California RUNS OUT of LICENSE PLATES soon!
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Mendenhall Museum of Gasoline Pumps and Petroliana
Large private collection of signs, license plates, gas pumps, and more!
Available by appointment only and modest donation
www.mendenhallmuseum.com
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"What will be the next number, letter sequence for California license plates?" Bentley, Amy. The Press-Enterprise, 24 Jan. 2023.
www.pressenterprise.com/2023/...
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Time sections:
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Am I causing a problem? (0:00)
Mendenhall Museum (2:06)
Porcelain plates (3:15)
What shaped bumper? (4:50)
Old blue (6:05)
Didn't even last 5 years! (7:24)
Retroreflectivity (9:10)
When will run out? (11:18)
What are we gonna do? (13:35) - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
Allowing the prefix to be a letter would give you 3.6x as many plates. Plenty of time for next to no effort or change.
That would also make sense from a computing standpoint, as you could follow the hexadecimal system
Have to watch out for four-letter words, though!
Allowing numbers and letters in every position would allow for 78,364,164,096 combinations.
just do Letter, Number x3 Letter x3@@bbgun061
@@bbgun061 last century I figured part of the point for numbers and letters in clumps was making it easier for crime witnesses to remember partial plate info and report to police. I suppose nowadays that's less of an issue with so many cameras around, and criminals driving with no plates or in stolen cars they abandon soon after.
Although now California sends phones Amber Alerts for missing children with a vehicle description and the license plate to look out for.
Getting cited by the police for waving around a sign stating “The End Is Near” on the Golden Gate Bridge?
Now that's what I call dedication!
Not the first police officer who has told me off for media stuff. But when they first stop me, the "oh shoot" butterflies still never fade. It feels like getting pulled over for a speeding ticket.
@@RoadGuyRob well at least he's lazy enough for you to just get the heck out of there... ( something paperwork something)
I always thought the hi-viz vest gave an official look that allowed some leeway in roadside reporting
@@RoadGuyRob yeah I've talked to my fair share of cops, they are a curious bunch
Now that's what I call the first amendment violation.
12:58 good luck remembering the license plate of a hit and run
The black background with yellow text was probably the coolest looking classic plate.
You can still get it
The enforcement officer telling you not to hold up a fake protest sign is San Francisco politics at its finest
The bridge district is different from the city and has its own rules.
There’s a bit of “use it or lose it” legalism going on here. If the rule is not enforced when it’s a harmless, “fake” joke protest, now you’ve got a world where an offended official drunk on power gets to go “that’s not funny!” any time they like and oops you’re in jail. And if it’s ON CAMERA that it’s not being enforced when it’s funny enough, well, now you’ve got evidence suggesting that the written rules are not the real rules.
Of course, the result of all of this being “just be hyper strict and ban everything then, no subtlety allowed, especially when there’s a camera around” is rather unfortunate.
tbf, the bridge is windy as FUCK!
Imagine a sign larger than 2'x3' (or the largest poster board you can purchase at staples) flying across the road, and getting stuck in front of your windscreen while driving on the Golden Gate... not exactly the safest "safe" protest.
Buddy. The Constitution literally says you can’t do that shit in areas that will cause chaos. So doing it on one of the most used bridges in the world is fucking dumb as hell💀💀💀
Just don't hold up a fake protest sign lol
Hearing that California may have to rethink a 7 digit combination is mind-boggling when you find out Rhode Island switched to 6 digits as late as 1996.
I used to be in the military and moved to Delaware in 2001, I had a SUV and got issued a plate with a P over a C symbol on the left, then 5 digits. I did see some 6 digit plats. But I also saw lots of vanity plates that were 4 or 5 letters (on new cars). So it looked like if you wanted a 5 digit plate, you could easily get one.
That's what happens when a state has a huge population.
I’ve been pretty obsessed with CA plate combos since I got my license in the 1980s. A great plate I was was 2HYW066. As you see, not a vanity plate.
Increasing a plate by a single alphanumeric increases combinations exponentially not linearly
Just change the prefix to characters, symbol or special characters to continue In total there are 254 characters minus 10 at least you 244 characters and of course there's always the option for barcode license plate
A couple weeks ago I started noticing newer model cars with “9” prefix plates. I wondered what would happen once there were no more plates available and questioned the history of the CA plate’s numbering convention. Today I came across this video. So cool!
“1ZZZ123” combination type plates have already been used extensively until 2015ish. They’re LIVERY plates for transport buses, limos, TCP vehicles. So we might run out a little sooner than projected.
My dad still has his Cali plates from back when he worked in LA in 1998, starting with 4 A. Belgium is doing the same thing with its license plates and we're at 2 now. There are also special letter designations like Q for trailers, O for oldtimers, M for motorbikes, T for taxis, Z for dealerships, and CD for diplomats that go in place of the first digit. A vanity plate here costs €1000.
This makes me wonder why America is not doing this.
My license plate from the 1970s was 3 letters followed by 3 numbers.
California does 1A11111 (Now 11111A1 since they ran out) for commercial vehicles, 11A1111 for motorcycles and 1AA1111 for trailers
I've got a 2Y car myself, never felt prouder to own it then I do now that I know how old that license plate is. I considered a vanity plate for it, now I am glad I kept the originals all these years.
@@REAL-UNKNOWN-SHINOBIEvery state has it's own system. Unless the Constitution gives a specific power to the federal government, it automatically goes to the states.
Hey Rob, excellent work. As a a California license plate collector/enthusiast/expert/historian, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I'm currently working on a database of California plate sequences organized by month and year, and I have over 1,000 catalogued so far. I haven't put it online yet, but I plan to soon.
