The Case for Better Designed License Plates

Re:The Case for Better Designed License Plates by lnanek2 on Monday November 24, 2014 @01:56PM (#8653964)

I don't really understand why these would be better. Looking at his proposed New York one and the real New York one, the real one is clearly easier to read. Adding a background image that overlays the text makes it harder to read the text, I don't think it is an improvement. I don't really care how pretty the plates are, I care that if someone hits me and tries to drive off as many people as possible have a chance of reading the plate. This whole post kind of sounds like someone redesigning road signs to look pretty instead of meeting the key requirements like being able to read them at speed.

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Re:The Case for Better Designed License Plates by JshWright on Monday November 24, 2014 @02:01PM (#8653996)

I also don't see how that "stays true to the identity of the state".

I assume the red color it evoking the 'Big Apple' nickname for New York City. That, plus the skyline overlay makes it clear that this is a "New York City" license plate, not a New York State license plate (despite the fact that ~85% of vehicles registered in the state are registered outside NYC)

EDIT: I'm not currently able to reply to the child comments (which seems odd, as they're not that deep...), but it does appear I did misremember slightly. The actual percentage is closer to 80%.

10.9 million vehicles in total, 2 million in NYC.

http://dmv.ny.gov/statistic/2013reginforce.pdf

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Re:The Case for Better Designed License Plates by bhandziuk on Monday November 24, 2014 @02:57PM (#8654399)

That can't be true, can it? The population of the state ~19 million and the population of NYC is ~8.5 million.

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Re:The Case for Better Designed License Plates by bhandziuk on Monday November 24, 2014 @04:39PM (#8654892)

(I can't comment on child comments either) I didn't realize it was THAT imbalanced.

Also, who are the two farm vehicles registered in NY county?

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Re:The Case for Better Designed License Plates by cpfohl on Monday November 24, 2014 @03:06PM (#8654464)

Who drives in NYC!? We NYS-ers drive everywhere, because it's a massive state with a lot of open space between the interesting things.

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Re:The Case for Better Designed License Plates by vibrolax on Monday November 24, 2014 @03:03PM (#8654443)

It could be true considering the availability of public transit and the high expense of parking a car in NYC.

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Re:The Case for Better Designed License Plates by drcoopster on Monday November 24, 2014 @03:00PM (#8654416)

You don't need a car if you live in NYC, but you do need a car if you're outside the city.

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Re:The Case for Better Designed License Plates by timthorn on Monday November 24, 2014 @02:12PM (#8654074)

The UK had a good attempt at designing road signs that looked good as well as meeting functional requirements some time ago, with good results: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15990443

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Re:The Case for Better Designed License Plates by VLM on Monday November 24, 2014 @02:06PM (#8654029)

"This whole post kind of sounds like someone redesigning road signs to look pretty instead of meeting the key requirements like being able to read them at speed."

Even worse, if we encourage them, they're going to apply themselves the same way to web pages.

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