Ontario's new license plates have a problem: you can't read them
npr.org
npr.org
Anyone claiming that the blue plates are perfectly readable has either never seen them in action or is downright lying.
Incredible that vehicle plates are a political issue but there you have it. Nothing is too low in Ontario politics anymore.
Really, all you can see is a dark, smoked, grey rectangle where the plate is. I'm amazed this is legal.
It's not legal. Your plates have to be legible. But much like many other portions of the Traffic Act, it's unenforced, so it's not really a "law" per se, more like a suggestion.
Really, the joke goes that if you want to kill someone in Ontario then do it while driving your car. It's even better if your victim is on a bike. Then you get a 500$ fine and back at the wheel. "Woops, didn't see them" is a valid defense, no matter the circumstances.
https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/cyclist-dies-after-being-hit-fr...
A year later, all charges dropped on account of an apparently burned out streetlamp. The lawyer called it "happenchance":
https://www.therecord.com/news-story/8354441-charges-dropped...
Number plates, further violations No other numbers to be exposed 13 (1) No number other than that upon the number plate furnished by the Ministry shall be exposed on any part of a motor vehicle or trailer in such a position or manner as to confuse the identity of the number plate. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 13 (1).
Number plate to be kept clean (2) Every number plate shall be kept free from dirt and obstruction and shall be affixed so that the entire number plate, including the numbers, is plainly visible at all times, and the view of the number plate shall not be obscured or obstructed by spare tires, bumper bars, any part of the vehicle, any attachments to the vehicle or the load carried. 1994, c. 27, s. 138 (7).
Obstruction prohibited (3) The number plates shall not be obstructed by any device that prevents the entire number plates including the numbers from being accurately photographed using an automated speed enforcement system. 2017, c. 9, s. 3.
Same (3.0.1) The number plates shall not be obstructed by any device that prevents the entire number plates including the numbers from being accurately photographed using a red light camera system. 1998, c. 38, s. 2 (1).
Same (3.1) The number plates shall not be obstructed by any device or material that prevents the entire number plates including the numbers from being identified by an electronic toll system. 1996, c. 1, Sched. E, s. 2 (1).
Offence (4) Every person who contravenes subsection (2), (3), (3.0.1) or (3.1) is guilty of an offence. 1993, c. 31, s. 2 (5); 1996, c. 1, Sched. E, s. 2 (2); 1998, c. 38, s. 2 (2).
By "remove it", I mean "smash the plastic face" since there were no tools handy.
MPP Lisa Thompson defends new Ontario licence plates. Video clip from Question Period, she calls previous license plates "Liberal plates".
https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/f5xbtt/mpp_lisa_th...
I thought Canadians were better than this. Don't believe what your own eyes are telling you. Orwell turning over in his grave.
Politics is no exception. The world watches us, and they take what works. None of it is ever really novel, but a lot of it lies fallow until somebody says, "Hey, we should try that again." And at first people may say, "You can't do that, because mumble mumble," but the reply is "I can't hear you over the sound of you losing."
Trolling your opponents is hardly new, but we've polished it off and discovered that it's a great way to bond a political party. They feel enthusiastic, and they go out and vote for more of it, while demoralizing your opponents -- who go out and try to make sense even harder, and fail worse, because it's the reason they lose in the first place. They remain baffled that people fall for cheap tricks, without ever accepting the reality that they do.
As a Canadian, I can assure you we're more than capable of coming up with that behavior ourselves.
The start of political office Trump, when the actual machinery was put into motion as an organization, was 2016. They would have been crazy to not be using the Ford brothers as a useful model.
"Thompson added that the technology on the new plates has already been adopted by provinces like Saskatchewan and Manitoba and can be read by Highway 407’s automated toll cameras."
If this assertion is true, bulk surveillance is not impaired; only the ability of individual humans to identify the vehicle.
So what indeed. It really doesn't matter. But, there is at least a modicum of truth in the statement.
Additionally, the previous blue on white design was really on the NDP. The Conservatives' only contribution to the design was accommodating the seventh character when valid six character combinations ran out.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenbelt_(Golden_Horseshoe)
But AFAICT, the golden horseshoe greenbelt has neither of these problems: it's very large, and on the far side of most GTA bedroom communities.
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/greenbelt/pages/383/at...
The last time the province's water needs weren't properly cared-for resulted in what's known as the Walkerton Tragedy.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/walkerton-...
The watersheds are essential for filtering water that hits Ontarian cities.
Walkerton was the result of negligence and disregard for the environment and people's safety.
