Thinking About It–License Plates

We see them every day as we drive.  Probably once a year we are required to pay for another year of being able to display them.

Many states offer users the opportunity to choose what numbers and/or letters are on the plates – within reason.  On top of that many states offer up what could be described as non-standard license plates – for a fee.

North Carolina offers many different types to display one’s interest in the Boy Scouts, the college or university that you graduated from, the Blue Ridge Mountains, even water melons.

Pennsylvania has almost 260 of these to choose from.  Florida has 118, and Arizona has 70.

There are numerous NASCAR plates and plates to show that you support our troops.  Some that extol the joys of square dancing, scuba diving, or being a fire fighter.

They also bring in gobs of extra money for the states.

The size of license plates are now standard even down to the number and placement of the attachment holes.

But what about motorcycles?  While many states require you to display two license plates, one on the front and one on the back of your car or truck, motorcycles only display one on the rear.

In fact motorcycles have been allowed to be quite creative in how they display their plate:

But look at the size difference.  They are so much smaller than the one’s used on four-wheelers.  So if that size is adequate for two-wheeled vehicles why isn’t it adequate for our cars?  And why is it so important to have a plate on the front of a vehicle?

Why not have them all over the vehicle?

Do we really need them at all?

We could have electronic “friend or foe” transponders bleeping out identification without the need to display anything on the outside of vehicles.  That would eliminate the need for blurring license plates on TV shows.  And why do they blur them out in the first place?  Aren’t they displayed publically anyway?

Life can be so confusing.