vehicles 0.4.1 → 0.8.0

data/data/plates/us-hi.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,585 @@
+# plates/us-hi.yml — Hawaii (PRD-PLATES gate L2, group: pacific).
+#
+# HAWAII IS THE ONE US JURISDICTION IN THIS WAVE WHERE THE STATE DOES NOT ISSUE
+# THE PLATES. Under HRS chapter 249 the issuing officers are the four COUNTY
+# DIRECTORS OF FINANCE — City and County of Honolulu, and the Counties of
+# Hawaiʻi, Maui and Kauaʻi — and the design is settled among them, not by any
+# state agency: HRS § 249-9(a)(4) says number plates shall "Be of any shape,
+# size, and color, and with any arrangements of letters and numbers as may ...
+# be determined by the directors of finance of each county through majority
+# consent." Procurement is centralised — the Honolulu director "shall contract
+# annually on behalf of the counties" — but authority is not. A jurisdiction-
+# keyed schema therefore has to carry a jurisdiction whose "authority" is a
+# committee of four, and that is why `authority` below names the arrangement
+# rather than an agency.
+#
+# THE HEADLINE FACT, AND IT IS PROPERLY DATED: HRS § 249-9(a), as amended by
+# Act 64, Session Laws of Hawaii 2024, splits the legend requirement on a
+# calendar date. Plates issued BEFORE 1 January 2025 must bear "Hawaii";
+# plates issued ON OR AFTER 1 January 2025 must bear "Hawai`i" — with the
+# ʻokina. That is a statutory series boundary of a kind this dataset almost
+# never gets in the United States: a design change, in law, with a date, and it
+# lands squarely inside the coverage window. It is the spine of this file.
+#
+# NOTE ON THE ʻOKINA: the statute's glyph is the ʻokina (U+02BB). The
+# capitol.hawaii.gov HTML renders it as a backtick, and it is quoted below in
+# the form the instrument served. No serial in this dataset contains it — it
+# appears only in the LEGEND, never in the plate number, so PRD-PLATES §2.6's
+# serial alphabet is untouched.
+#
+# SOURCING NOTE: capitol.hawaii.gov is behind a Cloudflare challenge that
+# refuses automated fetches (403 on every attempt, including with a browser
+# user agent). Every HRS quotation below was taken from the Internet Archive's
+# capture of the official capitol.hawaii.gov HRS pages, whose snapshot date
+# (7 January 2025) is recorded with each citation. That is a mirror of an
+# edict of government, which is public domain at every level, but it is a
+# MIRROR and a verifier with human browser access should re-read the live text.
+jurisdiction: us-hi
+authority:
+  name: "The four county directors of finance (City and County of Honolulu; County of Hawaiʻi; County of Maui; County of Kauaʻi), acting under HRS chapter 249 — the Honolulu director contracts for all plates on behalf of the counties"
+  url: "https://www8.honolulu.gov/csd/motor-vehicle-license-plates/"
+binding: vehicle
+statute_edition: >-
+  Hawaii Revised Statutes chapter 249 (County Vehicular Taxes) as published at
+  capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent, read 2026-08 via the Internet Archive capture
+  of the 7 January 2025 file set; § 249-9 as last amended by L 2024, c 64, § 1.
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# artwork_risk — required per jurisdiction by PRD-PLATES §4/§7.1.
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+artwork_risk:
+  posture: adverse-on-commercial-reuse
+  basis: >-
+    HAWAII IS THE FIRST STATE IN THIS PROGRAMME WITH AN EXPRESS, FETCHED,
+    ANTI-COMMERCIAL-REUSE TERM ON ITS OWN PORTAL. The State of Hawaiʻi web
+    portal's Terms of Use carries, verbatim: "Duplication or use of any content
+    from this web site for commercial purposes or in any manner likely to give
+    the impression of official approval by the State of Hawaiʻi is prohibited."
+    That is narrower than an outright copyright assertion — it targets
+    COMMERCIAL duplication and false endorsement rather than claiming copyright
+    in every state work — but it is adverse to a paid render bundle and must be
+    treated as such. No Commons {{PD-HIGov}} tag exists (checked: the template
+    page returns 404), so Hawaii has no counterpart to Florida's or
+    California's public-domain tag.
