Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2019 September 18

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September 18

Cars without registration plates

The first couple of times I saw this on a movie or TV show, I thought I must have been overtired. But I'm seeing it more and more. I'm referring to cars driving somewhere without any obvious registration plate visible. The article tells me "All countries require registration plates for road vehicles such as cars, trucks, and motorcycles", so it seems not to be some newfangled protocol.

To be clear, I am not talking about cases where the car has a plate but it's been "smudged out" to protect privacy or whatever. These are cars that have no plate at all. Maybe they tend to be police cars, but I can't swear to this.

What is going on? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:47, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• If filmed on a closed set, the car doesn't need a plate.

• For a car just pulled out of a junkyard to be destroyed, registering it seems extraneous.

• In the US, new or used cars just purchased may have a temporary paper registration taped in the rear window. If that part isn't filmed, you wouldn't know it was there.

• Filmmakers may not want a plate visible, because then they would have to match the style of plate for that year and location (in the US each state has a different plate). Easier to just not show it.

• They may use several cars to represent just one car on film, which, for continuity, would necessitate swapping plates, which isn't actually legal, if driven on public streets. Again, easier to never show the plate. SinisterLefty (talk) 06:30, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Your first three points don't seem to apply to the instances I've seen. I can sort of accept the last two, but that then leads to eagle-eyed viewers like me noticing that something's missing, just as I'd notice it if I see a plateless car driving along a road in real life. Similarly, in movies whenever a car pulls out into traffic or changes lanes, but without indicating, I think "Well, that's not true to life". (** cough **) I've never made a movie but if I did I'd make sure the attention of viewers was not diverted away from the plot line by extraneous details like these. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:44, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Cars in real life often change lanes without indicating. There's a video for I Should Be So Lucky in which Kylie swans around Sydney in the back of an open-topped BMW singing to a surprised and grateful populace. Sadly, the whole effect is spoilt when the BMW uses its indicators correctly, something which is known to be impossible for that make. DuncanHill (talk) 12:37, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Very droll.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:44, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Until recently, California had no temporary license plate, and "newly purchased vehicles typically drove around for a month or more with nothing but a dealer's advertisement or logo on a paper plate insert where the license plate would go, and the DMV report-of-sale form was instead taped to the windshield". The so-called "Steve Jobs loophole" has been closed now, however, with the introduction of temporary registration plates. ---Sluzzelin talk 06:39, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I believe in some US states one is only required to have a license plate on the back of the vehicle and nt on the front at all or at any time. Thanks Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 10:05, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, some states use only a rear plate. That leaves the driver free to put something in front, such as a plate containing a smiley face or a flag or whatever. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:32, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

That would explain it. I think all the cases I've seen had the front plate missing. Just a blank space where the plate would normally go. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:44, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Even in states where it's required, it doesn't seem to matter. Citation : I drove for years in the early 2010s with my front plate sitting on the back seat. "I'll install that later. I just need to remember to buy the right kind of screw.", I thought. ApLundell (talk) 17:40, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

You were driving a Citation? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:53, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I was driving a Citation when it was wrecked by a car with dealer tags. —Tamfang (talk) 20:32, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

The OP mentions "on a movie or TV show". That instantly changes the explanation for why something might happen. It is very important to note that, as works of fiction, any movie or TV show may or may not accurately represent any part of reality in any meaningful way. That is to say, sometimes they do, but not in any way that is reliable to be able to understand how reality works, and any explanation of why anything happens in a movie or TV show boils down to "that's just the way they made it". To presume that movies and TV shows follow the same rules as actual real life is a grave mistake, and should never be assumed in cases like this. That being said, understanding that this is a movie or TV show question, here are some plausible explanations for why the OP has noticed that cars in movies or TV shows are missing their license plates.

1. The missing plate was accidentally left off the car, likely because one of the many people whose job it is to make sure it isn't left off, either because they didn't think it was important (i.e. the viewer wouldn't notice or care) or they weren't good at their job, and just screwed up. This is often called a continuity error, especially if the plate had been present in other scenes. Among these people, the Property master, Production designer, Set decorator, or Script supervisor are just some of the people who would have been involved in deciding to leave off the license plate (or, contrariwise, making sure that it WASN'T left off, if they were supposed to do that).

That's really the full list of reasons why I can think it might have been left off, but someone else may have others. --Jayron32 13:34, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I just thought of another. In the studio lot, they may just leave the keys in the car, as that makes it quicker to move them, reducing production delays. But this makes them potential theft targets. Not having plates would make it obvious to security that this is not a private vehicle, and shouldn't be taken out of the studio. Also, they would be far more likely to be pulled over by police if they did get it outside. Of course, they could always put plates on when filming a scene and take them off after, but again that takes time and slows down production. SinisterLefty (talk) 14:54, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Car dealers used to have what were called "dealer plates" which they could move from car to car for test drives. Rather than bolting them on, they used magnets, which was much faster. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs) 17:55, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Still do here in NC. Or at least they did last summer when I bought my car. And we only have rear plates. --Khajidha (talk) 20:21, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

This site[1] has a map showing the states where front plates are required and not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:05, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

That is most enlightening. Thank you. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:03, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Also Quebec Hayttom (talk) 21:20, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Note that the state or Canadian province/territory in which the vehicle is registered sets the rule, so you don't have to stop when crossing a border to add a second plate. I wonder if Hollywood takes advantage of this, and registers vehicles used for filming in a one-plate state, thus reducing by half all the work involved in obtaining plates from the proper era and location to match the film. Indeed, they could likely film cars from the front and side only, for most movies, to make this a non-issue. Or, for low budget films, they could just film two 2019 California plates on a car used in a 1930's Chicago gangster film, and not worry about it. SinisterLefty (talk) 18:07, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

another plate oddity

In one shot in Midsomer Murders (episode "Market for Murder"; I know this only because I blogged it when I saw it), DS whatsisname got out of (the correct side of) a car whose front plate was reversed. I thought hey, that makes sense, just as you often see AMBULANCE written backward on the front of taxicabs ambulances. But other front plates seen in the same episode were not reversed. Any conjectures about what happened there? —Tamfang (talk) 20:32, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Most likely they reversed the images intentionally. Ironically, they might have done this for continuity reasons. For example, say they were unsure of whether the car should pull up from the right side or the left, so filmed both, but found the distant shot of the car driving up from the right side was best, but in the close-up the car pulling up from the left side was better. Rather than re-shoot, they might just reverse one of the two best clips to make them match. If they had the time and money, they might have done something to keep the plate from being reversed, but British TV is often done a shoestring budget, so they may have had neither. SinisterLefty (talk) 20:59, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

But this was a shot where the driver gets out of the driver's door, a chiral thing in most places. Why would that be shot backward? Well, maybe the actor playing the driver was not up to driving that day, so he was brought into the scene as a passenger (the real driver obscured by the lighting), and the shot reversed so that he appears to emerge from the driver's door. —Tamfang (talk) 16:57, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Could be, or maybe there was some visible damage done to the driver's side, and rather than delay production until they could repair or replace the car, they just had him step out of the passenger side and reversed it. SinisterLefty (talk) 04:29, 25 September 2019 (UTC)