My entire adult life, I've heard various people tell me that I need to score my tabs after putting them on "so no one can steal them". I've known many people like myself that find this idea absurd, and don't bother with scoring. How did this idea become mainstream advice?

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[–] 65 points 4 months ago* (9 children)

Uhm... what are "vehicle tabs" ?

EDIT: Oh, tags. I guess it's the anual sticker proving that your registration is up to date. Don't have those here anymore. My previous car had the 2012 stickers still when I sold it last year.

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  • [–] 18 points 4 months ago* (6 children)

    I think they might mean the registration tags. But I've never heard of those being stolen or that you should score them to prevent theft.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago* (3 children)

    I guess it would be theoretically possible with a razor blade or something. I remember the ones here in Norway being a PITA to take off, so it was usually easiest to place the new one over the old one.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Same in the US. My stack is nearly a mm thick. I imagin someone could steal them... but it would be faster to unscrew the whole plate and take it home to work on it

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (1 child)

    My dad taught me to score them. I find it strange, scoring them prevents the supposed thief from being able to get the tag off cleanly, so they wouldn't want to apply it to their car because it'd look sketchy?

    Unlike your totally normal and not at all now damaged and sketchy looking tags?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    The ones we've gotten have always come pre cut, if you want to remove one without tearing uses a flat razor, you can even dig into the paint on the license plate, the company that makes them probably makes extra to do this step and is probably the only reason it's still done.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    TIL i have been blessed with pre-cut tabs my whole life. Ontario and BC had fancy stickers to make them hard to steal, I never understood why. Eventually we got rid of them.

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