I was wondering why people black out or "obscure" their license plates when posting photos in the internet.

I don't understand why... I mean you drive down the streets and highway everyday and it's visible?

My wife says... "Oh there are unscrupulous people on the internet that can look up your license plate info and figure out where you live... and get all kinds of personal info on you."

I say what website? Anyone can figure out where I live by following me home from the highway. They can look up my address on the property appraiser's website and then find my name, phone number, and address.

So! Anyone here locally can do that. Do you think a criminal in another part of the country is interested in stealing my car here in Florida? or do you think it's easier to focus on cars local to them?

Can someone enlighten me?

I've often wondered this too and could not come up with anything that made any sense.

Let's see:

If one had a cop buddy or someone similar that didn't mine, he can run the plates.

Some PI's can do this as well.

And now we have the internet License Plate Search

I wish I could run plates sometimes....just last week on the way to work, some dumb broad made an illegal pass on Vasco Rd....instead of getting over when she should have (she should not have made the pass in the first place, since it's a windy road and traffic was coming from the other direction) she decided to pass one more car...the tractor trailer coming towards us had to swerve to avoid a head on accident with her at well over 70mph for both vehicles.

She only passed two cars and once we got into town, we got to the first signal at the same time...she saved no time whatsoever...I wanted to drag her out of her car and beat the hell out her...I don;t mind if you kill yourself, don't put others at risk......I wish I could run her plate

I don't do it...BUT there are freaks everywhere!

I don't blame and can understand why some people do black out their plate.