+  countervailing: >-
+    The FACTS in this file are almost entirely drawn from HRS chapter 249,
+    which is an EDICT OF GOVERNMENT and public domain at every level
+    (PRD-PLATES §4). Nothing in a terms-of-use page can reach the text of a
+    statute. So the format, geometry, legend and class facts here are clean;
+    it is the ARTWORK — the rainbow graphic — that the term bites on.
+  emblem_rule: >-
+    PRD-PLATES §3's placeholder default applies with unusual force in Hawaii,
+    for two independent reasons. (1) The RAINBOW graphic that fills the
+    standard plate is the design's entire identity and is not described in any
+    instrument — it is departmental artwork, and the portal terms forbid
+    commercial duplication of state web content. (2) The GREAT SEAL and COAT
+    OF ARMS are separately criminalised.
+  seal_regime: >-
+    SOURCED, AND THE FIRST TIME IN THIS PROGRAMME. The US/world dossier flagged
+    state seal statutes as "the largest remaining gap in the IP analysis"
+    because none had been pinned. Hawaii's is now pinned, quoted by the State's
+    own portal: "Pursuant to Section 5-6, Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes, whoever
+    uses any representation of the great seal or the coat of arms of the State
+    in any advertisement or for any commercial purpose or in any manner likely
+    to give the impression of official State approval shall be guilty of a
+    MISDEMEANOR. The preceding sentence shall not be construed to apply to the
+    use of the seal or the coat of arms in any newspaper, periodical, book, or
+    pamphlet wherein the seal or coat of arms is printed for informational
+    purposes only." Two consequences worth carrying to every other state file:
+    the protection is CRIMINAL and independent of copyright, so a favourable
+    copyright posture does not clear a seal; and the informational-use carve-out
+    is drawn around publications, not around software or renders. Do not render
+    the seal. The § 5-6 text itself was quoted from the portal rather than from
+    the HRS page (capitol.hawaii.gov blocked); reading the statute directly is
+    a recorded follow-up.
+  photograph_caution: >-
+    No Hawaii plate photograph was licence-checked in this pass (recorded gap).
+    The standing rule applies regardless: a Commons tag on a plate photograph
+    is the PHOTOGRAPHER's licence on the PHOTOGRAPH, never a licence on the
+    design, and our renders are generated from statute so no obligation
+    attaches.
+  sources:
+    - "https://portal.ehawaii.gov/page/terms-of-use/  # State of Hawaiʻi portal Terms of Use: the commercial-duplication prohibition, and the verbatim HRS § 5-6 seal/coat-of-arms misdemeanour with its informational-use carve-out"
+    - "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:PD-HIGov&action=raw  # returns 404 — there is NO Hawaii public-domain tag on Commons, unlike PD-FLGov and PD-CAGov. A negative result, recorded as one."
+    - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0009.htm  # HRS § 249-9 — an edict of government, public domain, and the source of every design fact in this file"
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# The US standards chain, recorded per state. Hawaii is the interesting case:
+# it is the only jurisdiction in this wave that legislates CHARACTER GEOMETRY
+# itself, and its statutory minimum EXCEEDS AAMVA's recommendation.
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+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 must be read as RECOMMENDED PRACTICE."
+  aamva_edition_3:
+    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 dataset."
+    character_layout: "AAMVA §2.2 recommends characters at least 2.5 in high with stroke weight 0.2-0.4 in."
+    hawaii_exceeds_it: >-
+      HRS § 249-9(a), verbatim: "The numerals on all number plates shall be no
+      less than three inches in height and the strokes thereof no less than
+      three-eighths inch in width, except in the case of motorcycles, in which
+      case the numerals shall be no less than one inch in height and the
+      strokes thereof no less than one-eighth inch in width." Three inches is
+      HALF AN INCH TALLER than AAMVA's recommended minimum, and 3/8 inch is
+      inside AAMVA's 0.2-0.4 in stroke band. This is the only statutory
+      character geometry found in the pacific group and one of the few in the
+      US pass — a legislature specifying renderable numbers rather than
+      delegating them.
+    replacement_cycle: "AAMVA §1.1 recommends a cycle 'not to exceed 7 to 10 years'. HAWAII HAS NO CYCLE: HRS § 249-7(b) contemplates 'the issuance of a new series of number plates as determined by the directors of finance of each county through majority consent' — an event, decided by committee, with no period attached. That is why the rainbow base ran from 1991 to 2025."