I have a few small corrections to add, which are minor but noticeable to sticklers like me:
- The first vanity plate was "AMIGO", issued in 1970, not 1972
- The Golden State plates came out in December 1982, not 1980
- The sequences of the seven-digit plates started at 1AAA000, not 1AAA111, and they weren't exhausted all the way through (they ended at 1SWC999)... the later series like "1U" were reserved for specialty plates that came out later, like the Lake Tahoe plates
Other than that, fantastic job. My favorite part was the sign waving on the Golden Gate bridge at the beginning. About that: in 2018, I spoke on the phone with a DMV clerk who had 30 years of experience. Her name was Robin, and she was based in Sacramento where these plates are all made. I asked her what was going to happen when we reached 9ZZZ999, and she told me that she didn't know, but that all of the "9" series plates had already been manufactured. That was in 2018! I'm almost certain the DMV actually knows what the next sequence will be by now, but that they're being coy. Robin's theory was that they would flip the characters, which I tend to believe as well.
As an aside, I also own several samples, blanks, and prototypes that the DMV never released to the public (I bought them from collectors and estates of former DMV employees). I have downsized my collection by over 100 plates over the past year, but I still think I have too many. Oops.
Keep up the great work!
I don't remember when this had happened. Maybe back in 80s. But for a period of time the license plates were fading very quickly. When the state checked into the problem it turned out the prisoner in charge of painting the plates had finally reached the end of his prison sentence. He left and the new guy apparently was doing something different from the previous prisoner. The state did something to fix the problem.
I'm from CA and I bought my current car brand new in July 2017, my license plate begins with: 7Z So I apparently have one of the last before they started issuing plates beginning with an 8.
My parents bought a new car 2 or 3 years ago and it begins with an 8. I find it a little hard to believe they would have manufactured all of the 9 series plates before then and put them all into storage. Storing that many plates would be expensive. Sounds like a wild rumor to me. Just simply manufacturing 15,000 a day would keep the prison factory pretty busy.
Also, while I can't remember for sure, I think the return address on the envelope containing my plates was the state prison in Folsom.
You may also note that trucks (including private pickups) use only one letter on the plate, second to last position (As in 99999Z9)
Was it a Mazda?@@comicus01
@@stillmoon145 Which car are you referring to? I have never owned a Mazda, if that answers your question.
Having bought a car recently and getting my plate two weeks ago, I can say that we’re actually already past HJ - my plate is HKV
I've been confused about license plates for a year now. This video answered all my questions and more. Thanks!
Hi Rob! When you're trying to demonstrate the retro-reflectivity of the plates, remember that it reflects the light back in the direction of the light source. That's why it works when you're sitting right behind your headlights at night. If you want to demonstrate it with your phone like that, put the light right next to the camera lens and turn the light on and off to show the difference.
Yup! That's what _retroreflectivity_ means! (He should know that!)
I remember being in England in the 80's and they were using a letter at the start followed by 3 digits and 3 letters. The cool thing was the prefix letter would change each year so you could tell what year it was issued.
Donut media made a video about licence plates, and i saw england/Uk Started with A1, and rolling with it since then. Fun system!
The format now is AB12 CDE. The first 2 letters tell you where the car was registered, the 2 numbers tell you the year (e.g. 12 is 2012, 55 is the second half of 2005) and the last 3 letters are random. They switched from the format you're talking about in 2001, ending with the Y series ;-)
Before that it was flipped, with the last letter being registration year, now we have 2 digit date codes in position 3 and 4. startion with 51 and 02 in september 2001 and march 2002 incrementing until 2051. Also we don't have any change whatsoever on a given car year to year, used to be a tag in window for that, now they just look up plate in database to check taxes are paid on vehicle. The licence number stays with vehicle across owners even.
Biggest problem with that is that the year-letter doesn't always match the real model year of the vehicle which causes needless confusion at the parts counter. It should always agree with the 10th VIN digit instead of just changing on a fixed date.
In Israel, where I'm originally from, the last two digits were the year, an like in most countries the number is the car's ID and it never changes nor chosen. It is given when registered by the dealership that imports it so it showed the actual year. This was changed in 1990.
In Spain, where I live, they used to have 2 letters for the area in Spain. They changed it after many years as in rival regions (mostly Cataluhya and Madrid) a car from the other region was in danger of getting a scratch or, in some cases, no air i the tire.
The problem with reflective plates though is that they do not show up on surveillance cameras and traffic cameras sometimes and so you get this reflective material so when you have somebody doing a crime you can't get a proper plate and even computer enhancement doesn't work very well if at all. Run into that all the time with my job with security with license plates in the state I work at. If they didn't put the reflective stuff on any of the plates or made the plates not so shiny the cameras would be able to pick them up a lot better.
Thanks! Great content! Happy to support.
I've seen a few of the new digital license plates and they are TERRIBLE! They're much less visible in any lighting condition, and in low light situations (like at dusk), they are virtually unreadable (even with the mandatory license plate light). I'd like to say that I had no idea what the lawmakers in Sacramento were thinking when they approved them, but I'm pretty sure it was something along the lines of "Digital good!"
They were just seeing dollar signs.
more along the lines of "money money money money" as with most things that's how things get approved.
Not only that, they can remotely deactivate them. No thanks.
To promote crime, of course.
It could be worse. They could be printed like in Texas. It honestly looks like that it is - plain paper with some sort of coating applied. Basically a laminated sheet of junk. They wear out quiickly from that I hear. Plain back on a white background - looks like a "Fancy" temporary plate. Ick. Nevada tried something similar but went back to stamped plates as they last nearly forever in the heat by comparison.
