Young Version — April 1998

…vehicle categories include four-wheeled cargo vehicles… Campers and modified vehicles may be classified as special-purpose vehicles. You've probably seen their plates; that classification can mean lower taxes, but strict conditions apply—for example, a camper must meet specific requirements. Large special-purpose vehicles use numbers beginning with 9, and construction machinery has its own designation.

Even if you want one, it's impossible to get that plate. Private cars probably have one of the hiragana characters used for personal vehicles, while commercial cars use another set. Some characters are currently unused. The letter Y, for example, indicates a privately owned vehicle belonging to a U.S. military member stationed in Japan; some details are hard to make out.

…you can still see the license plates, but…

What do those letters and numbers mean?

Classification number

Registration area

What does all this mean…?

Shinagawa

OCR returned an unrelated single character.

…plate classification…

…number-plate classification…

What can you tell from the letters and numbers?

Registration area

The number above

Two-digit number

Most people probably know this, but let's explain anyway…

Where is the car registered?

What kind of vehicle?

This shows which regional transport branch or motor-vehicle inspection and registration office serves the car's home area. At a glance, you can tell where the car is from. When you spot a plate from your hometown far away, doesn't it feel like you've found a friend? There are more than 85 registration areas nationwide.

This identifies the vehicle type and its use. For vehicles with three or more wheels, passenger cars and buses use number ranges such as 5, 50–59, and 70–79; cargo vehicles…

Isolated character: 福 (good fortune).

Hiragana

The characters I use are: sa, su, se, ta, chi, tsu, to, na, ni, nu, ne, ha, hi, fu, ho, ma, mi, mu, me, mo, ya, yu, ra, ri…

As for me…

EHIKMTY

What is it used for?

Simply put, it means a car owned by a member of the U.S. military stationed in Japan. So…

OCR returned a garbled fragment.

That's what I thought, but sometimes this part is the English letter Y. What is that about? It's called a privately owned vehicle belonging to a U.S. military member or civilian employee stationed in Japan; simply put…

That's it!

Plate color

What is each part used for? Probably our cars'…

What are they used for?

Most cars have green lettering on a white plate or black lettering on a yellow plate. As you probably know, ordinary passenger cars use white plates, while kei cars are identified by yellow plates.

Besides these, four-wheeled motor vehicles…

...to reach the intended result.

There are also green plates with white lettering and black plates with yellow lettering. These two combinations are for vehicles used for work. Buses and trucks have green plates, right? Commercial vehicles use green or black plates; the distinction also depends on whether they are ordinary or kei vehicles.

By the way, as for the plate…

There are two plate sizes. The size is determined by the vehicle's gross weight, maximum payload, and seating capacity.

Passenger cars are 50–59 or 70–79!

It's 90–99!

Isolated character: 一 (one).

Isolated character: 商 (commerce).

I sort of understand. The sounds are similar too… it's like the sounds get mixed together, right? That makes sense…

Young Version — April 1998

About this issue

Page 74 — English draft translation