vehicles 0.4.1 → 0.8.0

data/data/plates/us-mn.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,411 @@
+# plates/us-mn.yml — Minnesota (PRD-PLATES gate L2, group midwest-b).
+#
+# MINNESOTA'S STATUTE IS THE MOST PHYSICALLY SPECIFIC IN THIS GROUP AND THE LEAST
+# FORMAT-SPECIFIC. Minn. Stat. § 168.12 subd. 1 will tell you that a plate must be
+# "at least 100 times brighter than the conventional painted number plates" and
+# must be "visible for a distance of not less than 1,500 feet and readable for a
+# distance of not less than 110 feet" from a vehicle with standard headlights —
+# a testable photometric specification of a kind no other state in group
+# midwest-b legislates. It will not tell you how many characters are on the
+# plate or in what order. That asymmetry drives this whole file.
+#
+# THREE MINNESOTA FACTS WORTH THE READER'S ATTENTION:
+#
+#  1. THE PLATE ENCODES WEIGHT, NOT GEOGRAPHY. § 168.12 subd. 1(b): "When a
+#     vehicle is registered on the basis of total gross weight, the plates issued
+#     must clearly indicate by letters or other suitable insignia the maximum
+#     gross weight for which the tax has been paid." Minnesota is the only state
+#     in this group with a statutory weight-class encoding on the plate itself.
+#
+#  2. THE PLATE CAN SAY "NONCOMMERCIAL". § 168.12 subd. 1(c) requires that legend
+#     on noncommercial-vehicle plates unless a special plate is displayed — a
+#     mandated negative legend, which is an unusual instrument.
+#
+#  3. MINNESOTA REGISTERS ROADABLE AIRCRAFT WITH THEIR FAA TAIL NUMBERS.
+#     § 168.12 subd. 1(i), in terms. That is a direct, statutory bridge between
+#     this dataset's road layer and the aircraft layer PRD-PLATES §7 puts at gate
+#     L6, and it is specified below as its own series because it genuinely is one.
+#
+# WHAT THIS FILE COULD NOT GET: Minnesota's serial ARRANGEMENT and its current
+# base design. § 168.12 delegates both to the commissioner's rules, and the
+# Minnesota DVS website sits behind a bot-protection layer that refused every
+# request in this pass. The standard series is therefore `recall-only` and its
+# arrangement is a recorded gap, not a guess.
+jurisdiction: us-mn
+authority:
+  name: Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Driver and Vehicle Services (DVS)
+  url: "https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/168.12"
+binding: vehicle
+statute_edition: "Minnesota Statutes Chapter 168 (Vehicle Registration, Taxation, Sale), §§ 168.10 and 168.12 as published by the Office of the Revisor of Statutes at revisor.mn.gov. § 168.12 was last amended by 2024 c 104 art 1 s 17, so the design provisions read here are current to the 2024 session."
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# artwork_risk — required per jurisdiction by PRD-PLATES §4. Minnesota is one of
+# only two states in group midwest-b for which ANY evidence exists — and the
+# evidence is that the question is genuinely open.
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+artwork_risk:
+  posture: contested-unresolved
+  basis: >-
+    MINNESOTA IS THE ONE STATE IN THIS GROUP WHERE THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION HAS BEEN
+    LITIGATED IN OPINIONS AND STILL HAS NO ANSWER. Two official Minnesota legal opinions
+    conflict and no court has resolved them. A state commissioner's statement of December
+    1994 reads, in part, that 'unless specified by the legislature, the public's right of
+    access to and use of public government data cannot be curtailed by a government
+    entity's claim of intellectual property rights in those data' — language a reader
+    might take for a public-domain rule. An Attorney General statement of December 1995
+    expressly contradicts that reading, claims higher authority, and confines the earlier
+    statement to ACCESS rather than COPYRIGHT, offering the narrower phrasing that 'The
+    department may not assert copyright ownership to deny members of the public their
+    right "to inspect and copy public government data at reasonable times and places"
+    under Minn. Stat. § 13.03, subd. 3'.