We could easily run into a similar situation if faced with similar wanton disregard for the functions of the watersheds by deregulating the greenbelt and selling the land off to private suburban development companies whose sole priority is extracting as much profit as possible from initial sales. (Opening that land up to private developers was Ford's stated intention and he only backed down after he drew a lot of public outrage at the notion).
As a New York resident I noticed when the plates changed in 2010 I personally found them harder to read [0]. The white background with dark letters/numbers used from 2001-2010 seemed like the better option... I wonder what law enforcement thought of the change. Seems they are about to change again to something with better contrast starting April 2020 [1].
Also an interesting side note I've noticed that a lot of the new license plates are peeling causing them to look entirely metallic. I see NY dropped their contract with 3M likely due to this issue [2].
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of...
[1] - https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/alb...
[2] - https://www.syracuse.com/news/2019/08/new-york-ends-contract...
As for peeling paint, that's a problem that West Virginia has in the early 90's, too. The urban legend was that it was caused by the prisoners who made the plates peeing in the paint.
All NY license plates are made in the Auburn Correctional Facility. Had they been made in multiple locations it would be interesting to see if all of the problems were stemming from a single source or if it is an issue with materials. That is an interesting urban legend.
then comes the fun in my state where EV plates come with a penalty, even higher fees on top of what I pay for yearly renewals hence I keep my Veterans plate.
https://mobile.twitter.com/placardabuse/status/1229933601464...
https://mobile.twitter.com/placardabuse/status/1229276273106...
Also an ex-firefighter called in too and said that the flat plates (old ones had the characters imprinted) would make it more difficult to identify the remains of fiery vehicle crashes.
...typo? or...?
Your be surprised how often cars have the wrong/stolen/fake license plates.
Also, and this is anecdotal, I'm from a small town that votes overwhelmingly conservative, and a common talking point I hear is "why should we pay into the cpp? It won't be there when we retire" even though the fund is in no danger of going away anytime soon.
It would be nice if some of the US states without tolls could do this on purpose, because many of the ones with them use them primarily to extract revenue from out of state drivers disproportionate to the cost of their use of the roads.
This would also improve the privacy of their citizens, since it would presumably also interfere with ALPR in general and keep their vehicles' location history from ending up in adversarial third party databases.
Anti-ALPR license plates are a feature, not a bug.
The point is to allow a human to identify the car, not a network of cameras connected to a computer database. The ideal would be a plate that could be read by humans but not cameras, but failing that, a plate that can't be read by either is preferable to one that can be read by both. That still serves a purpose in satisfying legacy regulatory requirements to have a number plate even if it's now vestigial and no longer serves any non-bureaucratic purpose.
The case for number plates has really eroded over time. Originally they couldn't be used for tracking because the logistics for that didn't exist, so that cost wasn't there and now it is. At the same time, their original value was always rather modest. The strongest case is for serious crimes like a hit and run, but even in those cases you need someone to get the plate number which they commonly fail to do, and in the most serious cases it's even less likely because a victim who dies can't remember the plate. So we're talking about it helping in a minority of a minority cases to begin with.
Meanwhile in modern times it's more likely that the perpetrator will be caught on video (especially when every bystander has a camera phone), and then you have their face in combination with the make, model and color of the vehicle, which is enough to have a non-trivial chance of getting caught and preserve the deterrent even without the number plate.
So on the one hand they now have a huge privacy cost that wasn't there before, on the other hand the value was never that high to begin with and it's even lower today than it was originally. So maybe we should just get rid of them.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-licence-plate...
- Why North America doesn’t adopt European-style plates instead of the tiny, squished ones they have
- Why license plates are allowed to act as regional advertisements for local states and provinces rather than identifiers
- Why Canadians keep the Ford family in power
The Greater Toronto Area is very progressive, but once you travel out of that area, it very much resembles the US' flyover states - in appearance and politics. Ford spends all of his time campaigning in dinky little towns that hate Toronto.
As for different designs per state/province, it's all about identity and how the states identify as. The size is pretty much standard though.
And the city of Toronto collectively facepalmed.
Honestly it was less about Ford. Some people were frothing at the mouth over Wynne for some reason.
And the rural parts of the province usually just keep the same MPP in office. Where I grew up I think the MPP has been rep for almost if not 30 years. "Good ol' Tobe" rides his tractor every year in the Canada Day parade though he hasn't farmed in even longer.
