Ok, I live in Indiana and while I love my state and the people in it I am constantly amazed at how many people get this wrong. Take the standard Indiana car plate below.
Now, when this plate is issued it has a sticker on the top left corner (not shown) of the month of expiration. It’s just a color coded sticker with the 2 digit month and day it expires on each year, mines says 05–15. On the right hand side you see the 2 digit year, in the case above you see 05. Now… here’s where it gets so very tricky.
Let’s say it is March of 2005 and time for you to renew your plate. You go to the license branch, pay your fees and walk out with a new registration for the coming year. Attached to this registration is a sticker color coded for that year. This year the 06 stickers are gold. You are to place this sticker on your license plate to show it is valid for the next year. Here comes the tricky part… you ready?
Where on the plate do you place the new YEAR sticker? The sticker just says 06, is color coded for that year and has your plate number in small letters for security reasons. Where on earth could this sticker go? Should it go over the top of the month and day of expiration each year, 05–15 for example, or should it go over the top of the year or in the case of a renewal this year over the 05?
If you answered, “It goes over the past years sticker or 05 in your example” then you are correct and severely in the minority. Most people, believe it or not, place this sticker over the expiration month and day and not over the previous year. At that point you can no longer tell what month their plate expires, only what year. If you want to get really technical it is called Improper Registration and it is worthy of a ticket, as well it should be!
On average, over the course of a 15 minute trip during daylight hours on a major Indiana highway you will find that more than 50% of the total vehicles have this mistake. What on earth could cause such an error in deduction? One could argue that since such a large number of people make this mistake it should be addressed on a statewide level. Perhaps instructions on the registration as to where the sticker goes would help? If you ask me most people still wouldn’t get it right. If you can’t figure out that the new YEAR sticker goes over the top of the old YEAR sticker then I’m not sure instructions will help you.