+    THE STATUTE ITSELF POINTS THE OTHER WAY, and narrowly. Minn. Stat. § 13.03 subd. 5,
+    FETCHED AND READ FOR THIS FILE, provides verbatim: 'A government entity may enforce a
+    copyright or acquire a patent for a COMPUTER SOFTWARE PROGRAM or components of a
+    program created by that government entity without statutory authority. In the event
+    that a government entity acquires a patent to a computer software program or component
+    of a program, the data shall be treated as trade secret information pursuant to section
+    13.37.' Expressly authorising copyright for software and for nothing else is weak
+    evidence that other works are free and weak evidence that they are protected — it is
+    simply a provision about software.
+    (Textual note, since this file quotes a primary against a secondary: the survey renders
+    the opening words as 'may enforce copyright'; the statute as served by the Revisor reads
+    'may enforce A copyright'. Immaterial to the meaning, recorded because the primary was
+    read rather than trusted.)
+    CONCLUSION: contested and unresolved. Treat Minnesota plate ARTWORK as protected by
+    default, per the dossier's rule that state works are presumed copyrighted absent a
+    contrary declaration, and note that Minnesota has arguably made a contrary declaration
+    that its own Attorney General has disclaimed. Do not record Minnesota as public domain
+    on the strength of the 1994 statement.
+  edict_carve_out: >-
+    Every claim in this file cites the Minnesota Statutes. Edicts of government are
+    uncopyrightable at every level ({{PD-US-GovEdict}}), and this carve-out is doing more
+    work in Minnesota than elsewhere precisely BECAUSE the general posture is contested:
+    the photometric specification, the weight-encoding rule, the 'noncommercial' legend,
+    the seven-year plate period and the roadable-aircraft rule are all free to use
+    whatever the answer on artwork turns out to be.
+  emblem_rule: >-
+    PRD-PLATES §3's placeholder default applies to whatever graphic the current Minnesota
+    base carries — which this pass could not identify, since the DVS site refused every
+    request. Render `emblem: {present: true, rendered: placeholder}`. Minnesota state-seal
+    misuse statutes are a protection regime independent of copyright and are unresearched.
+  sources:
+    - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_subnational_governments_of_the_United_States  # LOCATOR ONLY (PRD-PLATES §4): the Minnesota section, which sets out the conflicting 1994 commissioner and 1995 Attorney General statements and quotes Minn. Stat. § 13.03 subd. 5. The conflict is recorded here, not resolved (PRD-PLATES §5.3)"
+    - "https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/13.03  # Minn. Stat. § 13.03 subd. 5, FETCHED AND READ: the software-only copyright authorization and its trade-secret consequence — an edict, PD, and the primary the secondary account turns on"
+
+us_standards:
+  no_federal_mandate: true
+  chain: "SAE J686 -> AAMVA License Plate Standard Edition 3 (September 2025) -> voluntary state adoption. AAMVA has no enforcement power; its declarative present is RECOMMENDED PRACTICE."
+  dimensions_delegated: "AAMVA §3.1 sends dimensions and bolt holes to SAE J686, whose text is PAYWALLED and UNPINNED. No J686 dimension is quoted anywhere in this file."
+  geometry_available: "AAMVA §2.1 (jurisdiction name top-centre between the bolt holes, >=0.25 in above the number, >=0.125 in from the top edge, characters 0.75-1.0 in) and §2.2 (characters >=2.5 in high, >=0.25 in apart, stroke 0.2-0.4 in, >=1.25 in clear of top and bottom)."
+  retroreflectivity: >-
+    AAMVA §3.3 asks for legibility 'in both daylight and nighttime from distances of at
+    least 75 feet', with ASTM D4956-19 and ISO 7591:1982 clause 3 as the materials
+    standards and a minimum 45 cd/lx/m^2 at 0.2 deg entrance / -4 deg observation.
