Ok so this is now officially the first time I've made to blogs in one day, but I will be honest...I'm extremely bored but also have something interesting to share.I have been living in the Chicagoland area for a little over a month now and something I have noticed is that cars from Illinois tend to have two license plates on their cars. They have the normal one which hangs out on the back of the car, but they also have on that is on the front of the car.
I asked one of the ladies that works in the same building as me, and she didn't know what I meant when I asked why they have two here. Well I'm from Indiana and in Indiana we only have one plate...only on the back. I was curious why this is the case here in Illinois so I did a little bit of research. (Yes I know I'm weird like that)
Turns out for Illinois it's actually a state law for the plating laws. Also interestingly enough, Indiana is in the minority of states that actual only require one plate. A few others around us are Michigan and Kentucky. Across the country there are only 19 states that require only the rear plate to be affixed to the car. One of the main reasons for why it has been the case here in Illinois is the officers say it helps them to identify cars quicker when they are able to check a plate number when viewing the car from either the front or the rear of the vehicle.
I also found that Indiana did in fact at one time require to plates but in 1943 during WWII we did away with it because of an aluminum shortage and just never brought the law back. It actually saves us money by not having to stamp out two plates for every vehicle on the road. Illinois is currently revisiting the law in the House. (House Bill 4888) They have stated it will save the state $1 million dollars by only stamping one.
Interesting Fact #2 of the day.
So now if you're driving around in another state and see two plates that's why!
double the plate tax duh
ReplyDeleteI didn't think about that. I'm not sure if they charge more or not, since I've never had to purchase plates here.
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty interesting. I've lived in Illinois most of my life and I never really understood why it was necessary.. I just know we have all of our old plates. Another interesting fact for the state of Illinois is that plates can just be transferred from one car to the other when one buys a new car because the plates are registered to the person rather than the car. For example, every time you buy a new car in Indiana you must register it and get new license plates. Not so in Illinois.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting tid-bit regarding license plates. A California technology firm is in the final stages of creating an electronic license plate which would display advertisements while the vehicle is stopped for 4 seconds or longer. It is projected that these license plates will bring in an excess of $1 Billion dollars in state revenue from the advertisements. The house bill is currently being discussed in the California legislature.