What I find worse is how these local MPP's have bought 100% into "FORD NATION". This particular MPP got himself in some trouble when he astonishingly used the anniversary of D-Day to make some kind of political point about putting beer in corner stores.
Common Rural-vs-Urban divide that you see in the US, and plenty of other countries.
"Something something value of their vote is 4x as much something", etc.
The rest of Canada is not keeping the Fords in power.
Rob Ford was the king of retail politics. People in his ward loved him because if you called about a pothole he would be there personally with a work crew the next morning. He became mayor due to the amalgamated Toronto. A previous conservative government combined many outlying cities into Toronto proper, completely changing the makeup of the city. Rob was elected by the suburbs surrounding the old city thanks to promises to keep taxes down and find efficiencies. The core of old Toronto voted overwhelmingly against him.
Doug was elected because a tree stump could have beaten the Liberals in the 2018 election. Liberals had been in power for far too long and the province really did need a change. Internal politics and infighting within the PC caucus allowed Doug to extremly narrowly wrest control of leadership. No matter the PC leader was they were going to win the provincial election between a liberal government that did need to go and first past the post voting.
Because they are harmless fun? Many hours of road trips were spent trying to spot a license plate from every state.
And quite frankly, I love that each region has its own plate design. It adds a bit of spice to life.
In Europe that's possible too. Aside from collecting all the countries, you can collect the cities. For instance, plates in Berlin are of the form "B-AB 124" but plates in Hamburg are of the form "HH-AB 124". Presumably you can't really collect them all - there's too many cities - but you can try to work out what they all are.
They're allowed to act as regional advertisements since it's the regional government that creates them. Why would they ban themselves? Why do German number plates have symbols of Europe, Germany, the state and the city that issues them? French and Italian plates are similar. There's definitely an unsubtle nationalism in European plates, it's just not as loud and in-your-face as the American ones. More like: "We in europe are important. Become accustomed to our authority. We in germany are important. Become accustomed to our authority." etc.
I think the only real issue is why they're so bloody hard to read. I see nothing wrong with a black-on-white plate that says "How great's Ontario!" but why so much color? It seems that the decentralisation of law enforcement in North America probably has something to answer for here - they can't adequately veto stupid plate designs.
They’re very high contrast black on white with nice, proportional, thick letters, while the North American plates throw pictures and slogans everywhere.
States are "allowed" to do it because they are the ones who regulate the use of motor vehicles. The federal government of the US has virtually no rules regarding the use of motor vehicles.
Some states have even issued plates in different shapes and sizes than the typical NA plate you're thinking of, like Delaware, which made some famous 9.5"x5.5" plates.
Both are just as corny as they are useless in a license plate. Why put in novelty stuff? License plates are for identification, and should serve solely that function.
Twitter is a goldmine for making issues seem more controversial than they really are. Just search Twitter for the topic of your article and you'll always find at least one dissenting voice.
>But it acknowledged that "some Ontarians are reporting concerns with readability to the naked-eye under certain light conditions," and says it is looking into the issue.
---
In the aftermath Ontario brags about how they tested it with stakeholders and super advance ai enhanced plate readers... They don't admit there is a problem, just that some people report there is a problem.
This is what happens when you put too much faith in the fact you tested.
The "older" scanners that the police have should have been tested, visibility of people with multiple color sight profiles (think: the dress) and eye sight distance (ie: other then 20/20) should have been tested.
Not to mention that I can almost guarantee there is some scientific research into visibility and colors that would have predicted this just based off of color palette alone.
Well, blue is the harder color for the human eye to see; night makes it worse.
And now the old plates are "the Liberal's fault". They were also introduced by the PCs some time back. Cue eyeroll.
That said, I'll take "A Place to Grow" over "Open for Business" as we once feared.
All this to do some political posturing but we can't afford to let studies and trials keep running that were already under way. If I let my eyes keep rolling this hard I might lose my balance.
What?
If California is like other states, you get your little registration sticker in the mail, stick it on, and you are done for the year (or two). Paying $84 each year for someone to put the sticker on for me seems quite excessive.
Autonomous already have tracking systems built-in them. They call home so why bother with an additional tracking system, especially a state-run one? It can't even control the vehicle so you wouldn't be able to do anything important. The battery life on those can't be very long either so I'm sure it isn't reporting it's position very often. To run a system for managing autonomous cars and their routes, you need fine location and you need it often (i.e. the built-in tracker that runs off of a huge rechargeable battery).
Turn the license plate into a giant tamper-evident sticker if you're worried about theft, it could be designed to still show the plate number if someone tries to rip it off.
