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this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2026
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A- USA doesn't have standardised plates? Not even 1 per state, but 8000?!
2- Fuck mass survalance, fuck armed cops, fuck Flock.
Also their own licenses and licensing procedures.
A - The USA is 50 countries in a trench coat
2 - Correct
The USA is 50 corporations in a trench coat.
No stop it that’s ridiculous. There’s only 4 these days, they bought up all the competition.
A, but then 2? You monster! :)
Each state has different levels of customization with different background images. I like plate customization, its a form of self expression.
Customized images, yes. Overlapping alphanumeric codes (two vehicles with the same sequence?) NO. Maybe it was necessary in the 1960s, but it is long since past time for issuance of alpha-numeric unique identifiers to become... unique throughout the states.
How many digits to we need for 297,500,000 plates (as of 2026).
Plus we should probably include Canada and Mexico, since they have the same sized plates and cross the borders regularly.
Canada also has custom plates and different designs in each province too.
Also unless I’m mistaken, when Britain was in the EU, it didn’t use standardized plates like the rest of the member states, right?
There are no standard plates in the EU. The only matching thing is the country code on the left side.
That’s a lot closer to standardized than the Canada or the US.
Just in Minnesota, and I don't even think that's all of them
Well, that's true.
But one fun quirk is that (at least here in Finland) the EU plate isn't mandatory, you can get a clean one with no country code but then if you leave the country you are required to indicate your country of origin with a bumper sticker. So the automated license plate reader might need to be able to figure out from what country this is, and often that sticker will be stuck to the corner of the rear window.
Also a reminder - there will be no sticker on the front :)
it's the country of San Francisco, obviously!
or wait, i think it was Soviet Finland actually.
6 characters (A-Z 0-9) gives you 2,176,782,336 combinations.
Even if you take out some confusing combos like O0, 1I, 5S, 8B ... 6 characters of 31 different kinds gives you 887,503,681
A UK plate is 2 letters, 2 numbers, 3 letters. That's over a billion combinations.
It's 3 letters and 4 numbers
You have bigger problems if you're relying on a custom license plate to express a personality...
Risk isn't worth "reward', especially when you hear things like certain backwards states trying to mandate a default " in god we trust" of other biblical theme so that people then need to opt out intentionally, in turn their vehicles becoming potential targets for zealots and cops to harass.
Just mandate national design with black text on white background
The story goes on to talk about specialty plates and designs with confederate flags.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/434-artistic-license/
Plates should be standardized. Bumper stickers and other things can be used for personalization.
Tribal nations also have their own plates in some cases. Mine does.