+    MINNESOTA'S OWN STATUTORY SPECIFICATION IS FAR MORE DEMANDING and is expressed
+    differently — see `design.photometric_spec` on us-mn-standard: 100x brighter than
+    conventional painted plates, visible at 1,500 feet, readable at 110 feet. Minnesota's
+    110-foot READABILITY floor is not directly comparable to AAMVA's 75-foot legibility
+    figure, but it is plainly stricter, and it is in statute rather than in a recommendation.
+  replacement_cycle_recommendation: "AAMVA §1.1 recommends a cycle 'not to exceed 7 to 10 years'. MINNESOTA LEGISLATED SEVEN — the bottom of AAMVA's range and a genuine mandatory replacement, not a floor. See `replacement_cycle` on us-mn-standard."
+  source: "https://www.aamva.org/getmedia/646bcc8a-219b-47d8-b5cd-726240473163/License-Plate-Standard-Edition-3_September-2025-Update.pdf"
+  folklore_caution: >-
+    The '1956 AMA standardization agreement' is UNCITED in its Wikipedia source (a
+    `citation needed` since 2017, copied across articles). Recorded as COMMONLY REPEATED,
+    UNSOURCED. A second piece of Minnesota-specific folklore is flagged here for the same
+    treatment: the widely repeated claim that Minnesota's base design dates from 1978 and
+    is among the oldest in continuous US use appears in the dossier only as a WIKIPEDIA
+    assertion, and § 168.12's seven-year mandatory REPLACEMENT cycle concerns the physical
+    plate rather than the design. Neither the 1978 date nor its continuity is asserted
+    anywhere in this file; both are recorded as unsourced.
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Display rules. NOT ESTABLISHED — recorded as a gap rather than assumed.
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+display_rules:
+  status: not-established
+  note: >-
+    MINNESOTA'S PLATE-DISPLAY RULES LIVE IN Minn. Stat. § 169.79, WHICH WAS NOT READ IN
+    THIS PASS. § 168.12 subd. 1(f)(4) cross-references it, so its existence and relevance
+    are sourced, but its contents are not. Whether Minnesota requires one plate or two,
+    and where, is therefore NOT recorded here. This is a deliberate omission: the
+    front-plate question is exactly the kind of per-state statutory fact the dossier warns
+    against importing from an aggregate table (§1.2 — 'The dataset should model
+    front-plate requirement as a per-jurisdiction field with a statute citation, not import
+    a list'), and no Minnesota statute stating it was fetched.
+  follow_up: "read Minn. Stat. § 169.79 and record display, mounting and orientation from it"
+  sources:
+    - "https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/168.12  # Minn. Stat. § 168.12 subd. 1(f)(4) cross-references § 169.79 for veterans' plates issued for life — the pointer establishing where Minnesota's display rules live"
+
+series:
+
+  # =========================================================================
+  # THE STANDARD-ISSUE SERIES — photometrically specified, format-delegated.
+  # =========================================================================
+  - id: us-mn-standard
+    class: standard
+    categories: [car, van, truck, bus]
+    period: { start: 2024 }
+    period_evidence: instrument-in-force-upper-bound
+    matching: recall-only
+    format:
+      pattern: "999LLL"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z0-9](?: ?[A-Z0-9]){0,6}\z'
+      charset:
+        notes: >-
+          § 168.12 subd. 1(a) is the whole statutory constraint on the serial, and it is
+          almost content-free: the commissioner issues plates 'bearing the state name and
+          an assigned vehicle registration number', and 'The number assigned by the
+          commissioner may be a combination of a letter or sign with figures.' The
+          arrangement is then delegated outright — the plates 'must be lettered, spaced, or
+          distinguished to suitably indicate the registration of the vehicle ACCORDING TO
+          THE RULES OF THE COMMISSIONER.' NO WIDTH, NO ARRANGEMENT and NO LETTER EXCLUSIONS
+          appear in the statute. Note the striking phrase 'a letter or SIGN with figures':
+          Minnesota law contemplates a non-alphanumeric SIGN in a registration number,
+          which if ever exercised would be a `never_separator` amendment under
+          PRD-PLATES §2.6 rule 3. No such sign is known to be in use.
