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kube-system

License plates signify an owners initial registration. That’s it.

> license plates ensure drivers have had basic training

No, that’s what a drivers license does.

> and that the vehicle has been inspected for basic safety and emissions standards.

Most states (even ones that do require those inspections) issue license plates without these.

> To police, the license plates offer a way to find out who the driver is.

They really don’t, because vehicles are frequently driven by people who did not register them.

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> They really don’t, because vehicles are frequently driven by people who did not register them.

Someone else driving your car doesn’t prevent the police from compelling you to tell them who drove your car. The point is the police can come to you. Different story if the car’s stolen, of course, but license plates in fact are used often as the first point of contact to identify drivers, regardless of whether it is their car. Without the plate, there might be nothing to go on, right?

Your other corrections are valid, I was imprecise with my point. Do you agree with parent that plates are pointless? I was only trying to point out the utility and reasons for the existing system of licensing and registration, plates, IDs, and stickers. I can see parent is making more of a political statement than one of actual utility, but maybe also important to keep in mind that purpose and utility of the various parts of this scheme look different depending on who you are.

No I think plates are important, for the purpose of correlating a vehicle back to the registered owner.

And this can be used, in turn, to look up a lot of the other data you pointed out, even if it does not do so directly.

> Without the plate, there might be nothing to go on, right?

There’s the VIN, but they’re difficult to see at a distance, and don’t indicate the jurisdiction of registration for out of state vehicles, and so, they’d be a PITA for most things states care about using plates for.

Difficult to see at a distance is a little charitable - all cars I've encountered the vin is in the engine bay.

Without a license plate, all you have to go on is make / model / colour and any obvious modifications, essentially the same as seeing a random human but with less cardinality since vehicles are mass produced

The VIN number in modern cars is located in multiple places. Usually: engine mount, central tunnel, under the windscreen, often in the trunk.

They’re normally externally visible at the lower corner of your windshield. Authorities often do use these numbers when verifying the identity of parked cars or if they suspect an issue with the plate.

Years ago I put my cars in business name and the mail goes to a post office box. Simple and cheap privacy, yet most people can't be bothered to do it.

Whenever I get one of the geotracking cars, hopefully the antenna wire will develop a fault.

> Simple and cheap privacy, yet most people can't be bothered to do it.

Most people don’t have businesses registered.

Doesn't the business registration require a real (non PO box) address? If so, then that seems pretty easy to trace, no?

Both you and the parent are making broad assumptions based on narrow experience.

I've lived in enough states that various parts of my experience from various jurisdictions both confirm and refute each of the points made.

It's important for everyone to remember that their experience is not the only experience.

Since you implicate me, I’m open to feedback and willing to change my mind. Would you point out my incorrect assumptions to me?

Portuguese license plates for a long time had the month/year of the car manufacture. This been discontinued because apparently no other country in EU does this and it was confused with expiry date.

There is no other indication on the license plate. just the numbers and letters.

I assume that expiry dates on US plates is related to either road tax or vehicle inspection

> I assume that expiry dates on US plates is related to either road tax or vehicle inspection

Usually yearly registration, though some US states do gate the registration completion on some forms of inspection.

California, for example, requires emissions testing every other year for cars older than a certain age, and won't send the new registration until that's been completed. But most states don't require any kind of regular safety or general road-worthiness inspections. I think that's kinda bonkers, but I haven't really looked at stats around how many car crashes are caused by a failure to maintain a car or its safety features. It's possible that the cost of doing such testing is often deemed too high, when considering the benefit.

I’m not making any assumptions.

In all 50 states, plates represent the registered owner and not the driver, because non-owners can drive cars in all 50 states.

As for safety and emissions, only a minority of states do each of these, and the majority of those denote compliance with a sticker, or have exemptions:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_Un...

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