+    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
+    and is not relied on here. Hawaii's own instrument is better: HRS § 249-12
+    "Standard size license plates" empowers each county director to issue
+    standard-size plates "in connection with the first registration of a motor
+    vehicle subsequent to September 1, 1956" — a legislated 1956 standard-size
+    cutover, in law, with a date. Where the folklore says an industry
+    association agreed something in 1956, Hawaii's statute book shows a
+    legislature acting in 1955-56. The two are not the same claim and only the
+    second is cited.
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Display rules — statutory, and unusually detailed for a US state.
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+display_rules:
+  default: "TWO plates, front and rear. HRS § 249-7(a): the director of finance furnishes 'two number plates for the vehicle or one plate in the case of trailers, semitrailers, or motorcycles'. § 249-7(b): 'The owner shall securely fasten the number plates on the vehicle, one on the front and the other on the rear, at a location provided by the manufacturer or in the absence of such a location upon the bumpers of the vehicle and in conformance with section 291-31, in such a manner as to prevent the plates from swinging.'"
+  one_plate_vehicles: "trailers, semitrailers and motorcycles (HRS § 249-7(a)); the single plate is fastened to the rear, and for motorcycles in conformance with § 291-31 (§ 249-7(b)). Mopeds likewise get one rear plate (§ 249-14.1(c))."
+  legibility: "HRS § 249-7(b): 'Number plates shall at all times be displayed entirely unobscured and be kept reasonably clean.'"
+  validation: "HRS § 249-7(c): the annual tag or emblem is affixed 'to the top right portion of the rear number plate'. State, county, board-of-water-supply and foreign-government vehicles are issued registrations 'which need be renewed only in the new plate issue year' — so a government plate can carry no current emblem and still be valid. § 249-14.1(d) puts the moped emblem in the same top-right position."
+  case_note: "Hawaii appellate authority holds that placing safety-check emblems ON the plate can itself be an obstructed-plate infraction, and that the violation 'does not require that the license plate numbers, specifically, be obstructed' (112 H. 233 (App.), 145 P.3d 776 (2006), noted under § 249-7). Recorded because it is the only case note found on any plate-display statute in this wave."
+  penalty: "Transfer of current number plates, tag or emblem other than as authorised is punishable by a fine of not more than $50 per offence (HRS § 249-7(a)); moped registration failures up to $100 per violation (§ 249-14.1(e))."
+  sources:
+    - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0007.htm  # § 249-7: two plates (one for trailers/semitrailers/motorcycles), the front-and-rear fastening rule, the anti-swing and unobscured requirements, the top-right emblem position, the government renewal exception, the $50 transfer fine, and the 2006 obstructed-plate case note"
+    - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0014_0001.htm  # § 249-14.1: moped plates, one rear plate, top-right emblem, $27 annual fee, $100 penalty"
+
+series:
+
+  # =========================================================================
+  # THE CURRENT STANDARD SERIES — the ʻokina base, mandated from 1 Jan 2025.
+  # =========================================================================
+  - id: us-hi-standard-2025
+    class: standard
+    categories: [car, van, truck, bus]
+    period: { start: 2025 }
+    period_evidence: statutory-date
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "LLL 999"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z]{3} ?\d{3}\z'
+      charset:
+        excluded: [I, O, Q]
+        excluded_basis: >-
+          LOCATOR-GRADE, NOT STATUTORY. HRS § 249-9 states no letter
+          exclusions; it requires only "a distinct contrast between the color
+          of the plate and the numerals and letters thereon" and leaves the
+          arrangement to the county directors. The reported exclusion of I, O
+          and Q comes from the collector literature and from a Honolulu
+          Star-Bulletin "Kokua Line" column, both cited through Wikipedia as a
+          locator. Recorded as reported, not asserted.
+        notes: >-
+          THERE IS NO STATUTORY CHARACTER CAP AND NO STATUTORY ARRANGEMENT.
+          HRS § 249-9(a)(4) hands both to the counties: plates shall "Be of any
+          shape, size, and color, and with any arrangements of letters and
+          numbers as may, subject to sections 249-1 to 249-13, be determined by
+          the directors of finance of each county through majority consent."