+      pattern_note: >-
+        REPRESENTATIVE SHAPE ONLY, on the nl-export precedent, AND AN HONEST ADMISSION.
+        Neither Minnesota's serial width nor its arrangement was sourced in this pass: the
+        statute delegates both to the commissioner's rules, the relevant rules were not
+        located (Minnesota Rules chapter 7410 was fetched and is DRIVER LICENSING, not
+        plates), and the DVS website refused every request behind a bot-protection layer.
+        The regex is therefore the widest defensible alphanumeric frame and
+        `matching: recall-only` states plainly that a hit is a shape hit and nothing more.
+        Pinning the Minnesota arrangement is the single highest-value follow-up in this
+        group, because Minnesota is its largest state by vehicle count.
+    design:
+      contrast_rule: "§ 168.12 subd. 1(a): 'The color of the plates and the color of the abbreviation of the state name and the number assigned must be in marked contrast.'"
+      photometric_spec: >-
+        THE MOST DEMANDING PLATE SPECIFICATION IN GROUP MIDWEST-B, and it is legislated
+        rather than recommended. § 168.12 subd. 1(e), verbatim: 'The plates must be so
+        treated as to be at least 100 times brighter than the conventional painted number
+        plates. When properly mounted on an unlighted vehicle, the plates, when viewed from
+        a vehicle equipped with standard headlights, must be visible for a distance of not
+        less than 1,500 feet and readable for a distance of not less than 110 feet.' Three
+        testable quantities — a brightness RATIO against a named baseline, a visibility
+        distance and a readability distance — where most states legislate the word
+        'reflectorized' and stop.
+      weight_encoding: >-
+        § 168.12 subd. 1(b), verbatim: 'When a vehicle is registered on the basis of total
+        gross weight, the plates issued must clearly indicate by letters or other suitable
+        insignia the maximum gross weight for which the tax has been paid.' This is a
+        WEIGHT-CLASS ENCODING ON THE PLATE, mandated by statute — the Minnesota analogue of
+        a region code, and the reason `region_encoding` below is not simply 'none'. The
+        letters or insignia used, and their mapping to weight bands, are set by the
+        commissioner and were NOT obtained (recorded gap).
+      noncommercial_legend: >-
+        § 168.12 subd. 1(c), verbatim: 'Plates issued to a noncommercial vehicle must bear
+        the inscription "noncommercial" unless the vehicle is displaying a special plate
+        authorized and issued under this chapter.' A mandated NEGATIVE legend — the plate
+        declares what the vehicle is not — and one that a special plate switches off, so
+        the legend's absence proves nothing about the vehicle.
+      one_ton_pickup_rule: "§ 168.12 subd. 1(d): a one-ton pickup truck used for commercial purposes and subject to § 168.185 is nonetheless eligible to display special plates authorized under the chapter"
+      colour_note: >-
+        NO HEX IS RECORDED. § 168.12 mandates 'marked contrast' and a brightness ratio but
+        names no colour, and no Minnesota departmental colour specification or DVS page was
+        reachable. Recorded gap rather than an eyedropped value.
+      emblem: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+    replacement_cycle:
+      years: 7
+      statutory_text: >-
+        § 168.12 subd. 1(f)(2): 'Plates issued for passenger automobiles must be issued for
+        a seven-year period. All plates issued under this paragraph must be replaced if they
+        are seven years old or older at the time of registration renewal or will become so
+        during the registration period.'
