943
Flock Says Its Cameras Worked 'Correctly' When Police Tracked and Ambushed Me for No Reason
(www.thedrive.com)
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.
Crazy that people are pushing for more federal control under an administration that exists to show us why federal control is a bad idea
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.
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 :)
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
What about 7 characters?
You wouldn't believe it. Even more!
the formula is number of possible symbols (letters, numbers) S to the power of the number of characters on the plate N, or S^N, so if you add one more character out of 31 possible symbols, then you multiply by (another) 31 available combinations.
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.
A, but then 2? You monster! :)
Tribal nations also have their own plates in some cases. Mine does.
Also their own licenses and licensing procedures.
As bbbbbbbbbbb said, every state not only has their own plates, but multiple plate designs. Some states, the variations will be completely different colors and number length. Absolutely no consistency.
Many states also don't (usually) require old plates to be turned in when designs change. My state's gone through two design changes since I started driving in 2010 and I still have my original plates. I've seen people driving with plates from the 80s.