How many licence plates?

This note was inspired by the first photograph used in a weblog post about Cape Breton Island. It showed a car without front plates.

No front licence plates are required in Nova Scotia and most other Canadian provinces. Only three provinces continue to use two plates: British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario. All the other provinces and territories have only one. As for USA, more states have two than one (29 vs 21): Two plate states are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

All countries in Europe require both a front and rear license plate on passenger vehicles. While some countries, like Italy and Switzerland, previously used smaller front plates, current European Union (EU) regulations mandate the same size plates on both the front and rear of vehicles. These rules also apply to countries outside of the EU, including Norway. The only countries in the world that do not require front plates outside the USA and Canada are Panamá, the Dominican Republic, Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands.

In many places, licence plates on the front and rear of a vehicle serve different purposes and may have slight visual differences. Front plates are primarily for identification, especially in situations like toll collection, crime investigation, or when a vehicle is moving in either direction. Rear plates are often used for general identification, but may also be used for other purposes like vehicle registration validation. Some places might have different colors or reflective properties for front and rear plates, or they may use different materials.

The first licence plate issued in British Columbia was DY 1, issued in Hastings on 1903-11-23. Hastings (now Hastings–Sunrise) is a neighbourhood in the northeastern corner of the city of Vancouver.

Throughout my childhood, my father always had the same British Columbia licence plate number 1065 on his car. For me, it was always a Saxon plate, whereas anything larger belonged to the Norman time period. I always remember this year because one of my friends owned a book written by W. C. Sellar (1898 – 1951) and R. J. Yeatman (1897 – 1968) : 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, Comprising All the Parts You Can Remember, Including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates (1930).

My father’s favourite car was a 1954 Dodge Mayfair, which was a rebadged Plymouth Belvedere, using that car’s 115 inch (2 900 mm) wheelbase and body but with Dodge’s front sheetmetal. The six-cylinder engines were imported from Detroit with various covers, manifolds, electrical pieces and rubber parts added in Windsor, Ontario. By 1960, my father felt compelled to sell this vehicle because my mother had earned her driving license, restricted to an automatic transmission. He then bought a Ford Fairlane 500 with a V8 and automatic.

At about that time, one of my father’s friends had acquired a Frontenac, one of a total of 9 536 Frontenacs built at Ford’s Oakville, Ontario, plant and sold through Mercury-Meteor dealers. This Canadian model was discontinued from the domestic market and replaced by the Comet for the 1961 model year. However, my father was so impressed with this vehicle that he bought a 1962 Comet station wagon, which was the car I learned to drive on. Yes, I received my driving licence #1213613 on Tuesday, 1965-01-05. After more than 61 years, I can still remember my licence number, while details I learned last week, are no longer accessible.

Note: As a user of Canadian English, the noun is licence, while the verb is license. Americans spell the word license, in both situations.