The U.S. state of Indiana first required its residents to register their motor vehicles in 1905. Registrants had to provide their own license plates for display until July 1, 1913, when the state began to supply plates.
Plates are currently issued by the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV).
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Passenger plates 1913 to present
In 1956, the U.S. states and Canadian provinces came to an agreement with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, the Automobile Manufacturers Association and the National Safety Council that standardized the size for license plates for vehicles (except those for motorcycles) at 6 inches (15 cm) in height by 12 inches (30 cm) in width, with standardized mounting holes. The 1955 (dated 1956) issue was the first Indiana license plate that complied with these standards.
Optional types
Non-passenger plates
Organizational and collegiate plates
Indiana issues a large number of organizational and collegiate license plates. A portion of the fees for these plates is given to the respective organization or college.
Organizational plates
Collegiate plates
Military plates
Indiana also issues several military-related license plates. Most are available for veterans only.
New plate prefixing
Starting in 2010 special plates such as the handicapped, POW, National Guard, Disabled American Veteran that use the background of the standard plates will no longer use just numbers. Instead they will now use a predetermined prefix of three numbers and one or two suffix letters depending on if they have one or two prefix numbers. In all the max total characters will amount to six and, except the Disabled American Veteran and Purple Heart plate will use the background of the standard plate. Starting in 2015, the colors of these plates, with the exception of the Hoosier Veteran and Purple Heart plates, will invert, producing plates with dark blue serials on a white background.
Starting in 2012 veterans of each of the five branches of the armed forces will be able, for an extra $15, to obtain a plate with the seal of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps or Coast Guard beginning in 2012. The $15 fee will benefit the state's Military Family Relief Fund.
Trucks and Trailers
Indiana maintains separate plates for trucks, trailers, tractors/trailers, and farm vehicles. Except for farm vehicles, the plates follow an eight character AB123CDE format. All following plates use a plain white background
County coding
From 1963 through 2008, the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles issued standard passenger plates bearing a one- or two-digit prefix identifying the county in which the vehicle was registered. These prefixes were assigned to each county in alphabetical order, beginning with 1 for Adams County and ending with 92 for Whitley County; prefixes 93 through 99 were reserved as overflow for the state's two most populous counties, Marion (93, 95, 97, 98 and 99) and Lake (94 and 96).
In each county, serials consisted of the prefix followed by one letter and up to four digits, progressing sequentially. In 1992, Allen County reached 2Z9999 and subsequently introduced a new format with the prefix followed by two letters and up to three digits; this format was later used in St. Joseph (71), Hamilton (29), Elkhart (20) and Vanderburgh (82) Counties.
Following the introduction of multi-year plates in 1981, plates with serials containing numbers above 100 were revalidated with decals, while those with serials containing numbers 1 through 100 continued to be issued annually.
In 2008, new serial formats were introduced with the white-on-blue torch base, consisting of three digits followed by one, two or three random letters. However, the county number system was retained through the use of decals at the top of each plate displaying both the county number and name, with the overflow numbers for Marion and Lake Counties discontinued.
The no-cost alternative "In God We Trust" plate introduced in 2007 featured the county number on a sticker at the bottom right corner of the plate. The revised "In God We Trust" plate, introduced in 2012, has the number screened onto the bottom right corner; this technique was subsequently adopted on standard passenger plates, beginning with the Bicentennial base in 2013.
List of county numbers
Overflow numbers (until 2008)
In the past, Indiana colored its due date tags by month. Another change to the plate system is that there are only four colors of tags which are the same regardless of the month, whether it be January, June, or December, another change because Indiana used to only issue month tags from January to October. These are all found on the top left corner of an Indiana plate based on the first three letters of the last name of the owner. Note: Business owned vehicles have black tags that expire 1-31 regardless of name.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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