Re: CHAT: postcodes

On Sat, 21 Sep 2002 20:10:58 -0400, Roger Mills <romilly@...> wrote:

>Christophe wrote:
>>in France the plate is for the car, not for the driver as in Belgium.
In Florida, the plates used to go with the car. There was a 1 or 2 digit
number for the county and a letter for the weight class, the rest was
numeric. New York made them change it.

>For some reason, I've always been fascinated by such systems...perhaps
>because, as I said earler, the US used to have such a variety of them.
>Until my first visit to England, it had never occurred to me that the
>license plate/number could be a _permanent_ thing.  The first motorcycle I
>ever owned (bought in London) was OFC 300; apparently that indicated an
>Oxford origin (since people would look at it and say, "Oh, you're from
>Oxford"-- don't I wish!).
>
>A permanent number would certainly simplify life-- here in the US, we have
>to renew our plates every year, for a price of course; when you buy a new
>or used car, you have to get new plates, for a price of course.  A very
>lucrative racket for the state. How does it happen the French/English etc.
>haven't discovered this easy source of revenue?  Or do they have some other
>way to collect a yearly tribute?
They could just issue a sticker and charge the same fee as for a whole
plate. Florida only issues a new plate only once in 5 years unless the car
is sold or the plate is stolen.

>When we travelled, when I was a child, it was always a fun game to see how
>many different states' license plates you could spot.  Out in South Dakota
>(is that on European maps?? ;-) ) in the 40s, it was rare to see anything
>from much further than two or three states away.  NY, Florida, Calif. were
>really exotic.  Even now, when people drive all over the country, and
>license plates tend to look almost the same, I still do it.  I've seen only
>one or two Alaskas in my entire life.
Not surprising. IIRC the Alaskan state capital can't be reached by car.