Originally Posted by
2manybikes
Every time this comes up, (a few times a year) I mention that I have bicycle licence plates from the 1950's when you did register a bike. No one seems to know why it stopped. I think the cost of doing it is more than the income that would be generated from small taxes on a bike. The plates I have are smaller and metal with raised letter just like a car plate. They probably cost the same as a car plate to make, the small difference in material used is not much. It's mainly the tooling and the labor. In my state they say prison inmates make the plates, I have no idea if it's true.
Bicycle registration has vanished in most of the U.S. -- it costs more to administer than it takes in from fees, and the police rarely have the time or inclination to follow through on using registration information to reunite stolen bicycles with their registered owners.
It made sense before WW-II, when bicycles were primary transportation for much of the population and a commuter bike was an expensive piece of property vs. average incomes.