Vehicle registration plate

A vehicle registration plate is a metal or plastic plate on a motor vehicle or trailer, which is used for official identification purposes. It is also known as a number plate (British English) or a license plate (American English).

The first car registration plates were issued in France in 1893 after the Paris Police Ordinance was passed on August 14, 1893.  The plates were required for all cars and carriages in Paris, and they had to be displayed on the front and back of the vehicle. The plates were made of metal and had a white background with black lettering. They were also marked with the owner's name and address.

The Netherlands was the third country to introduce a national registration plate after France (1893) and Germany (1896).  Their national registration plate, called a "driving permit" was introduced on April 26, 1898. The first plate was issued to J. van Dam, who purchased the first Dutch-built motorcar, which was manufactured at his own Groninger Motor-Rijtuigen Fabriek.

On April 25, 1901, New York became the first state in the United States to require automobile license plates. The new law required that all motor vehicles display a unique identification number on a plate, which could be made of metal or other durable material. 

At first, American motorists were obliged to make their own license plates. Massachusetts became the first state to issue plates later in the same year. The fee for the license plate was $1, which could be obtained without waiting. 

Plates were first required  in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1904 by the Motor Car Act 1903.

When he was CEO of U.S. energy corporation Enron, Jeffrey Skilling used to drive a car with the personalised number plate wLEC, which stood for 'world's Leading Energy Company.' But the firm spectacularly collapsed in 2001 and Skilling was sentenced to 14 years in jail for fraud and insider trading.

A car number plate bearing only the number '1' sold for £7.1million at a charity auction in the United Arab Emirates in February, 2008.

Steve Jobs discovered a loophole that allowed a 6-month grace period before requiring a license plate on a leased car, Jobs would lease the same Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG every six months in order to avoid having a plate.

The state of Ohio gives out different colored license plates for those convicted of DUI.

Missouri's unofficial nickname of "Show Me State",  appears on its license plates.

Licence plates in the Canadian Northwest Territories are shaped like polar bears.

Cars with a number plate ending with 1 or 2 are not allowed on the roads on a Monday in the Philippines. Other numbers are similarly banned on other weekdays.

In 1979 a Los Angeles man named Robert Barbour  sent an application to the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) requesting personalized license plates for his car.  His choice was a plate which read "NO PLATE" Over the next several months, he received 2500 overdue traffic tickets. This was because they had all been issued to various cars with no plates, and when a car marked "NO PLATE" appeared in the system, the algorithm automatically redirected those tickets to its owner.

In late 2016 security researcher Joseph Tartaro  applied for a vanity license plate with the California DMV that said "NULL" as a joke. Because of how computers interpret that word it wreaked havoc in the system and he began to receive dozens of citations in bulk from all over the state.

If your vehicle registration plate includes the allegedly cursed number 39, people in Afghanistan might think you're a pimp. There is a belief in some parts of Afghanistan that the number 39 is cursed or a badge of shame as it is purportedly linked with prostitution.

Source Daily Express