Learned something cool today re: CA plates

[crustycurmudgeon]

Some of you may be aware that there are several current CA license plate issues that use the same ABC 123 configuration that the black and earlier yellow plates used. I had always assumed that if someone has a set of black or yellow plates that's clear (not in use) that the DMV could potentially use that configuration on a new plate thus rendering those clear plates unusable. This is not correct. There's a large list of 3 letter prefixes that were skipped by the DMV. Most were skipped because they were or could be offensive, but a lot were skipped for no apparent reason. In 1993 the DMV started using some of these prefixes for the new plates that use the ABC 123 configuration. So all the ABC 123 configurations used on new plates never existed as black or yellow plates. This means that a black or yellow plate configuration will NOT be used on any modern plate.

Here's the link to the list of skipped prefixes: http://www.calpl8s.com/cpinfo.html

Frank

 

[Starfury]

btw, as of July, you can use old black and yellow plates on your car as long as you have a matching pair (and they aren't registered to another car).