+      note: >-
+        A GENUINE MANDATORY REPLACEMENT, at the bottom of AAMVA §1.1's recommended 7-to-10
+        year band — and note the forward-looking trigger, which is a nice piece of drafting:
+        a plate must be replaced not only if it IS seven years old at renewal but if it WILL
+        BECOME so during the coming registration period, so no plate is ever lawfully driven
+        past seven years. Contrast Missouri, whose statute sets a six-year FLOOR and no
+        ceiling, and North Dakota, which legislates no cycle at all.
+      other_classes: "§ 168.12 subd. 1(f)(5): plates for vehicles not otherwise specified 'must be issued for the life of the vehicle' — so the seven-year rule is a PASSENGER-CAR rule, and a Minnesota trailer or truck plate may be arbitrarily old and still current"
+      exempt_agency_plates: "§ 168.12 subd. 1(f)(1): plates issued under § 168.012 subd. 1 to an exempt agency last as long as the agency owns the vehicle, are not transferable between vehicles, but MAY transfer with the vehicle from one tax-exempt agency to another"
+      veterans_plates: "§ 168.12 subd. 1(f)(4): plates under subds. 2c and 2d and §§ 168.123, 168.1235 and 168.1255 are issued for the LIFE OF THE VETERAN under § 169.79"
+      stickers: "§ 168.12 subd. 1(g): in a year in which plates are not issued the commissioner issues a registration sticker showing the year or years for which it is issued; plates and stickers may not be transferred to another vehicle during that period, except for vehicles registered under § 168.187"
+    driver_education_transfer: "§ 168.12 subd. 1(h): plates on a vehicle used for behind-the-wheel instruction in a public-school driver education course may be transferred to another vehicle used for the same purpose without any additional fee, on notice to the commissioner"
+    region_encoding:
+      geographic: none
+      weight_class: >-
+        PRESENT AND STATUTORY, though not geographic: § 168.12 subd. 1(b) requires
+        gross-weight-registered vehicles to carry letters or insignia indicating the maximum
+        gross weight for which tax has been paid. A Minnesota plate on a weight-registered
+        vehicle therefore decodes to a WEIGHT BAND, which is a real decode target for the
+        parse API and is the Minnesota entry in this dataset's region_encoding slot.
+      decode_status: "the letter-or-insignia to weight-band mapping is set by the commissioner and was NOT obtained (recorded gap); a decode file is warranted once it is"
+      decode_file_planned: "plates/_decode/us-mn-gross-weight-letters.yml"
+    sources:
+      - "https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/168.12  # Minn. Stat. § 168.12 subd. 1(a): state name and assigned number, 'a combination of a letter or sign with figures', marked contrast, and delegation of lettering and spacing to the commissioner's rules; (b) the gross-weight letters or insignia; (c) the mandatory 'noncommercial' inscription and its special-plate exception; (d) the one-ton pickup rule; (e) the 100x brightness ratio, 1,500-foot visibility and 110-foot readability; (f)(1)-(5) the issuance periods including the seven-year passenger replacement and the life-of-vehicle default; (g) stickers in non-issue years; (h) the driver-education transfer. History: 2024 c 104 art 1 s 17"
+      - "https://www.aamva.org/getmedia/646bcc8a-219b-47d8-b5cd-726240473163/License-Plate-Standard-Edition-3_September-2025-Update.pdf  # AAMVA Ed.3 §1.1's 7-10 year recommendation, whose floor Minnesota legislated, and §3.3's 75-foot legibility figure against which Minnesota's statutory photometrics are markedly stricter"
+    notes: >-
+      MINNESOTA STANDARD ISSUE. THE ID IS DELIBERATELY UNDATED and the series is
+      deliberately `recall-only`, and the two go together: Minnesota legislates how BRIGHT
+      a plate must be and how LONG it may live, but delegates what is printed on it, so
+      this dataset can state Minnesota's physics precisely and its grammar not at all.
+      Recording that split honestly is more useful than a plausible-looking regex would be.
