4 days Ago By Jacob Jaffa
YOU might not have noticed before, but Massachusetts license plates usually have a pair of silver spiral lines on them. They may appear to be little more than a design flourish, but they're actually an ingenious bit of tech . A recent study from personal injury lawyers Friend, Levinson and Turner found that the Bay State is actually home to the second-best drivers in the country.
But while there may be relatively few violations, that's not to say there aren't car crimes going on and the unusual license plate layout goes some way to combating this. The State Troopers alone issue more than 120,000 speeding tickets each year. A key part of enforcement action is being able to accurately record the registration information of the offending driver.
READ MORE MOTORS NEWS This is particularly important in terms of remote enforcement, using devices like speed cameras and number plate recognition AI . To this end, Massachusetts plates make use of a pair of spiral-shaped silver lines down the middle of the design. These look a little bit like two ribbons wrapping around one another but they aren't just there to look nice.
The lines are actually called an Ensure Virtual Security Thread (EVST) and perform a vital function for law enforcement. Most read in Motors Developed by tech manufacturer 3M, the lines are a major advancement on a concept which has been around for almost 100 years. Most road signs and number plates use retroreflective sheeting to make them more visible.
This network of glass beads act as prisms to reflect light back towards cars - it's what makes signs appear to light up when your headlamps hit them. But the 3M version uses the same concept to embed a "floating image" into the license plate. This results in a hologram-like effect which can be used to verify whether a plate is genuine.
Christopher Ede, 3M's global business manager, explained: "It essentially creates this floating image, which is what we call it. "It's very easy for authorities to see, but it’s very difficult to simulate and counterfeit." As a result, cops can tell if a car is using fake plates by checking for the floating image as they run the details through their patrol car's computer.
Indeed, Massachusetts is one of 26 states using similar security threads. Read More on The US Sun And 44 use at least a security stamp based on the same tech. Only Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Hampshire don't make use of a verification stamp or thread on their plates.
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