+          The three-letter/three-numeral arrangement encoded here is therefore
+          OBSERVED, corroborated by the collector literature and by the
+          county's own plate illustration, and is not traceable to any
+          instrument — because the instrument that fixes it is a majority
+          consent among four county officers, which is not published anywhere
+          that was located. That is a recorded gap and a real research target:
+          the decision exists, it is just not a document we have.
+      progression: "The letter group advances; the numeral group cycles. Not published in any instrument located."
+    design:
+      plate: { w: 12, h: 6, unit: in, w_mm: 304.8, h_mm: 152.4 }
+      plate_dimension_note: "12 x 6 in is the North American convention and is OBSERVED here, not statutory: HRS § 249-9(a)(4) permits 'any shape, size'. § 249-12 legislates only that 'standard size license plates' may be issued from the first registration after 1 September 1956, without stating the size."
+      character_geometry: { min_height_in: 3, min_stroke_in: 0.375, basis: "HRS § 249-9(a), verbatim; motorcycles 1 in height / 0.125 in stroke" }
+      background: { color: "#FFFFFF", finish: retroreflective, hex_basis: observed }
+      foreground: "#000000"
+      colour_note: >-
+        NEITHER VALUE IS IN THE STATUTE. HRS § 249-9(a)(3) requires only "a
+        distinct contrast between the color of the plate and the numerals and
+        letters thereon" — a design PROPERTY, not a value, the same drafting
+        move Florida makes for its historic plates. Black characters on a
+        reflective white ground with a screened rainbow are OBSERVED. Attorney
+        General Opinion 67-17, noted under § 249-9, adds that "All motor
+        vehicle number plates must be uniform in all respects including the
+        reflective material" — so uniformity across the four counties is
+        itself an authority-stated requirement.
+      legend_top: "HAWAI`I"
+      legend_bottom: "Aloha State"
+      legend_rule: >-
+        HRS § 249-9(a), as amended by L 2024, c 64, verbatim: all number plates
+        shall "(1) If issued before January 1, 2025, bear the word 'Hawaii'
+        along the upper portion of the plate and the words 'Aloha State' along
+        the lower portion of the plate; (2) If issued on or after January 1,
+        2025, bear the word 'Hawai`i' along the upper portion of the plate and
+        the words 'Aloha State' along the lower portion of the plate; provided
+        that both 'Hawai`i' and 'Aloha State' may either contain all uppercase
+        or lowercase letters or have the first letter of each word be
+        uppercase". The glyph is the ʻOKINA (U+02BB); the official HTML renders
+        it as a backtick and it is transcribed here as served. Note the
+        statute's deliberate CASE PERMISSIVENESS — a legislature explicitly
+        declining to fix capitalisation is rare and is exactly the sort of
+        thing a render spec must not over-determine.
+      graphic: { present: true, rendered: placeholder, description: "a rainbow screened across the plate, unchanged in kind from the 1991 base; not described in any instrument, and covered by the portal's commercial-duplication term (see artwork_risk)" }
+      emblem: { present: false }
+      band: { side: none }
+      rear_differs: false
+      county_legend: "The issuing county's name is printed on the plate (City and County of Honolulu; County of Hawaiʻi; County of Maui; County of Kauaʻi). Like Florida's county legend it is TEXT, not code — but unlike Florida's it is not optional, because the county is the issuing authority."
+    region_encoding:
+      mechanism: "county-letter prefix in the FIRST character of the serial, plus the county name printed as a legend"
+      evidence: "LOCATOR-GRADE — reported, not sourced. No instrument publishing the allocation was located; see the charset note on the county-consent gap."
+      table_reported:
+        honolulu: ["E", "F", "G", "J", "N", "P", "R", "S", "T", "W", "Y", "A", "B", "C", "D"]
+        hawaii: ["H", "Z"]
+        maui: ["M", "L"]
+        kauai: ["K"]
+      table_note: >-
+        Reported allocation carried forward from the 1991 base. Honolulu's
+        original set was E F G J N P R S T W Y; the letters A, B, C and D were
+        reported added in late 2023 when the series was projected to exhaust at
+        W in mid-2024, which is reported to extend the rainbow series about
+        fifteen years. THE ADDITION MATTERS FOR DECODE: A-D were NOT Honolulu
+        letters on plates issued before ~2023, so a decoder keying on the first
+        letter alone must also know the era. Every element of this table is
+        locator-grade (collector literature plus a 2010 Honolulu Star-Bulletin
+        column plus a 2024 KHON2 report, all reached through Wikipedia) and
+        NONE of it is asserted as sourced.
