Massachusetts License Plates Have More History Than You Think

The license plate has been round for practically 100 years in America and consider it or not, it began in Massachusetts.

Although Massachusetts wasn’t the primary state to require motor autos to be registered, it was the primary to situation state created license plates for these autos. And it began with one offended man.

In 1903 the founding father of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Henry Lee Higginson, was uninterested in folks rushing on the roads close to his summer time property and petitioned for drivers and autos to be registered.

A rich man with effectively linked buddies was after all listened to and as a part of the Acts of 1903, the Bay State created an “vehicle division” and required all drivers to registers their autos and pay a $2 price that obtained them a state issued iron license plates.

Higginson’s connection to the license plate wasn’t via nevertheless. His nephew, Frederick Tudor of Brookline, held a job with the Massachusetts freeway fee and when it got here time to ceremoniously current the very first license plate Tudor was the man that obtained it.

In truth the Tudor household nonetheless has license plate 1 in Massachusetts and the automobile they put it on was seen not too way back in Westport and Dartmouth.

Plate 1 was issued on September 1, 1903 and by the top of the 12 months 3,241 cars and 502 bikes had been registered and plated in Massachusetts. That meant practically $18,000 within the state treasury from automobile registrations earmarked for bettering the roads these new vehicles wanted.

However Massachusetts wasn’t achieved including issues to driver’s plates simply but.

When vehicles first debuted, principally anybody may drive one. However in 1907 Massachusetts determined that chauffeurs ought to most likely know what they’re doing. They handed a legislation requiring drivers for others to take a chauffeurs examination and shortly after neighboring Rhode Island turned the primary state to make all drivers take a take a look at earlier than getting a license.

With all this regulation for all these years, maybe it isn’t so shocking that simply final fall Massachusetts and Rhode Island had been ranked #1 and #2 respectively for states with the most secure drivers.

Although contemplating the not-so-nice nickname most Massachusetts drivers get known as possibly that’s tremendous shocking in any case.

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