ONE PLATE OR TWO? The Benefits of Two License Plates and the Costs of Removing One

LICENSE PLATES ARE SIMPLE SAFETY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT TOOLS USED FOR: Vehicle identification Reflectivity at night Enforcing toll and parking fees Enforcing vehicle registration laws Stolen vehicle recovery Criminal apprehension Amber Alerts Police officer safety: identifying vehicles at safe distance National security

TWO LICENSE PLATES ARE BETTER THAN ONE Without a front license plate, law enforcement and citizens lose a critical tool for working together to ensure public safety: – Revenues are lost – Crimes go unsolved – Criminals walk free

A LITTLE LICENSE PLATE HISTORY Before World War II, all American states required two plates – A steel shortage brought on by the war triggered a switch to one plate across most of the country. – After the war ended, most states reverted to the two-plate requirement. In the late 1970s/early 1980s, four states went from two plates to one, citing cost savings – A few years later, two of those states returned to a two-plate requirement. – Since then, no state has removed the front plate. Today, legislation has been proposed to remove the front plate – States like Ohio, Wyoming and Texas are looking to reduce costs by issuing just one plate for passenger vehicles. – Car enthusiasts do not want to attach a license plate to the front bumpers of their cars.

THE NATIONAL PICTURE TODAY

THE COST OF A LICENSE PLATE One license plate costs around $2.50. – License plates are one of the most cost-effective tools for protecting public safety. – They provide law enforcement, neighborhood watch groups and individual citizens with a quick and easy way to identify vehicles. The cost of manufacturing both plates is typically offset by user fees. – Each plate and registration sticker represents valuable state revenue through registration fees. But much more is lost when the front plate comes off.

SOME EXAMPLES OF FISCAL COSTS OF REMOVING THE FRONT LICENSE PLATE $7.5 billion – Annual monetary losses from motor vehicle thefts. A front plate significantly increases the chances of these vehicles being identified. $23.1 million – In 2012, Colorado reported that the E-470 corridor would have lost in toll collection without front license plates. 539,000 – Approximate number of toll violations that could not be tracked or their revenue recovered in Virginia in 2011—due to displaying rear plates only. Keeping front license plates means more revenue per year.

The recovery of the vehicle used in the armed robbery of a small grocery store. The arrests of a suspect and his brother in connection with two assaults and robberies in Maryland. An arrest within hours of a fight that had resulted in a stabbing. THE BENEFITS TO LAW ENFORCEMENT IN KEEPING TWO LICENSE PLATES A growing body of evidence supports the importance of license plates in protecting public safety. Successful stories from sworn law enforcement officers themselves may be among the most compelling. In 2012, one officer, William E. Dempster of the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) recorded the following successes from the field resulting from license plate vehicle identification: The arrest of four suspects in several armed robberies and carjackings that were connected to auto thefts, multiple robberies, and assaults. The immediate arrest of two of three homicide suspects, after the victim sustained a lethal wound. Solving the theft of a rental vehicle that exposed a major fraudulent identity scheme involving an estimated $500,000 in goods, services, and other rental cars.

EVERY DAY, FRONT LICENSE PLATES HELP LAW ENFORCEMENT SOLVE CRIMES Since 1998, the International Association of Police Chiefs (IACP) has sponsored Looking Beyond the License Plate, an annual award programLooking Beyond the License Plate – Law enforcement officers from across the country submit stories in which license plates were used to solve serious crimes. – To date, over two thousand of stories have been submitted. – Roughly 2 in 10 of these stories describe a crime solved because of the presence of a front license plate on a vehicle.

TWO LICENSE PLATES MAKE THE DIFFERENCE Let’s keep the front plate where it belongs. Learn more at: