Posting County Names on Licence Plates

[StogieGuy7]

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.

I remember these VERY well from when I was a little kid.  Even had a few of them myself, including a blue on non-reflective white one that went with the first "permanent" VA plates in 1974. That was the first of a 40+ year tradition of blue on white VA plates.  Before that they were black and white annual plates (as shown above) and they'd flip background/digit colors every year. 

[6a]

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.

I can't for the life of me understand why they did that. Hey, let's make a plate with a word cloud background, then cover part of it with a sticker! Not to mention the specialty plates have whatever organization printed along the bottom.

[thspfc]

People often buy cars in different counties than the county they reside in, especially in rural areas. I don't see the point of doing this.

[hotdogPi]

People often buy cars in different counties than the county they reside in, especially in rural areas. I don't see the point of doing this.

Maybe a dealership 30—40 miles away had a better price than the closest one carrying that type of car.

[US 89]

People often buy cars in different counties than the county they reside in, especially in rural areas. I don't see the point of doing this.

Maybe a dealership 30—40 miles away had a better price than the closest one carrying that type of car.

Or maybe your rural county doesn't even have a dealership to begin with.

[oscar]

People often buy cars in different counties than the county they reside in, especially in rural areas. I don't see the point of doing this.

Isn't the county sticker for the county of the new owner's residence, rather than of the dealer? Especially if one purpose of the county sticker is to certify payment of taxes to the county.

This would go double when someone goes out-of-state to buy a car, as happens in my area which borders another state and D.C.

[thspfc]

People often buy cars in different counties than the county they reside in, especially in rural areas. I don't see the point of doing this.

Maybe a dealership 30—40 miles away had a better price than the closest one carrying that type of car.

Or maybe your rural county doesn't even have a dealership to begin with.

You misunderstood  I don't see the point of posting county names on license plates. Sorry, I should have specified.

[Scott5114]

People often buy cars in different counties than the county they reside in, especially in rural areas. I don't see the point of doing this.

Isn't the county sticker for the county of the new owner's residence, rather than of the dealer? Especially if one purpose of the county sticker is to certify payment of taxes to the county.

In Oklahoma, it's the county of the tag agency you registered the tag at. You could live in McClain County, go to Oklahoma County to buy a car, and then on the way home stop off at the tag agency in Cleveland County and you'll end up with a "CL" tag.

[X99]

South Dakota doesn't do county names, but the first one or two digits on the plate refer to which county it's from:

When established in 1956 (and revised in 1987) the first nine counties were ordered by population. Starting with 10 they are in alphabetical order through Ziebach, with Oglala Lakota County (65) and Todd (67) rounding out the list. Now in 2015 the top 10 plate numbers and populations don't correlate anymore. 1 and 2 are still 1 and 2, but Lincoln (44) is now 3rd in population. Beadle is 4 but it's now 11th in population.
Here's a list so we all know:
County Name (County Seat)
1: Minnehaha (Sioux Falls)
2: Pennington (Rapid City)
3: Brown (Aberdeen)
4: Beadle (Huron)
5: Codington (Watertown)
6: Brookings (Brookings)
7: Yankton (Yankton)
8: Davison (Mitchell)
9: Lawrence (Deadwood)
10: Aurora (Plankinton)
11: Bennett (Martin)
12: Bon Homme (Tyndall)
13: Brule (Chamberlain)
14: Buffalo (Gann Valley)
15: Butte (Belle Fourche)
16: Campbell (Mound City)
17: Charles Mix (Lake Andres)
18: Clark (Clark)
19: Clay (Vermillion)
20: Corson (McIntosh)
21: Custer (Custer)
22: Day (Webster)
23: Deuel (Clear Lake)   
24: Dewey (Timber Lake)
25: Douglas (Armour)
26: Edmunds (Ipswich)
27: Fall River (Hot Springs)
28: Faulk (Faulkton)
29: Grant (Milbank)
30: Gregory (Burke)
31: Haakon (Philip)
32: Hamlin (Hayti)
33: Hand (Miller)
34: Hanson (Alexandria)
35: Harding (Buffalo)
36: Hughes (Pierre)
37: Hutchinson (Olivet)
38: Hyde (Highmore)
39: Jackson (Kadoka)
40: Jerauld (Wessington Springs)
41: Jones (Murdo)
42: Kingsbury (De Smet)
43: Lake (Madison)
44: Lincoln (Canton)
45: Lyman (Kennebec)
46: McCook (Salem)   
47: McPherson (Leola)
48: Marshall (Britton)
49: Meade (Sturgis)
50: Mellette (White River)
51: Miner (Howard)
52: Moody (Flandreau)
53: Perkins (Bison)
54: Potter (Gettysburg)
55: Roberts (Sisseton)
56: Sanborn (Woonsocket)
57: Spink (Redfield)
58: Stanley (Fort Pierce)
59: Sully (Onida)
60: Tripp (Winner)
61: Turner (Parker)
62: Union (Elk Point)
63: Walworth (Selby)
64: Ziebach (Dupree)
65: Oglala Lakota County (Wounded Knee)
67: Todd (Antelope)

