Good Question: Do the numbers & letters on license plates have any meaning?

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - You likely see hundreds of them every day, but is there a reason your car has its specific license plate number? That’s what one viewer wanted to know.

For today’s Good Question, Traci asks, do the numbers and letters on license plates have any meaning?

That depends on the type of license plate.

Chuck Wolfe with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet told us on standard-issue license plates, the answer is no. He said they are system-generated in series. So, you’ll just get a random number.

However, Kentucky issues more than 150 different types of passenger and motorcycle license plates and in some of those cases, the numbers do mean something.

For example, if you ever park at the Kentucky Capitol, you’re likely to see special plates for lawmakers.

You can also get personalized plates, but you are limited to six characters in addition to a space or dash for cars and up to five characters for motorcycles.

If you have a Good Question you’d like us to try to answer, send it to goodquestion@wkyt.com.

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