Ohio becomes 20th State to ditch front license plate

The automotive world is changing. EVs, self-driving cars, ElectriCity, it’s all happening. And now you can add license plates to that list as Ohio becomes the 20th state to ditch the front plate. Oh, if you use your ride for commercial purposes, don’t get too excited, this one only applies for passenger vehicles.

This is great news for car owners who want to show off those sexy grilles a la Bentayga, but not so much for law enforcement trying to maintain civility among the unplated anarchists.

Less plates mo’ problems

Imagine someone commits a traffic violation, and it’s caught on camera, how in the eff are they going to get a hold of the license plate number now? Elon, if you’re reading this, now’s a good time to have some sort of infrared scanner thingy to mitigate said risk…

It’s also not ideal for Uber. And before you open dialogue on whether or not Ubers count as commercial vehicles, welcome to the epic mind maze. Jury’s on the fence with this one, so I’ll leave the technicalities aside and go on the assumption that they don’t count as commercial vehicles.

Anyhow, put yourself in a situation where you’ve hailed an Uber and are now waiting for it to come gitcha. A blue Prius pulls up on the curb, but now you’ll have to go all the way round to make double sure you’re not getting into a death cab to the docklands. Is it a major issue? Not really, but nobody got time to shuffle round the back just to identify their ride!

Why, oh why?

Let’s go back to the issue at hand. Why would anyone want to ditch their front number plate? Okay, do you remember the time cops were having a meltdown because they couldn’t stop supercar drivers from doing this? Yeah, said car owners were willing to pay the £1,000 fine just to keep their £200,000 rides sleek and smooth. There’s your why.

But it’s not the only why. Let’s give this a more sophisticated consideration than “ride don’t look nice with them plates!”

From a public policy point of view, this would end up saving states like Ohio quite a bit of cash from producing less plates. We’re talking about $1.4 million a year to be precise.

Of course if the front of your car looks ugly AF, then by all means keep the plate on. That’s the car equivalent to the very useful brown paper bag. Ouch.