+    sources:
+      - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0009.htm  # § 249-9(a)(1)-(4): the 1 January 2025 'Hawaii' -> 'Hawai`i' legend split (am L 2024, c 64), 'Aloha State' at the bottom, the case permissiveness, the distinct-contrast rule, the any-shape/size/color delegation to the county directors by majority consent, the 3 in / 3/8 in character geometry, the Honolulu procurement contract, and AG Op. 67-17 on uniformity"
+      - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0007.htm  # § 249-7(b): a new series of number plates is issued 'as determined by the directors of finance of each county through majority consent' — the mechanism by which a Hawaii base changes"
+      - "https://www8.honolulu.gov/csd/motor-vehicle-license-plates/  # City and County of Honolulu, the issuing authority for Oʻahu: the standard plate illustration showing Hawaii spelled with the ʻokina; the $5.00 plate replacement and $0.50 emblem replacement fees"
+      - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Hawaii  # LOCATOR ONLY (PRD-PLATES §4): the ABC 123 arrangement, the county-letter allocation table, the I/O/Q exclusion, and the 2023 addition of A-D to Honolulu. None asserted as sourced."
+    notes: >-
+      HAWAII'S CURRENT STANDARD SERIES, AND THE BEST-DATED SERIES BOUNDARY IN
+      THE ENTIRE PACIFIC GROUP. `period_evidence: statutory-date` is earned:
+      HRS § 249-9(a)(2) says in terms that plates issued ON OR AFTER 1 JANUARY
+      2025 bear "Hawai`i" with the ʻokina, and § 249-9(a)(1) says plates issued
+      before that date bear "Hawaii" without it. A legend difference is a design
+      difference and therefore its own series under PRD-PLATES §2.3, so the
+      boundary is not a curiosity — it is the cut. It also produces something a
+      parse API can actually use: two visually near-identical rainbow plates
+      whose ERA is readable from a single diacritic. THE LIMIT OF THIS ENTRY,
+      STATED PLAINLY: the legend and the geometry are law; the SERIAL
+      ARRANGEMENT is not, because Hawaii delegates it to a majority consent
+      among four county finance directors that is not published. Everything
+      format-shaped here is observed and says so.
+
+  # =========================================================================
+  # ONE SERIES BACK — the rainbow base without the ʻokina, 1991 to 2025.
+  # =========================================================================
+  - id: us-hi-rainbow-1991
+    class: standard
+    categories: [car, van, truck, bus]
+    period: { start: 1991, end: 2025 }
+    period_evidence: statutory-date-end-secondary-start
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "LLL 999"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z]{3} ?\d{3}\z'
+      charset:
+        excluded: [I, O, Q]
+        excluded_basis: "LOCATOR-GRADE, as on the successor series."
+        notes: "Same delegation, same absence of a statutory arrangement or cap. The format did not change at the 2025 boundary; only the legend did."
+    design:
+      plate: { w: 12, h: 6, unit: in }
+      character_geometry: { min_height_in: 3, min_stroke_in: 0.375, basis: "HRS § 249-9(a) — unchanged across the boundary" }
+      background: { color: "#FFFFFF", finish: retroreflective, hex_basis: observed }
+      foreground: "#000000"
+      legend_top: "HAWAII"
+      legend_bottom: "Aloha State"
+      legend_rule: "HRS § 249-9(a)(1): plates 'issued before January 1, 2025' bear the word 'Hawaii' — no ʻokina — at the top and 'Aloha State' at the bottom. The statute describes this base in the past tense while it is still overwhelmingly the plate on the road, which is the honest position: Hawaii has no replacement cycle, so 1991-base plates remain valid indefinitely."
+      graphic: { present: true, rendered: placeholder, description: "screened rainbow, the design that gave the base its collector name" }
+      emblem: { present: false }
+      rear_differs: false
+    region_encoding:
+      mechanism: "county-letter prefix in the first character, plus the printed county name"
+      evidence: "LOCATOR-GRADE"
+      table_reported:
+        honolulu: ["E", "F", "G", "J", "N", "P", "R", "S", "T", "W", "Y"]
+        hawaii: ["H", "Z"]
+        maui: ["M", "L"]
+        kauai: ["K"]
+      table_note: "The pre-2023 Honolulu set, before A-D were reported added. The predecessor 1981-1991 base is reported to have used a narrower Honolulu set (A, B, C, D as FIRST letter, with H, K, L and M reserved to the neighbour islands) — i.e. the letters reported re-added to Honolulu in 2023 are letters Honolulu had used forty years earlier. Locator-grade throughout."