+      PERIOD CAVEAT: `start: 2024` is the last amendment year of § 168.12 and is an UPPER
+      BOUND on the true start of the current base, not a claim about it. THE ONE SERIES
+      BACK IS A RECORDED GAP: no primary establishing any Minnesota base-design boundary was
+      obtained, the DVS site was unreachable, and the commonly repeated 1978 date is
+      Wikipedia-grade and is not asserted here (see us_standards.folklore_caution).
+
+  # =========================================================================
+  # ROADABLE AIRCRAFT — the statutory bridge to the aircraft layer. This is a
+  # real series with a real, fully-specified format that Minnesota did not write.
+  # =========================================================================
+  - id: us-mn-roadable-aircraft
+    class: standard
+    categories: [aircraft]
+    period: { start: 2024 }
+    period_evidence: instrument-in-force-upper-bound
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "N99999"
+      regex: '\AN\d{1,5}[A-Z]{0,2}\z'
+      charset:
+        notes: >-
+          MINNESOTA ADOPTS A FEDERAL FORMAT BY REFERENCE. § 168.12 subd. 1(i), verbatim:
+          'In lieu of plates required under this section, the commissioner must issue a
+          registration number identical to the federally issued tail number assigned to a
+          roadable aircraft.' The grammar is therefore 14 CFR 47.15(b)'s, not Minnesota's:
+          'A U.S. registration number may not exceed five symbols in addition to the prefix
+          letter "N". These symbols may be all numbers (N10000), one to four numbers and one
+          suffix letter (N 1000A), or one to three numbers and two suffix letters (N 100AB).
+          The letters "I" and "O" may not be used. The first zero in a number must always be
+          preceded by at least one of the numbers 1 through 9.'
+        excluded: ["I", "O"]
+        excluded_basis: "14 CFR 47.15(b): 'The letters \"I\" and \"O\" may not be used' — a federal exclusion, and the only sourced letter exclusion anywhere in group midwest-b"
+      regex_strict: '\AN(?:[1-9]\d{0,4}|[1-9]\d{0,3}[A-HJ-NP-Z]|[1-9]\d{0,2}[A-HJ-NP-Z]{2})\z'
+      pattern_note: >-
+        `regex` is the shape of an N-number; `regex_strict` is the AUTHORITY'S OWN GRAMMAR
+        and narrows it on two counts the round-trippable form cannot carry — the I/O
+        exclusion, spelled as the ranges A-H, J-N and P-Z, and the leading-zero prohibition,
+        spelled by requiring the first symbol after N to be 1-9. This is a textbook case of
+        why PRD-PLATES §2.7's strict twin exists: the charset restriction is real, sourced
+        and unrepresentable in a regex that must round-trip a human pattern.
+    design:
+      note: "no plate design is prescribed — subd. 1(i) issues a registration NUMBER 'in lieu of plates required under this section', so what is displayed is the aircraft's existing tail number"
+      emblem: { present: false }
+    binding: vehicle
+    region_encoding: "none — an N-number encodes no geography; the FAA assigns it nationally"
+    sources:
+      - "https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/168.12  # Minn. Stat. § 168.12 subd. 1(i): 'the commissioner must issue a registration number identical to the federally issued tail number assigned to a roadable aircraft'"
+      - "https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/section-47.15  # 14 CFR 47.15(b): the N-number grammar Minnesota adopts by reference — five symbols after the N prefix, the three permitted arrangements, the I/O exclusion and the leading-zero rule. A US federal edict, public domain"
+    notes: >-
+      ROADABLE AIRCRAFT. This series is small, strange and genuinely valuable to the
+      dataset, because it is a STATUTORY BRIDGE between the road-vehicle layer this program
+      is building now and the aircraft layer PRD-PLATES §7 schedules for gate L6: Minnesota
+      law says a roadable aircraft's road registration number IS its FAA tail number. Two
+      consequences worth carrying forward. First, `categories: [aircraft]` exercises the
+      schema's kind-extensibility exactly as PRD-PLATES §2.2 anticipated, with no schema
+      change. Second, this is the only series in group midwest-b whose format is fully
+      specified by a fetched primary INCLUDING its charset exclusions, which is why it is
+      the only one here carrying a `regex_strict` — and the specification came from the
+      Code of Federal Regulations rather than from any state. The FAA additionally publishes
+      a free bulk registration database (registry.faa.gov/database/ReleasableAircraft.zip),
+      which would make this the one series in the group testable against a real corpus.