In Mexico we used to have a very similar format (AAA-00-00) with the same 175 million combinations, though pickup trucks got their own (AA-00-000) for a total of 243 million license plates and every state has their own starting letter and art except for Mexico City which has their own format
But now we've changed to AA-000-A and AA-0000-A respectively which gives you roughly 633 million combinations total for a country of 126 million so I think we're good for a while
Ever since I was a kid I've always liked to see different license plates and had fun on summer road trips seeing different states designs. The blue with yellow writing was the first California plate I remember and also loved the Golden State design!
I really love this video, the geeking out, the humour of it -- from one license plate fan to another, thank you so much for turning this "on the spectrum" interest into something so entertaining!
it's such a shame that i'm sure a lot of states probably aren't like oregon , where they have no time limit on renewing decades old plates
Massachusetts is. The current base has been standard since 1993, before that, the 1978 green-on-white base was still in use. They are still road-valid, and they are coveted, because they were issued as singles, meaning you only need the rear plate, whereas the current base requires a front and rear plate. I have a 5 digit green one on my car and I will hang onto it until they make me take it off. I have a pair with the same number on the current base but I won't put it on until they make me @@parodylover999
My favorite California license plate number is “2GAT123” - used in many Hollywood productions including Modern Family and Curb Your Enthusiasm. That plate number is unassigned in my jurisdiction and I’ve considered paying the vanity fee to get it, but honestly it’s a very obscure reference that (by design) won’t be recognized as anything out of the ordinary by nearly everyone
They use 2FAN321 as well
I always laughed at this seeing it on the show "On the case with Paula Zahn" It always the killer/suspect license plate.
Who knows, maybe one day you'll meet one of the... 3 other people who get that reference and have a great conversation about it
The sticker registration is very interesting! Never knew even license plates were taken for the war, they must be very rare nowadays
I think in some states during WW II issued plates made of soybeans or some other non-metal product. Some state of Mexico, besides a metal plate, used to use a sticker to be place on your back window of a vehicle with the license number.
Illinois plates in 41 to 49 were some type of cheap wood fiberboard with little tabs since you were only issued one plate for a long time. Wasn't til the 50s til they went back to metal plates.
Rob, you should check out license plates in Delaware. They have a unique history.
Delaware still issues porcelain license plates. License plate numbers can be passed down between generations and vehicles. I've had two vehicles with the same plate number. Plate numbers can also be sold between individuals. Some low-digit plates sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Numbers 1 & 2 are reserved for the Governor and Lieutenant Governor.
Check out The Delaware 3000 for more information.
You seem so happy when presenting! It's almost contagious
This guys videos are better than anything TV could produce in the same category!
What, do you not like Kartrashians, Real Housesluts, and here comes HoneyDooDoo?
Now I'm curious about the history of license plates across Canada. We've had the standard US shape in Ontario since at least the 40's.
What about the bear plates from NWT and Nunavut?
I've been watching the numbers and letters on Ontario plates advance for a while now. 4 letters, 3 numbers... So far I'm seeing CZ... waiting for the D's to start 😂
@@buffdelcampo They still have their bolt holes in the same places as US/Canada-standard rectangular plates, and are designed to fit in the same space on a car.
when the usa standardized it’s plate sizes, the canadian provinces and mexican states at the same time also changed their license plate sizes
@@beverleymason8011 That's what I used to do in arizona when I started driving, then ADOT goes and changes the computer system and now all plates are randomized, took some of the fun away..
This video is so informative! I learned a lot about the topic. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the research and the education. Learned a bunch.
I've also wondered what the next CA license plate pattern would be, even though I've been living here in Utah, where you used to, for all of my life but 2 years (GA otherwise). I've noticed the few CA vehicles around and that heightening start number over the decades. Cool video, thanks!
They'll do what they've done in the past-- reverse the sequence.
Currently it's One Number-Three Letters-Three Numbers. The next order will be Three Numbers-Three Letters-One Number.
They _may_ do that, @@BogeyTheBear, as Rob supposes. But I wondered that before he helped me realize that they could just flip the pattern. And they should use up the 0-run in this direction before they do that. And _then_ I still wonder what sort of pattern they'll go to _after that._ Also, why are you treating the words "one," "number," "letter," etc. as if they were brand names even though they're not?
Actually, if they do A111AAA, this would last much longer than 111AAA1-up to 26 possible series as opposed to 10 (assuming they would use 0 [zero] as a prefix).
@@allenwiddows7631: Yeah, nothing's wrong with that, either. they could finish this run up by going through the 0s and then switching to that.
They could switch the prefix to A-Z, but having a prefix of "E" for EV cars could be fun. 😀 🚗
Great Video. Love the history of the CALIF plates. The CA commercial plates, which are also issued to regular pickup trucks, just experienced the same thing of running out of combinations a few years ago. They went from 1A12345 to 54321A1. Essentially just flipping the order. They will probably do the same with the current plates for cars and go from 9ZZZ999 to 999ZZZ9 just like you mentioned at the end of the video. The sunrise plate was also my favorite. Great video again!
I'd bet on a flip to 123ABC1 also. Likewise I think the sunset scheme is the best one so far, my old 2XXXnnn car has that type of plate 🌅
My guess is the next sequence would be A111AAA, which is also a reversal of sorts. This sequence would take almost three times as long to exhaust.
@@Bruce12867 There is talk about not using Q in future road legal plates. Q plates would be used like 555 phone numbers in Hollywood productions. As a police officer, I know when it should be a 0 or O in the sequence.
@@doujinflip That's the type of flip they did with the commercial plates as seen on pickup trucks.