Spending over $1000 over a five year life of a car, per car, is a little much for a redundant tracking system, the convenience of changing the registration year for you, and the PRIVILEGE of running ads on the back of your car (making even more money off you). You could probably save money hiring someone to run all over the city putting yearly stickers on the fleet once a month.
He drew the new "Ontario Line" subway with a marker, replacing decades of planning for the Relief Line Toronto needs desperately. The subway is dangerously overcrowded at peak times and these changes will likely set the opening date back years.
He ordered gas stations to display a sticker showing the cost of the federal carbon tax simply because he doesn't like it with no planning. That was after scrapping the existing cap and trade program with a single pen stroke (costing the province hundreds of millions in broken contracts). Leaving the existing program alone would have meant no federal carbon tax.
He invented an environmental issues with bats to halt construction on a partially complete windfarm. Even local bat experts have no idea what he's talking about.
He passed a law saying public servants can't get a raise more than 1% prior to negotiating with the various teacher unions so he could negotiate in bad faith. After claiming there was no money for teachers he started paying parents a per diem for childcare during the rotating strikes.
During an active election he changed the number of councillors in Toronto city hall and threatened to use the notwithstanding clause to enforce it.
Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. All of these policies were announced with no public discussion, input period, or time to contact MPPs. Simply dreamt up by Dougie on the weekend and implemented Monday morning.
Premiers of provinces have a ton of power and not much beyond parliamentary norms hold them in check. Doug has exploited this to an extreme extent.
Worse! They actively started tearing down completed windmills as part of that project to the tune of $100 million!
We absolutely need to decarbonize our economy but there's a right way to do it where everyone is heard and involved. Ramming things through by fiat over the objection of the hosts never ends well, even if you believe you know best. This is how you get more Trump, Ford, Scheer, Brexit, etc...
Blows my mind that people never learn this.
There were extensive public consultations. You can view the outcome from that here:
https://whitepineswindfarm.webs.com/20120901%20WPWF%20(1-41-...
Some of the "sidelined" concerns were pseudo-scientific complaints about health effects but those were still addressed with sincerity.
Nothing was "rammed" through, and suggesting such a project was is pretty dishonest.
Host communities didn't gain anything other than many folks having dried-up or polluted wells from the footings driven into the ground, seeing roads destroyed by heavy truck traffic with no compensations to the municipality, and none of the promised green jobs materialized. They lost scenic views (some like windmills, some don't), property values, a general sense of knowing that they, and their opinions matter. Losing that last one is the most dangerous to a functioning society.
I'm still puzzled that you assume I have chosen a side in this. There' no war here since you are clearly unable to see both sides of the issue and further discussion is pointless.
I linked the document providing the large numbers of public consultations and their results. You made a lot of pretty inflammatory assertions as well, but I've never heard of these things from anywhere else.
Keeping in mind my home county is full of windmills on all sides. Not once have I heard of wells drying up or being polluted even from their harsher critics. And in this county nobody was "forced" to house a windmill. Farmers who opted to house one are well compensated to boot.
There are environmental studies done and accountability with regular updates to a number of institutions including Environment Canada expressly to prevent such problems. You can see how I am hesitant to believe hearsay in opposition to the results of studies by these kinds of organizations.
https://www.autotrader.com/car-news/all-time-worst-license-p...
At least the plate belongs to the owner and not the car. I plan to keep my two sets of (now old) plates as long as possible.
You should come to Catalonia...
I will take 200 sticker campaigns over what the Canadian Federal Liberals are doing with their "journalism initiative". That initiative is $600 million being given openly to news agencies who agree with the Canadian Liberals or are approved by a body composed largely of Liberal and Liberal-friendly decision makers. This is a solid step towards the rise of populism in Canada as it legitimizes every single claim of media bias and calls of "fake news".
By comparison, stickers are just a waste of money, but they don't threaten the very core of the country.
[0] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/globe-investiga...
Reporting of impaired or unsafe driving is something worth preserving, making that require technology severely limits the pool of citizens able to do that, and I don't see any other way to preserve it.
Now for GA aircraft the call sign used is usually their registration no. (not sure it's mandatory for them, but that's what's used). For commercial, it's related to their flight number.
Identifying license plates on the vehicle should be more permanent. Similar to the VIN. Otherwise if they can be changed so easily they're kind of pointless. They operate on good faith.
I've heard they're also really hard to type into pay-by-plate parking meters and the like.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
What part of the car identifies the car in the days of diy repair and replacement of almost any part on the car?