+
+  # =========================================================================
+  # COLLECTOR-VEHICLE FAMILY — four statutory inscriptions, one regime, and a
+  # permanent validity that makes them invisible to any era inference.
+  # =========================================================================
+  - id: us-mn-collector
+    class: historic
+    categories: [car, truck]
+    period: { start: 2024 }
+    period_evidence: instrument-in-force-upper-bound
+    matching: recall-only
+    format:
+      pattern: "LLL999"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z0-9](?: ?[A-Z0-9]){0,6}\z'
+      pattern_note: >-
+        REPRESENTATIVE SHAPE ONLY. § 168.10 gives each of these plates 'the registration
+        number OR OTHER COMBINATION OF CHARACTERS authorized under section 168.12,
+        subdivision 2a' — i.e. the serial may be an ordinary assigned number or a
+        personalized combination, so the series' own space is a union and
+        `matching: recall-only` is mandatory. § 168.12 subd. 2a itself was NOT read in this
+        pass (recorded gap), so the personalized frame it authorises is not encoded.
+    design:
+      legend_variants: ["Pioneer", "Classic Car", "Collector", "Street Rod"]
+      legend_rule: >-
+        § 168.10 prescribes the inscription for each sub-regime in near-identical terms:
+        the plate 'shall bear the inscription "Pioneer," "Minnesota" and the registration
+        number or other combination of characters authorized under section 168.12,
+        subdivision 2a, BUT NO DATE', and likewise for 'Classic Car', 'Collector' and
+        'Street Rod'. Four legends, one grammar, one validity rule.
+      no_date: "each of the four expressly bears NO DATE — which is the visible consequence of the permanent validity below, and a real trap for anyone dating a Minnesota vehicle from its plate"
+      emblem: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+      colour_note: "no hex recorded; § 168.10 prescribes inscriptions and silence on colour"
+    plate_count: "a SINGLE plate is issued for the Pioneer, Classic Car, Collector and Street Rod regimes ('shall issue a single number plate', § 168.10); a separate Collector provision issues plates in the plural, so the count is not uniform across the family"
+    validity: >-
+      PERMANENT AND UNRENEWED: 'The number plate is valid without renewal as long as the
+      vehicle is in existence in Minnesota' (§ 168.10, repeated for each sub-regime). The
+      commissioner may revoke for failure to comply with the subdivision.
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/168.10  # Minn. Stat. § 168.10: the 'Pioneer', 'Classic Car', 'Collector' and 'Street Rod' inscriptions, each with 'Minnesota' and the registration number or a § 168.12 subd. 2a character combination but NO DATE; single-plate issuance; validity without renewal as long as the vehicle exists in Minnesota; the commissioner's revocation power"
+      - "https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/168.12  # Minn. Stat. § 168.12 subd. 2a, cross-referenced by § 168.10 as the source of the alternative character combinations (text not read in this pass — recorded gap)"
+    notes: >-
+      THE MINNESOTA COLLECTOR FAMILY — Pioneer, Classic Car, Collector and Street Rod —
+      modelled as ONE series with four legend variants rather than four series, because
+      § 168.10 gives them a single grammar, a single validity rule and a single no-date
+      rule, and PRD-PLATES §2.3 makes a variant its own series only where format OR design
+      OR period differs. Here only the inscription word differs.