@@Bruce12867 With 26 letters I think it'll take away bit longer than that as can just switch symbol or special characters to continue or go the way of barcodes which I doubt they will use this simple fact is it'll be a lot harder to emboss or stamp into a licensed plate that means they will have to switch to some kind of an fool proof electronic license plate which will most likely just get hacked anyway but more than likely by that time we may be in self-driving vehicles of some sort or maybe flying vehicles.
LOVE this!! My family has been playing "The License Plate Game" for years in CA - keeping track of the most current plate we see and who can get "Leader" status. We've predicted the 7s to 8s to 9s, very fun! FYI our current clubhouse leader is 9HKK, so that beats your J! Thanks for the awesome reporting - Yes, you are a real News Guy!
i'm in oregon and i'm into it also. we're at P, who knows when Q will show up.
i saw an article from 2016 estimating another 20 years to max out, and i'm like nawww, nope. even 10 years is pushing it, in my opinion.
Thanks for all your great videos road guy rob! :D
I was a teenager in California but n the 90s, and after flipping coasts a couple times now live in Nevada. I see 8/9 series California plates regularly, and it shocks me after seeing only 1s as a kid. Makes me feel so old.
You know it's going to be a good week when Rob releases a video and it's a Monday morning. ❤
What a great video bruh!!! So much interesting info I didn't know!
The first personalized license plates were Amateur Radio Call Letter plates that have been around since the '50's as I remember
Iceland has already gone through something similar. When the new plates were introduced in the 90's, they consisted of 2 letters and 3 numbers (AA 111). Around 2008 we ran out of combinations, so the combination was changed to 3 letters and 2 numbers (AA A11).
In Oregon, the 6 digit format is AAA 111. And when we ran out of numbers, it changed to 111 AAA. That's 35,152,000 combinations.
Meanwhile when Singapore ran out of license plate combinations for motorcycles & light goods vehicles (
The simple solution some other states use is mixing up the letters and numbers. That takes the fields from 10 possibilities for numbers or 26 possibilities for letters to about 30 possibilities for each space when removing numbers and letters that look similar.
There are 35 possibilities for each of the 7 characters, since O and 0 are the same. Given this restriction, there are 69,120,525 possible combinations (until you remove expletives and such).
With 69 million combinations, and California issuing 7,500 unique license plates a day (assuming this stays relatively constant), opening up to this format would only hold them off for ~25.23 years.
That seems wrong, though. The current system would've switched way more often than it actually has.
@@EricJCaraballoso I don't know what you did to get to 69,120,525 it should be 35*35*35*35*35*35*35 since for each of the 7 options there are 35 possible answers this gives us 64,339,296,875 or ~23,486 years at the current rate.
I like the option of just continuing with the current patter, but with lettters in the beginning instead of numbers a lot more tbh
Starting with a prefix of "E" for EVs would celebrate California's move to 100% new cars = EVs cars in 2035. (And of course they could recycle the freed up plate sequences.)
@@brianhoschouer3665 Just was gone say it should be 35^7
This may be the happiest "The End Is Near" sign wielding person I've ever seen.
Happy to see happy people in California. With all the current problems staying happy is hard. Glad you're doing something you enjoy.
Very cool video, Rob. I love to nerd out on this stuff.
Thanks for providing such great content, Rob!
I was able to keep the blue plate from my first car. It's one of those 999ZZZ pattern plates. And I still remember the plate number that was on our family's 1977 Econoline, also in the same pattern. We also kept the plate from the last car we drove out of California in 1992, which started with 2R. That was replaced with a Wisconsin collector series plate when we arrived here. Regular Wisconsin plates are now following the ZZZ9999 (three letters and four digits) pattern, with new plates starting with A right now.
the 3 letter-4 number format offers over 175 million before running out
Love it! Thanks Rob!
I love your videos! This one was really entertaining!
Doug DeMuro would've been a good person for this video
I don't have any contact info. Haven't met him (yet). Perhaps someday. ("THIS.... is a collaboration")
I agree.
@@RoadGuyRobBoooooo! that's no excuse 😉. I'm sure you could Google "Doug demuro email" and pull it up lol.
But then, I'm not a youtuber so I don't know youtuber etiquette. Can you email someone you don't know and have likely never spoken with and ask them to do a collaboration? Or is that only acceptable to do when you've actually spoken to a person previously?
@@J.C...Yes. Many TH-camrs have a website to promote their channel and on it is contact information. For larger channels like Doug's, they'll have staff to respond to messages. There's entire production crews that go in to the major channels like Doug's.
Funny thing is, his Olds Aurora video is directly below this.
When I lived in California I was a compulsive license plate reader, always watching for the next leading number. I can almost guarantee that they'll do the same thing that they did with truck license plates after they went past the "9" in front and just swap it around. Truck plates went to 00000A1 and I expect them to use 000AAA1 for the first new car plate. But they could go on for about four more years if they used "0" in front, which for some reason they don't do.
I was going to say they avoid the 0 because it could be confused with O, but that would make no sense. The first character can only be a number, so even if someone thought it was the letter O, anyone searching the plate for any reason would know it has to be the number 0. Maybe license plates that start with 0 denote something special?
As a side note, Googling the topic says that the number 0 is not allowed in _personalized_ license plates for the obvious reason of confusing it with the letter O. Nothing really good found on why regular plates don't start with 0, but I did find a picture of a regular plate that has both an O and a 0 in it.
Good point about the letter "O" and the number "0". It is specifically noted on the California DMV web site about personalized license plates that the two are the same as far as they are concerned, so that is a good reason not to use it. I should have thought of that before.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was one or more systems that ignore leading zeros, so 007 would be the same as 7. You would expect that they wouldn't do that with alphanumeric, but if they did, 0AAA999 would be treated the same as AAA999, which might be someone else's plate.
