My new car needs plates. (One plate; we haven't yet succumbed to the tyranny of front plates, though we did give in to the 123 ABC format some years back.*) Yesterday, I realized the clock was ticking and I need to get them today or tomorrow, and in Indiana, with a new-to-you car it's not something you can do online. So won't this be fun.
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* The old passenger-car plate format was a two-digit county code, a letter and up to four numbers. The county code was formed by the county's place on an alphabetical list, 1 - 92, with "overflow" for populous counties starting at 93. By the end, I think they'd broken 100 on overflow.
At the end, Marion County had 49, 93, 95 B-Z, 97, 98, and 99. (95 A was "military/special".)
ReplyDeleteLake County had 94 and 96.
Just like overlapping telephone area codes, the switch to 123 ABC / ABC 123 was inevitable; I'm only surprised it took so long. On the other hand, this is Indiana.
Sorry, should have said Lake County also had 45.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the BMV isn't open on Monday. Darn it!
ReplyDeleteCheck and see if any local DMV uses Qless. My local one does, and it's the best thing since night baseball. You can open the app, see how long the line is, reserve a place, and leave at the appropriate time to stroll in and not have to wait.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was still in Ohio we had counties printed on the plates. There were complaints that tickets were issued more frequently to out-of-county cars. I don't know if that was true, but they took the counties off.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind a little bit of a drive, the McCordsville branch is a good option.
ReplyDeleteI'm probably too late in the day to make any difference, but when I lived in Hoosierland there were selected AAA offices and branches of Old National Bank that could do all aspects of BMV car registration and were open Mondays.
ReplyDeleteIowa numbers its counties based on the county's position on an alphabetic list, and still uses the county number for identifying Sheriff's Office units, but stopped using them on auto license plates many years ago.
ReplyDeleteNow the county name is present on the license plate, and covering it with a plate frame is probable cause for a stop.
Most Nebraska counties still issue plates with a county prefix, though the most populous counties (Douglas [Omaha], Lancaster [Lincoln], and Sarpy [Bellevue / Offutt AFB]) now use ABC 123. Per wikipedia, "The license plate prefix sequence is derived from the number of vehicles registered in each county in 1922."