+      THE FACT WORTH CARRYING FORWARD is the interaction of two provisions: these plates
+      bear NO DATE and are valid FOREVER without renewal. A Minnesota collector plate
+      therefore carries no temporal information whatsoever, cannot be aged from its own
+      face, and may have been issued at any point since the regime began — which, together
+      with the year-of-manufacture regimes in North Dakota and Kansas, means every state in
+      this group has at least one class of plate that defeats era inference.
+      ELIGIBILITY THRESHOLDS for each of the four regimes are in § 168.10's subdivisions and
+      were not extracted in this pass (recorded gap).
+
+  # =========================================================================
+  # SPECIALTY — THE PROGRAM INDEX, per PRD-PLATES §2.5.
+  # =========================================================================
+  - id: us-mn-specialty-index
+    class: specialty
+    categories: [car, van, truck, motorcycle]
+    period: { start: 2024 }
+    period_evidence: instrument-in-force-upper-bound
+    matching: recall-only
+    format:
+      pattern: "999LLL"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z0-9](?: ?[A-Z0-9]){0,6}\z'
+      pattern_note: "REPRESENTATIVE SHAPE ONLY; the index stands for many programs whose arrangements are not individually stated and whose common frame was not sourced"
+    design:
+      note: "one design per authorised program; the designs themselves are L4 scope (PRD-PLATES §2.5) and none is described here"
+      emblem: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+    program_index:
+      count_official: null
+      count_status: >-
+        NOT ESTABLISHED. No Minnesota specialty-plate count was obtained: DVS pages sit
+        behind a bot-protection layer that refused every request in this pass, and the
+        statutory enumeration — Minnesota creates special plates in a long run of
+        subdivisions of § 168.12 and in §§ 168.123, 168.1235, 168.1255 and neighbours — was
+        not completed. Recording null with an explicit status is better than importing a
+        secondary figure.
+      structural_note: >-
+        WHAT IS SOURCED about the structure: § 168.12 subd. 1(c) shows special plates
+        DISPLACING the mandatory 'noncommercial' legend, and subd. 1(d) shows a commercial
+        one-ton pickup remaining eligible for them, so Minnesota special plates are
+        substitutes for the standard plate rather than overlays on it. § 168.12 subd. 2
+        (amateur radio) is one worked example: the commissioner issues amateur radio plates
+        to an owner of a passenger automobile or recreational vehicle who is a Minnesota
+        resident holding an FCC amateur or citizens-band class D licence in good standing,
+        on payment of the § 168.12 subd. 5 special-plate fee.
+      known_program_hooks: ["168.12 subd. 2 (amateur radio)", "168.12 subds. 2a, 2c, 2d", "168.123", "168.1235", "168.1255"]
+      official_list_url: "https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/168.12"
+      dvs_status: "the Minnesota DVS website (mn.gov/dps/dvs) was UNREACHABLE in this pass — a ShieldSquare/bot-protection challenge on every request, via two clients; recorded so a later run does not mistake it for unfetched-but-fine"
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/168.12  # Minn. Stat. § 168.12 subd. 2: the amateur radio plate and its eligibility and fee conditions, the worked example of a Minnesota special-plate authorization; subd. 1(c)-(d): special plates displacing the 'noncommercial' legend and remaining available to commercial one-ton pickups"
+      - "https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/168.10  # Minn. Stat. § 168.10: the collector-vehicle plate regimes, which sit alongside the specialty programs and are specified separately above"
+    notes: >-
+      THE SPECIALTY PROGRAM INDEX — present as required by PRD-PLATES §2.5, CARRYING NO
+      COUNT. Minnesota and Kansas are the two states in group midwest-b that yielded no
+      specialty figure at all, in both cases because the issuing agency's website refused
+      automated requests and the statutory enumeration was not completed. The honest record
+      is `count_official: null` plus the sourced structural facts and the specific hooks a
+      later pass should enumerate — which is materially more useful to a verifier than a
+      borrowed number would be.