@@yuwtze That's a good theory. I bet that's it since it's only the leading character that can't be a 0 as far as I could find.
Computers like to drop leading zeros
Haha.. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Jack Mendenhall's museum.. Jack was a hoot! Lol
I live right down the road use to take my 34 Ford to the "Gas-up" every year back in the late nineties. Good times! Thank you for the video!
Where I live we ran out of license plate numbers a few years back, the old plates used to be formatted ABC-123 the new plates are ABC-1234. The old plates are still considered valid so you don't have to trade in your old ones.
Wisconsin would be my guess
I’ve always wondered if we would run out license plate numbers, phone numbers and social security numbers.
Phone numbers is definitely a possiblity. I just hope they don't add a number to the end, because mine ends in 00 lol
Iceland ran out of its AA-123 series around 10 years ago. They subsequently introduced the current AAA-12 series. I wonder what they'll do next
Wow, the production quality of this video is top-notch. Great job!
Been bugging me too, thanks for running the numbers for us!
In Ontario, our government issued plates are a sequence of 4 letters and 3 numbers. This has been in place for the last 20?? years since the last sequence (3 numbers and 3 letters) ran out. Literally just yesterday I saw the first plate in this format to start with the letter D. I knew this day would happen.
If you think the TN-shaped TN plate is weird, plates in the Northwest Territories are shaped like a polar bear.
Saskatchewan has a Saskatchewan shaped plate (albeit sideways) 😉
I have an old Nunavut plate when they became a territory and they were still polar bear shaped. Always thought those were awesome.
Now the Nunavut licence plate looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, though it's supposed to be a polar bear, an Inushuk and the northern lights.@@mjm2203
Didn't Ontario also recently change the color of their plates? I'm from Michigan and have seen only a few of them. Most I have seen are still the old style.
@@LoveClassicMusic0205 They did but messed it up big time because at night they were unreadable. They recalled all the new plates and reverted back to the old design.
One of my favorite things about your videos is how you show the ways in which these tiny inane bureaucratic decisions made by various government agencies ripple out over decades in our daily lives. So cool! Makes you care more about local government.
I'm in my 40s now... but when I was a kid my brother and I would play a game on "spotting the next sequence" I think we started at 2U. There was always a sense of excitement when we spotted our first 3A, 4A etc...
I've continued this game w my kids now and it keeps them somewhat engaged when driving around. Will be exciting to look for whatever the new sequence will be....
Keep up the good work!
They ran out of commercial vehicle plate sequences in 2007 and had to reverse it. 9z99999 went to 99999z9.
The bar code in lieu of numbers/letters will work out 'just fine'. " Cop: Did you get the plate of the guy who hit you??? Victim: Sure did, it was a white sedan with plate little line, big line, big line, medium line, little..." gotta love the ingenuity of the dmv
I know it's a small thing, but the animation of the license plate numbers ticking up was really nice.
That officer interaction was top notch also, kudos to him.
Great video as always man, keep up the good work!
When I was a kid in the 1970's-1980's, you could tell what state a car was registered in by the colors of the license plates. Texas, my home state, was boring (black letters on white, unless you had a vanity plate, which had red, green, or blue letters depending on the year that the vanity plates were issued). But now, so many states have plates that have white backgrounds. My note to state DMV's: for the love of God,, choose a color other than white!!! 😢
Take a look at Arizona's plates. They have a green landscape background. We also have dozens and dozens of "affiliate" plates.
@@Rocketsong much as I like Arizona's current plate (only 1 required per vehicle 🙂 ), the 1980's version rocked, with the brown background, white embossed letters, and a Saguaro cactus (also embossed) as the letter/number divider. Arizona also required a front license plate until the mid 1990's 😎
Here in Texas license plates are formatted AAA-1111 (note the dash is actually a little Texas) My grandmother got a new car a year ago and it starts with RYG, we may have hit S by now.
better reporting than most news agencies
My wife and I noticed that commercial vehicle plates (vans, trucks, etc. owned and run by businesses) have sequences that are all numbers with the exception of the second to last digit, which is a letter.
The Province of British Columbia recently caught up to Cali sequences from the early 70's in the 2010's. Alberta just added an extra digit around the same time and has already gone through the A's and B's and is well through the C's.
From an IT process standpoint, I think you've already called it on what Cali will do with swapping the sequence; starting it with a letter should take essentially zero change to the processes already in use, other than setting the system that tracks production of them to begin on "A". On a side note, I would be fascinated to see the actual pressing equipment in use in various jurisdictions.
Some states don't have raised letters anymore. To me, those plates look like they're printed on cardboard. Michigan still has raised letters, but Indiana does not.
In BC, we're already up to T in the new sequence A11 1 AA (T6 at least). I suspect the next sequence will be AA1 11A, and I give it a year, 2 tops, to get there.
Did not expect a 15 minute video about license plates to be so entertaining!
We really appreciate the research you that you put into all your videos, to make them informative and interesting!
Just to boost the algorithm a little bit, license plates in Bangkok, Thailand are in the 1กก1111 format, using 44 Thai alphabets instead of 26 Roman alphabets. Therefore, there would be 44^2 × 10^5 = 193,600,000 plates for Bangkok in theory, compared to 26^3 × 10^4 = 175,760,000 plates for California. Of course, certain letter combinations with "awkward" meanings such as ศพ (corpse) or ตด (fart) are omitted.
Thanks for poking my nerdy bit, Rob!
Why just Bangkok?
@@sion8 Because in every other province Thailand uses the format "กก1111". If that series runs out in a given province, the present solution is to prefix it with another digit, resulting in the format "1กก1111". So far that has only happened in Bangkok.