So we don't have county names, but we do have county numbers.

[frankenroad]

People often buy cars in different counties than the county they reside in, especially in rural areas. I don't see the point of doing this.

Isn't the county sticker for the county of the new owner's residence, rather than of the dealer? Especially if one purpose of the county sticker is to certify payment of taxes to the county.

In Oklahoma, it's the county of the tag agency you registered the tag at. You could live in McClain County, go to Oklahoma County to buy a car, and then on the way home stop off at the tag agency in Cleveland County and you'll end up with a "CL" tag.

In Ohio, it is the county of residence.   When you move to another county, they send you a new county sticker.

[ClaytonCarte]

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.

Georgia used county codes like found in Alabama between 1957 and 1970. The present-day decals started in 1971.

List: http://www.georgiaplates.com/county


iPhone

[golden eagle]

Mississippi still uses county names on plates. Because tag fees can be very costly depending on the value of the car and where it's registered, people are encouraged to squeal on other drivers who live in, say, Hinds County (Jackson), but have their cars registered in a lower-taxed county.

Re: Florida, I recall they used to have some kind of identifier on a tag that would indicate the car being a rental, but was changed because of tourists being targeted by criminals.

[kphoger]

People often buy cars in different counties than the county they reside in, especially in rural areas. I don't see the point of doing this.

Maybe a dealership 30—40 miles away had a better price than the closest one carrying that type of car.

Or maybe your rural county doesn't even have a dealership to begin with.

You misunderstood  I don't see the point of posting county names on license plates. Sorry, I should have specified.

At least in my state, the county name has nothing to do with where you bought the car.  While living in Wichita, my last two cars were bought in (1) Wilson County, TN, and (2) Johnson County, KS.  Both have had Sedgwick County (KS) plates.  Actually, in fact, they've both had the same Sedgwick County plate that used to be on the car we moved here from Illinois with.

[oscar]

Re: Florida, I recall they used to have some kind of identifier on a tag that would indicate the car being a rental, but was changed because of tourists being targeted by criminals.

The tags said "Lease" in place of the county name. Too easy for criminals.

[PHLBOS]

Re: Florida, I recall they used to have some kind of identifier on a tag that would indicate the car being a rental, but was changed because of tourists being targeted by criminals.

IIRC, many of those FL incidents involved rentals from Enterprise; which, back then still had a logo sticker placed on every one of their vehicles... typically on the trunk-lid/rear-hatch.  Needless to say, Enterprise ultimately stopped the practice of placing any type of branding (stickers of otherwise) on their vehicles.

[Kulerage]

Can't recall an instance of this happening in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina nor North Carolina.

[kphoger]

Can't recall an instance of this happening in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina nor North Carolina.

Then you obviously haven't read the last few posts.

[oscar]

AIUI, Alexandria city has followed Fairfax County in doing away with the PITA windshield decal. I wish Arlington County would do same.

The latest personal property tax bills for my two vehicles included cheerful notes that Arlington, too, has abolished its windshield decal requirement.

[froggie]

Dumb question here.  What is the necessity of posting county information on a license plate?  Seems to me it just complicates the logistics of making and issuing license plates for the state.

Belated answer, but in Mississippi's case, it's because plates are issued at the county level after payment of vehicle personal property taxes.  When I was stationed there, plates were received from the Office of the County Tax Collector...can't imagine it's changed since then.  And this is because Mississippi does not have a state-level DMV.

Golden Eagle alluded to another of the side effects of this upthread.