the idea of a decal makes more sense than a license plate because it's easy to change the decal if you move.

My father has saved all his old license plates. Among them is a metal Charlottesville "city strip"  that got attached above or below the plate in the era prior to city decals and prior to plate decals (back when you got new plates every year). It has to be from sometime in the 1969—1972 timeframe because that's when my parents lived there. My father was there one year prior to marrying my mom, but he didn't have a car that year.

I've never seen a similar piece anywhere else, though I wouldn't be surprised if an antique shop had one. I did find this image of a similar type of thing online (see below). To me this makes more sense than the actual plate having the county or city name because, again, the smaller strip is easily replaced.

....

Some dipshits put their year sticker over top of the county/month sticker so they have two year stickers showing and no county/month. I guess that works too.

I see all sorts of weird crap with Virginia plate stickers. The plate comes without the stickers attached and the plate has labels ("MONTH"  and "YEAR,"  always on the left and right, respectively) showing where they go. Some people alternate the year on each side, covering over the month (this should be ticketable, IMO). I've seen a very few people put both "month"  stickers on the front plate and both "year"  stickers on the rear plate (this should also be ticketable). Then there are people who think "MONTH"  and "YEAR"  are captions that need to be visible, so they put the stickers directly above or below the labels, perhaps assuming cops are too stupid to know "APR 19"  means your registration expires in April 2019? (No reason to ticket for that because the expiration information is clearly visible.) Some other people will put the stickers in the wrong corners (again, no reason to ticket for that).

I genuinely do not understand how anyone can have any problem applying the stickers correctly. It's so simple.

For some reason I've also seen a lot of expired plates this year. Some idiot in our neighborhood has his SUV parked on a VDOT street with expired plates AND an expired inspection. As of Tuesday afternoon there were three tickets on his windshield. If he doesn't deal with it soon, the county will tag the car as abandoned and then tow it if it isn't removed within a certain number of days.

[Eth]

Georgia uses county stickers, and has done so as long as I've been alive, though you have the option of "In God We Trust" instead of the county name.

[vdeane]

Also against.  Do you REALLY want someone knowing you're from out of town when you're on the road?  Any thief wandering the parking lot wherever you stop is going to target the cars from out of town because they're more likely to have luggage or other valuables in the car.  It's also well-known that police officers, especially in small rural towns looking to raise revenue from through traffic, tend to target people from out of the area as well, since one isn't likely to contest a ticket away from home.  Also, wouldn't having the county on the plate mean that one would have to get new plates whenever they move?  That seems like needless hassle.

Incidentally, if one wants to display one's own county on their licence plate, NY has a specialty series of plates for it.

[webny99]

Iowa does, I hope it never goes away, and I think it should be mandatory.

But why? What benefit does it provide?

Other drivers will know if you are a local, or from another area of the state. I would have more tolerance for people weaving or making last minute decisions on the road if I can tell they're a non-local.

Maybe it's a good thing they don't do that then.

Because...?

I also mentioned how it would be more interesting on road trips. Not that you will ever meet the people you see in cars along the road, but it's just kind of cool to know where they are coming from. It also makes it easier to spot people from your hometown when you are away. Take Kinzua Bridge State Park, which is a couple of hours south of me in PA. I wouldn't bat an eyelash at seeing many, many other NY plates, but if I saw a Monroe County plate, I would be more willing to say hello to them, find out what suburb they are from, what brings them to PA, etc. etc.

Creepy stalker mentality there.  Realize that most people probably aren't going to know their license plate signifies what county they live in.  It's one thing to listen to someone's accent and to talk/joke about that.  Looking at someone's car and seeing they're from another state may be someone normal, but creeping in to someone's county and discussing their life is not.

Fixed the quote for you.

And whoa, I think you took me way too literally. That was very hypothetical. I'm not actually going to PA to creep on other people from my home county. It would just be happen chance if I was already talking to them or something. Like I said, just something interesting, not something that really matters.

[webny99]

Do you REALLY want someone knowing you're from out of town when you're on the road?  Any thief wandering the parking lot wherever you stop is going to target the cars from out of town because they're more likely to have luggage or other valuables in the car.

That's only really applicable at the opposite end of your own state. Anything within a couple hours of home is day trip distance, and once you cross the state line everybody knows you're out of state anyways.

Individual townships would be a little too much information, but I don't see an issue with posting the county.