Now I really want a personalized plate that reads "CorpseFart". Too bad it won't fit on a US plate.
@@SeanNicholsEh
Huh? Do Thai provinces have unique plates for their jurisdictions instead of a national one?
@@sion8Not really. Thailand is a unitary state, and licence plates are pretty much the same. However, each plate displays the alphanumeric in large letters and the name of the province where the car is registered. There is a Department of Land Transport office in each province where cars can be registered. It is just that Bangkok is so damn big.
There are more subtleties regarding Thai license plates. Taxis exclusively use "ทx" and "มx" on yellow plates, and some other leading alphabets are also restricted to particular types of land vehicles such as tractors or tuk-tuks. Motorcycles have their own separate series. Buses, some other public transport vehicles, and trucks/lorries have another separate series with just "XX-XXXX" (all digits) and province names. There are even special plates with repeated (such as 5555), palindromic (4224), or any "nice" patterns (but not 420 or 69, sorry, maybe 6969 or 6996) that can only be obtained at auctioning events.
Tennessee started to run out of plates a while back forcing them to update from a 6 digit plate to a 7 digit plate
I did my part several years ago and ordered the sequential black replica plates for my 3 cars. I get to keep them and move them to any new car I buy.
That was actually hilarious. Very professional interaction between the both of you.
I wanna compliments to SFPD for great conduct!
My first California license plate, is hanging on my office wall. I was there only 5 months, and then decided it wasn't for me and moved home. The plate starts with a 2 and it was January 1990. I actually paid the "Non-operational fee" to keep the plate active for 5+ years after I left, figuring I'd be back at some point and could just pay the current year, and be good. Never happened.
My second California license plate is also hanging on my office wall. It's a vanity plate, with Lake Tahoe background. Very cool! This was October 2008.
My third California license plate....you guessed it, hanging on the office wall. Starts with a 6. It was acquired in July 2009
I just figured they would start with the alphabet and ZZZ999 when the 9's ran out. The big wonder is, not all those previous license plates are still valid and active (like my 3)...why not consider a "old plate number recycle"? That would be a lot of work...and if for some reason someone with the "old plate" decided to put it on a car....well now you got a problem.
Fun video Rob!!
My own state -- Minnesota -- kinda recycles _all_ regular numbers like this. Each car gets new plates every 7 years anyway, with a different number each time. This lets us switch between the AAA-000 and 000-AAA series every decade or so.
(We started in the late '70s with AAA-000, then in the late '80s with 000-AAA, and have been flipping back and forth ever since.)
@@AaronOfMplsdo you guys have vanity plates in MN?
@@AaronOfMpls Indiana has a 7 year plate cycle, but the plate num is tied to you so you get the same num every cycle for the car you have it registered to. which also means the Indiana farm scene plate will be on the road till at least the early 2030s
@@jeremyloveslinux Yes we do. I assume those get replaced when they're 7 years old, too -- but with the same "number".
Thanks for the great informative video! Having worked for the largest corporate fleet vehicle leasing company in North America, I have always been curious what would happen when the sequential order was reaching its limit in California. Maybe you can do another video sometime of a compilation of other states around the country too how had the same issues? Thanks again and producing these great videos!
Steshu87 what do you think will happen when California runs out of licence plates in 2027 ?
@@ryanparkhurst5718 Thanks for the reply. I think they will go to an eight digit license plate then. To do that, they will have to stack two letters in a smaller font in one character space on the plate. Take a look at some license plates for Maryland currently that do that but only for seven digits.
Here are a few more things to notice about California plates.
- #AAA### sequence only applies to personal vehicles.
- #####A# and #A##### sequences apply to commercial vehicles.
- ####### sequence applies to government vehicles (CA Exempt plates).
If you see an umarked vehicle with all numbers, it is more than likely to be an undercover police vehicle.
- The 7-digit numbers shouldn't run out soon as long as DMV knows how to utilize every possible sequence.
- Californians have a tradtion to scrape off the white areas to avoid camera detections. They usually leave the characters in a perfect condition. This is only possible in California. Oh, and then, there are tons of vehicles without plates running on the streets.
My State (Victoria, Australia) went from Letter + Number in a XXX-123 Sequence to X1X 2X3 Sequence. Although as I understand the digitisation of the records means they know what plates have been surrenders (you get back the remaining part of your rego fee) so they can re-issue numbers if need be.
They also skipped many sequences to prevent rude words so you won't for example have a POO-123 on your number plate.
pretty sure that's the same everywhere... i mean which DoT wants to be the viral agency for releasing "NAZ169" plate
@@PrograError Or 666-ASS
So, you'll end up with Canadian postal codes. It'll be a while before you get to V8x though.
X1X 2X3? Pretty sure Vic plates follow a 1AB 2CD format.
My home state of Massachusetts, the first state to issue license plates, still uses six characters with some combination of 1-3 letters and 3-5 numbers. Passenger plates that aren’t specialty plates always start with a number and commercial plates always start with a letter. The last number in the plate is month of expiration: 1-9= January-September, 0= October. All vanity plates expire in November and all commercial plates expire in December. Finally, green number plates are still valid and there was only a rear plate in those cases.
Yes, I have a green 5 digit number plate on my car. I'm only 35, but as a reserve number it was available and I requested it from the Special Plates Dept - after buying the green one from someone. Lol. The two red on whites they sent me are on my wall.
I should add that it does give me a sense of nostalgia - when I got my license in 2005, I had my car under my parents name for the first few years, and so it was a standard issue green in the Lxx series. I had to get reds when we switched to my name, so I was happy when I was able to take the opportunity to both get a low digit number and a green plate again, at the same time.
