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u/ausecko Oct 19 '24
I was renting a car from a place at an airport for a few days, drove about 5km away, then had a car driving in front of me with the next number plate up from the one I was driving (there was a sticker on the windscreen with my car's plate number on it, so I knew what I was driving). The other car was not from the rental company, and was a different make/model. I'd love for somebody to do the maths on how rare it actually is.
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u/GetUpNGetItReddit Oct 20 '24
How are ya. It’s 1 in 1.1 million assuming six digits. It’s different for five and seven digits. Hope this helps
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u/heavymetalpaul Oct 21 '24
Isn't it it way less common because some digits are letters with 26 possibilities along with the 10 possible numeric digits?
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u/EndersGame_Reviewer Nov 29 '24 edited Nov 29 '24
Either way, you couldn't count on seeing this with random vehicles even if you looked out for it life long.
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u/UATinPROD Oct 19 '24
Possibly the same family. My sister and I had neighbouring plates because we went in together
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u/Metallover Oct 19 '24
This is not impressive or against the odds at all. It's likely the two vehicles were registered at the same time by the same person. Maybe a parent and their child.
Odds are good they both left their house at the same time, and are travelling to the same destination. Hence why they were spotted next to each other in traffic.
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u/Independent-Vast-151 Oct 19 '24
If this were true, then wouldn’t this happen way more often to people who live in the same town and went to the same DMV?? Wouldn’t it especially be more noticeable in rural areas where all your neighbors and family members and coworkers are all going to the same DMV too?
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u/dryfire Oct 19 '24
The surprising thing here isn't that it happened. Because, you're right, happens all the time. The surprising thing here is that someone noticed, took a picture, posted it, and we are talking about it.
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u/specular-reflection Oct 19 '24
Even under this plausible theory, it's still a very improbable event to be driving by a pair of such family members who just happen to be next to each other. If they are driving back from the DMV for example, that's a one time event in their lives probably. The rest of the time their driving habits are likely high uncorrelated.
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u/SquidBilly5150 Oct 19 '24
This is not how the DMV distributes their plates. Unless custom plates this is actually pretty uncommon in a state.
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u/Mimshot Oct 19 '24
This depends on the state and your post history suggests you’re not from Colorado. In my state (also not CO) the DMV distributes packs of consecutive plates to the dealerships who are allowed to issue them directly.
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u/Izodius Oct 19 '24
The entirely depends on the state. In my state our plates have always been one number off from each other because we register at the same time.
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u/cvaska Oct 19 '24
South Dakota issues them consecutively when the plates are changed - my family had 5 cars with 5 consecutive plates
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u/eepy_neebies_seepies Oct 20 '24
in TX, all license plates are made in large quantities at a time. the plates are given to tax offices and assigned to tax clerks who get them in set, smaller, quantities at a time and assign them to vehicles when doing registration. it would make 0 sense for someone who has to keep inventory of their plates to have them all in completely different numbers. it's much easier to keep track when you're counting "DMV1900-DMV1950."
so this is actually very common. dealerships send transactions via packages of paperwork and clerks do those packages in one sitting, assigning each consecutive plate to each vehicle. so in the example i gave, if i was doing this, my next 9 or so transactions would have plates DMV1900-DMV1909. If I were someone assigning plates in person, the next 9 people in line would also just get the next 9 consecutive plates.
the reason why you don't see cars do this very often is because American states are very large and have millions of people. the chances of your car being right next to a car with the next numbered license plate could be 1 in 4,000,000,000 in just a single county.
lots of states have similar practices because it's just easier to do it this way. custom plates are far more unique
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u/Corneetjeuh Oct 19 '24
Exactly. This happens more that people think. Especially when companies order and register vehicles
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u/Jonnor105 Oct 19 '24
I didn't realize at first, but then I noticed it's completely the same except the one on the right 91 and the one on the left is 92
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u/RecsRelevantDocs Oct 19 '24
Yea did anyone else realize that these are actually consecutive plate numbers? What a coincidence, OP should totally post this to r/nevertellmetheodds.
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u/Jonnor105 Oct 19 '24
I'm not stupid, I know that's why they posted it here, I know what subreddit I'm in, I'm just explaining my being a dumbass to the people on this website
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u/AllahBlessRussia Oct 19 '24
That’s actually incredibly rare
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u/AccomplishedCoffee Oct 19 '24
Is it though? Members of a family register two cars at the same time and then drive the same place? Doesn’t seem that unlikely.
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u/SkittleCar1 Oct 19 '24
My plate on my car is TC11. The plate on my truck is 11TC. I inherited them from my grandfather. And I got 9TC for my wife. They are plates issued by the county clerk, so they aren't exactly random.
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u/Scoochandsodaz Oct 19 '24
I spotted my license plate brother in traffic one day! I live in one of North America’s largest cities and saw the same license plate but the next number up while on the freeway. Eventually I paused beside him in traffic and got his attention and told him. He was a little confused at first but then pretty excited too. Would love to know the odds.
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u/Honest_Coconut5125 Oct 19 '24
Turn off that road. Its them. They found your location. 93 and 94 are probably behind you.
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u/No-Tea-8180 Oct 19 '24
I does look like an impossible thing to randomly happen but it's going on on driveways everywhere.
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u/f_crick Oct 20 '24
They could be a family with two cars that moved from another state. Mine are sequential- when I went to register they just grabbed the next two plates off a big pile next to them.
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u/Repulsive_Tie_7941 Oct 20 '24
My mom and I had plates xxx72 and 89. We got them several weeks apart, one from a dealership and the other from the DMV.
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u/hsvbob Oct 22 '24
When we moved from a different state, we got three consecutive numbers. They physically handed them from the same stack, so the odds were pretty good
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u/Trainwr3ck513 Nov 23 '24
This is some really random and astronomical odds of this really happening i mean it's pretty awesome t ou seen it too that another random luck very low odds of happening and then both happening together is even more awesome I love it
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u/Technical_Respect_98 Oct 19 '24
that is some illuminati ass stuff... they are probably some friends of Lucifers.
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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '24
Me and my wife are only like three off from one another’s plates, it’s super wild. We registered at different DMVs separated by weeks.