Reverse License Plate Lookup

[yelnatsch517]

Anyone know of a good site or place to get a reverse license plate lookup?

[Ozzie]

http://www.google.com

[Xdisaster240sX]

[yelnatsch517]

Maybe I should rephrase my question.

Has anyone had any experience with or heard of a good license plate reverse lookup that he would recommend? I'm looking for recommendations from Nico members on good methods or sites to do this lookup, not how I should go about looking it up. I'm sure there are some people on Nico who have experience with this sort of search.

[Rev_D21]

Stalkers of the 21st century, in theaters NOW!

[yelnatsch517]

Haha, I'd think a stalker would already know how to look up that sort of info.

If you must know, I witnessed a hit and run in my neighborhood, but can't be positive on the license plate. I won't even be the one using the service. But I'm sure my neighbor would greatly appreciate it if she knew what happened to her car. It was fairly light damage and I'm not even sure the driver knew, but it would be embarrassing to go to the police for a report without even knowing for sure what the license plate is, not to mention my neighbor doesn't even want to go through insurance. All I know for sure was that the plate started with 4 and ended in 212 and the car was gray in color. The letters were hard to read clearly, but there could have been either an F or an E, but you get the picture. Everyone's been to the optometrist before. Those letters can be tricky sometimes.

Anyway, I'd hoped Greg would chime in.

[zer0c123]

Well in California, the DMV website has a license number search where you can look up the smog history of the car. Therefore if you're searching craigslist and someone post their car with the license plate numbers, you can look the smog history immediately.

[C-Kwik]

I doubt there is any kind of a public service for this. Certain types of industires are granted such access, but it is limited to specific uses. Insurance companies usually have this, but access within the company is usually limited to certain people as abuse could cause such access to become rescinded. And I don't think they can even run partial plates. I think I had one claim where 1 digit was in question and we tried a few possibles to track it down, but aside from that, it would probably start becoming a big guessing game.

That said, filing a police report would be a better idea. Having a partial plate does not preclude one from making a report. Nor would it be embarrassing. Plate numbers are not easy to get off a moving vehicle. Its quite understandable. But if a Cop decides to run a partial, they might get lucky (unlikely), but I've seen cases like this where a drunk driver hit several cars and was identified in a later crash and a partial plate used to identify them (along with other consistencies in the description) as the person who hit the vehicle. Without a police report though, they may never know to match up such a car.

[Alfador]

Having a partial plate shouldn't be embarassing when you file your report. Honestly, the cops are more likely to be surprised that you managed to remember any of it. The amount of jackasses they get who come in going "so yeah some blue car scratched my door." every day has to drive them mad.

[yelnatsch517]

Alright, I'll let my neighbor know, although I doubt she'll actually go ahead and go through with it. Asians don't like dealing with police and going through all the hassle which is why she won't be dealing with insurance either. I'll just tell her to keep an eye out for that car, which is about all she'll probably do anyway.