That's why you have several dozen plate designs each with a different numbering scheme.
It brings me great pride knowing a senator representing my hometown is partly responsible for what are plates look like.
C-Town 925
Excellent video as always Rob, and as a lifelong Californian myself, I always thought the license plates were just a random sequence. But what I wish would would happen in 2027 when they runout, is a new license plate design, as I think it's been long overdue (has the current plates been the longest in use so far?). But what would probably actually happen, is they just flip it again...
California is the only state (so far) to allow people to buy a peel-and-stick license plate from a certified vendor and use it in place of the metal plate. The advantage of this kind of plate is that when used on the front of your car it reduces aerodynamic drag, which save a little bit of gas or electricity.
I should look this up. Although we should drop the front license plate altogether. I've seen people around CA without it despite law saying they need it.
@@Darkk6969 The same thing (not having a front plate) happens a lot here in Colorado too. I would lean toward agreeing that we should all drop front plates, but I'm guessing that police would disagree with that, and maybe they could make a reasonable case for it.
@@harrymcintosh2940 19 states don't use a front plate. So clearly not really necessary. TX may drop their requirement soon, making it 20 states.
@@Darkk6969 in many (most? all?) states, not having a front plate is a secondary crime. So, never get pulled over for other crimes, and you'll never need a front plate.
In France we had a somewhat similar situation maybe 15 years ago. For decades the license plates were formatted 111-AAA-NN, where NN was the number of the département (sort of equivalent to a county in US terms) in which the vehicle was registered. I believe the original idea had something to do with road tax, but in any case that was the system in place for 60 years or so. It meant that if you moved from one département to another - for example, from Paris city (75) to Versailles (78) out in the suburbs, you had to re-register the car at your new address, get a new plate number, and have new plates made up and put on. A huge hassle, on top of all the other hassles of moving. Eventually it got to be that certain départements were running out of plate numbers, so they moved to a national system where the département number was no longer a part of the registration, formatted AA-111-AA. Now the number stays with the vehicle until it's exported or scrapped; if you sell the car or change your address you only have to update the registration. Of course, certain people still wanted to have their département on their plates so it's still there, just as a sticker instead of as part of the plate number.
Here in Brazil there was a similar problem (well... not for Brazil but for Argentina that had cars from AAA 001 to ZZZ 999) where we used the AAA-9999 serialization. When Mercosur decided to unify the license plates we swapped to AAA0A00, flipping the second number to its corresponding character, this made the system go from 175M plates up to 456M without the need of changing all plates at once
and we got a few interesting possible sequences, such as CUF 0F00, or MEF 0D33 and BAR 6E15
@@gianluccasimao mas perdemos outras como o famoso Jeep Rosa GAY-0024
In my home state, we started at ZZZ-9999 and going backwards. Apparently it's because one of our vanity plate designs started with AAA-1111 and they didn't want to overlap with it or something along that line.
Also some fun facts:
1. In Virginia it is still possible to see plates issued in the 70's on cars. There used to be a car in my neighborhood that had the Bicentennial plates from 1976 on their car until about a year ago. I also see the occasional 80s plate on a car or two here.
2. Our plates have been basically the same since the early 1970s, albeit with some font changes, serial changes, and some other minor things. The only major change was the font & serial change in 1993.
3.We have the highest % of people with custom plates, with over 20% of drivers having one, as you can get a custom plate for 15-25 dollars but it's added to your registration so it's yearly.
AZ is $25 a year, plus a one time $25 when issued. Honestly kind of expensive.
I've wondered about this myself! I'm from the era where I grew up with the blue and Golden Sun white license plates, and it's wild that we've worked through all nine digits since then. If I had to bet, I'd bet they flip it like you conjectured.
In IL a plate is "surrendered" when the user doesn't renew or reregister after disposing a vehicle (sell, or junk) but doesn't acquire another vehicle. In some states you must turn it in and such it can be re-issued.
They'll have to start the back to the future barcode plates.
13:04 so glad this was included in the video!
So frickin good! Rob you are a presentation master 🤣 Never thought I'd be so interested in DMV activities 🤣🤣🤣
It is 2:55 AM in Phoenix AZ, I have class in a few hours, great video! It's interesting that California started with a number, WA (where my car is registered) uses the same number/letter sequence but in an AAA#### format that gives them more options before they run out. As far as I know we about midway into the C series.
Honestly I thought this was a TV production, great work!
About 15 years ago Arizoan started running 7 digit plates, then 3 years ago realized that that we could still use only 6 digits. Just completely jumbled up.
In Oregon when they adopted the ABC 123 license plate the first letter also represented the month of expiration. Also the year tags were color coded for even odd years making a expired plate soooo easy to spot. In case your wondering the letter "I" and "O" were never used because of their confusion with the numbers "1" and "0". Follow the math here and that leaves 24 letters exactly meaning the letter "N" was then used for January through "Z" for December when they ran out a A-M combinations. Sadly when Oregon went ran out of those combinations and they went to 123 ABC they dumped the month designation.
WVa is one that still has the month as the first character, 1 through 9, then O(ctober) N(ovember) D(ecember). Missouri does the first letter as Oregon used to, A through Z, for various months.
Almost all states now do the color coded tags, so it's easy to spot expired plates.
i read a 2016 article that estimated it to last another 20 years. and i'm like, naaaah nooope. oregon is at P, i'm waiting to see Q.
