Nate, Here in Florida we have over 60 vanity plates. To get a vanity plate issued it cost $60,000 up front and then cost the user $20-30 extra.
We got all kinds of them. Here in Tampa area the most popular is the football team, the Bucs plate. In the 4 counties (there are more) over $600,000/yr is collected for this one plate. The other most popular are universities, Space Suttle, and animal type like the cougar, mannattee (ugly sea mammial) and dophin. The anti-abortion plate gets some. We don't have a pig plate yet, but about 2 elections ago it was added to our state constitution one must kill pigs in a humane manner. The pig plate is coming. Ham plates are not considered vanity and cost $5/yr extra and do say Amateur Radio on them. Yep license plates are big money to the state. A regular plate cost about $30/yr for small care, $35 for large. But we don't have state income taxes yet. 73, ron, n9ee/r >From: Nate Duehr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Date: 2007/10/18 Thu AM 05:13:37 CDT >To: [email protected] >Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Call letter plates > >Sorry this is heading WAY off-topic, but I had to share the insane >list of license plate types we have here in Colorado now... and a >comment about Mike's 1991 posting about plate lookups containing >whitespace... > >On Oct 18, 2007, at 12:12 AM, Mike Morris WA6ILQ wrote: > >> Yep. >> Cops have been known to mis-understand ham plates... > >Colorado now has something like 50 different plate types -- the State >legislature went nuts when they realized that the things could make a >permanent income for the State, and the more types, the more likely >someone will buy one. > >Every plate is different, completely different. > >We have pink plates... ><http://www.revenue.state.co.us/mv_dir/REGISTRATIONS/breastcancer.htm> > >And the Bronco's Country plates... in Orange, of course... ><http://www.revenue.state.co.us/mv_dir/REGISTRATIONS/ >BroncosCharities.htm> > >And the Columbine memorial plate... (actually a nice rendition of the >State flower for a good cause)... ><http://www.revenue.state.co.us/mv_dir/REGISTRATIONS/columbine.HTM> > >And Pioneer plates, for those that can prove a direct ancestor lived >in Colorado at least 100 years ago... ><http://www.revenue.state.co.us/mv_dir/REGISTRATIONS/pioneer.HTM> > >Ahh, just go here, and you can click on 'em and see 'em. Tons of 'em... ><http://www.revenue.state.co.us/mv_dir/wrap.asp?incl=registrations/ >plateindex> > >If nothing else, it'd be REAL rare to be pulled over for "strange" >plates out here, ever again... the cops probably have a hard time >even keeping up with all the different types, and probably carry a >book to double-check them all, now. > >I really thought this whole thing started up out here with the mass >influx of Californians in the late 90's and early 00's -- I figured >they just brought the whole crazy license plate thing with them. >Maybe not. > >> Back in 1991 there was a usenet comment thread in the >> computer-risks digest on running ham radio license plates >> on DMV computers. My posting to it is here: >> <http://groups.google.com/group/comp.risks/browse_thread/thread/ >> 2cc5fefb628c6cf7> > >Most computers nowadays would be querying this from an SQL database >behind the user interface with something akin to the "SELECT ___ >WHERE LICENSEPLATE LIKE <VARIABLE>" statement... > >Which (even though that's not proper SQL in the example here, and >it's not exactly how you'd do it...) would match all of your >combinations today. > >If it's coded right, the location of whitespace in the string >wouldn't matter at all, anymore. (In fact, the query is probably >hard-coded into the RDBMS itself, as a stored procedure, and has tons >of bounds checking and whitespace removal built into the query.) > >In fact, the whitespace would probably be stripped out of the plate >number BEFORE the database lookup query, in the "bounds checking" >part of the user interface code, these days. If it isn't -- they >need to hire some professionals to write their software... > >Sorry... getting way off topic here. Hey, if you guys don't have >wild and crazy plates like the massive list we have here, you could >recommend it to a State Senator and make your state some big bucks! >(GRIN) > >It's a fairly common thing to see cars with one of these custom >plates on it and less and less of the standard Colorado plate. The >Amateur Call Letter plates (as they call them) are one of the only >ones that isn't graphically customized... they also only cost $2 a >year, though. > >Interestingly, all of them also have a bar code on them nowadays, but >I've never seen an officer use a laser reader or anything like that >to scan them. I think it's just there for authentication if the >plate is made fraudulently, but I don't know. It's also badly >positioned, so that many license plate holders partially cover it. > >-- >Nate Duehr, WY0X >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Ron Wright, N9EE 727-376-6575 MICRO COMPUTER CONCEPTS Owner 146.64 repeater Tampa Bay, FL No tone, all are welcome.