Oregon is another state that will need to look at a new numbering scheme soon. They will run out of plate numbers within the next 5 years, if not sooner. I live in Oregon now and registered my car in 2017 after moving from Washington and received a plate that was ### KXX (the Xs represent the additional letters). Today (1/5/2024) I saw a plate that was ### PXX. The tab color for the year tab corresponds to which quarter (of the year) they expire. My guess is that Oregon will go to the ABC1234 style plates like Washington did in 2010. I just hope they don't do what Arizona did and completely mangle their license plate scheme--Arizona started out with ABC1234 in 2008, but their numbering scheme completely puked (this is the best way to describe what happened) in 2020 or so. The Arizona numbering scheme has been called "alphabet soup."
sadly for barcode plates they need to be human readible for various reasons, mostly crime reporting.
that's why i hate the "messy" arrangements of some states like 11A111A or 1A2B1A
This was so interesting to watch! When you were on the Golden Gate Bridge I immediately thought about film permits. The reason being: I'm planning to visit several national parks for videos I plan to publish and am reaching out to all of them because I learned that film permits are required at certain parks. Hopefully I'll be able to film at each park without any interruptions.
Gotta say your editor brought that🔥. That folsom prison bit was good.
"These older plates didn't really reflect at all..."
They _did/do,_ actually, but just more diffusedly than spectrally.
Fair point. They reflected, but didn't retro-reflect.
Thanks, @@RoadGuyRob. Yeah, they don't retro (more like what mirrors do: specular reflection).
The barcode wouldn’t work because one of the many great uses of license plates is the ability to read the numbers and write them down in case there’s a crime and the car is leaving the scene. Or whatever other reason you might need to remember a plate
Yes officer. I'm sure the plate on that car that sideswiped me was Big dash, small dash small dash, medium dash, big dash "
Check the dashcam, take a picture with a smartphone?
My grandfather collected Kansas license plates and hung them on the garage wall. We still have his collection tucked away in our shed attic.
Kanas license plates only got stickers beginning in 1976. 1943, 1952, and 1953 were the only years to use metal tabs. Kansas plates were shaped like the state prior to 1956, but when the standard size was adopted, they just made the top right corner the same color as the characters until 1980
In 1988, Kansas plates began using the ABC 123 format until April 2007, when they became 123 ABC. I remember seeing our van's new dark blue plate come in the mail when I was in 1st grade, and that plate has been used on three different vehicles we owned. The plate for my own car was one of the first in Kansas to have a flat, printed serial instead of an embossed one.
In late 2023, Kansas moved to the 1234ABC without finishing the alphabet and even skipping O and Q. I'm surprised such a change didn't occur with a new plate design, which will be issued this March.
1975 was the first year of personalized plates in Kansas, but my grandfather didn't have much of those on his wall and no organization or veteran plates except for antique vehicle plates.
Thanks!
I'm surprised California doesn't just do like most states and reuse registrations that have expired and been confirmed closed out (due to the vehicle being sold/transferred to another state/disposed of), instead of just continuing to go up. After a couple of years for a registration not being active in the system, most states release it back into the pool, thereby ensuring that they won't run out.
It's easier to make new plates in sequence than to custom-stamp a random number that has become available.
@@howardcitizen2471^^This. I don’t know why we don’t just allow 36 characters per position in the plate and be done with it though
The problem is those old plates may not be destroyed, as evidenced in the video, and those numbers can come back and haunt a current, or previous owner.
I think the biggest detractor with the bar code plates would be the inability to give the plate number to police for witnesses of a crime. Of course, the easiest solution would be to just add another number/letter to the plate. North Carolina has used an 8 character plate since 1985, and the numbers are recycled back into the pool when a plate is returned, which is required when you remove insurance from a vehicle. For non-vanity plates, we use 3 letters, a dash, and 4 numbers. So, XXX-1111 is the format, with the dash being a part of the plate number, giving 8 characters. We do have some convoluted rules behind the format, though. For current plates, the second letter in the series is strictly A through M. Also, lead zeroes are never used in the serial number, nor are letters G, I, O, Q, or U. Likewise, the number 1000 isn't used, either. I can't find a reason why these restrictions were placed, however.
Fun fact: North Carolina does allow the use of YoM (year of make) plates on a vehicle that is 35 years old or older. In my case, I could buy a North Carolina plate from 1978 and slap it on my El Camino. The only restriction is having a valid plate in the vehicle at all times, whether it's a standard issue or antique plate. Though, if you're spending the extra money on the antique plate, why not just show that instead?
Hmm, I'd think swapping the format to ABC1234 or A123BCD would probably be easier than adding a digit. But yah, recycling numbers regularly would help too.
In my own state Minnesota, this happens as a matter of course. If your current (regular) plates are 7 years old, the state gives you new ones (with a different number) along with your new tabs. This has allowed us to swap back and forth between the ABC-123 and 123-ABC formats since the late '70s.
@@AaronOfMplsMinus the arbitrary restrictions, there are approximately 176 million combinations of plates in North Carolina at the moment. Just by adding a number to the end, that could bring the numbering up to 1.76 million combinations.
Many countries re-use old numbers after some cooldown period. When actually policing that all cars on the road have valid and current plates, that's really easy to do.
This makes running out of plates mostly a non-issue unless the number of available combinations is really small.
Munich, Germany is currently running out of license plates.
In Germany we have the license plate format of
[city code] [1/2 letters] [3-4 numbers]
The city code "M" for Munich doesn't have much capacity left so now they are trying to give residents the option for the city code "MUC"
The sun rising over the ocean, eh? If that happens in California, something has gone horribly wrong.😂
The UK has a number plate scheme that goes by which region of the country the car is registered in and in which year. For instance, RW73 SRF refers to a car registered in Reading in the second half of 2023. This scheme is not projected to exhaust until 2051.
At which point, it'll be reversed for another 50 years - shame so many plates are wasted.