+    sources:
+      - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0009.htm  # § 249-9(a)(1): plates issued BEFORE 1 January 2025 bear 'Hawaii' and 'Aloha State' — the statutory END of this series; and the section's history line, which records an amendment by L 1990, c 132, § 2 the year before the reported base change"
+      - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Hawaii  # LOCATOR ONLY: the 1991 start of the rainbow base, the county-letter tables, and the 2023 Honolulu letter addition"
+    notes: >-
+      THE RAINBOW BASE. ITS END IS STATUTORY AND ITS START IS NOT, and the
+      `period_evidence` value says so rather than pretending otherwise. The end
+      is HRS § 249-9(a)(1)'s "issued before January 1, 2025". The start of 1991
+      is LOCATOR-GRADE (Wikipedia and the collector literature) — but it is not
+      naked: § 249-9's own history line records "am L 1990, c 132, § 2", an
+      amendment the year before the reported base change, which is exactly
+      where a legend requirement would have entered the statute. THE ACT'S TEXT
+      WAS NOT OBTAINED (recorded gap); reading Act 132, SLH 1990 would either
+      convert this start into a statutory date or refute it, and it is the
+      single highest-value follow-up in this file. Note also that this series
+      does not stop being relevant at the boundary: Hawaii has no replacement
+      cycle, so rainbow plates without the ʻokina will outnumber ʻokina plates
+      on Hawaii roads for many years, and a parse API should weight
+      accordingly.
+
+  # =========================================================================
+  # PERSONALIZED — statutory, capped at six, and the only place in this
+  # dataset where a HYPHEN is authorised inside an owner-chosen configuration.
+  # =========================================================================
+  - id: us-hi-special-number-plates
+    class: personalized
+    categories: [car, van, truck, motorcycle, trailer]
+    period: { start: 2026 }
+    period_evidence: instrument-in-force-upper-bound
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "LLLLLL"
+      regex: '\A(?=[A-Z0-9]*-?[A-Z0-9]*\z)(?:[A-Z0-9]-?){1,6}\z'
+      charset:
+        notes: >-
+          HRS § 249-9.1, verbatim: "The special number plates shall conform to
+          the requirements provided for the uniform number plates except that
+          the owner may request the choice and arrangement of letters and
+          numbers. The maximum number of letters and numbers shall be six and
+          only one hyphen will be allowed in addition to and in lieu of the six
+          letters and numerals. No other punctuation marks shall be allowed."
+          The regex encodes exactly that: one to six characters from the serial
+          alphabet, with AT MOST ONE hyphen anywhere among them. The lookahead
+          is what enforces "at most one"; the body is what enforces the
+          six-character cap on the alphanumerics themselves.
+        refusal_rule: "§ 249-9.1: the director 'shall not issue special number plates which have the letter and numeral combination of regular plates, are misleading or publicly objectionable' — a collision rule plus a taste rule, in one sentence, with no published criteria list (contrast California's VIRPM 21.180, which publishes both the criteria and the excluded strings)."
+      separator_note: >-
+        PRD-PLATES §2.6 SANCTIONS THIS AND HAWAII IS WHY THE RULE IS WRITTEN AS
+        IT IS. The hyphen here is an EMITTED SEPARATOR (U+002D), spelled as a
+        literal, never inside a character class, so a consumer deriving the
+        separator-free twin deletes it and recovers the six-character serial
+        without loss. The statute's phrase "in addition to and in lieu of" is
+        genuinely ambiguous — it reads as permitting the hyphen either as a
+        seventh printed character or as a substitute for one of the six — and
+        the regex takes the reading that the SIX-CHARACTER CAP BINDS THE
+        ALPHANUMERICS, which is the narrower and safer of the two. The
+        ambiguity is recorded, not resolved.
+    design:
+      plate: { w: 12, h: 6, unit: in }
+      note: "Conforms to the uniform plate in every respect but the configuration (§ 249-9.1)."
+      background: { color: "#FFFFFF", finish: retroreflective, hex_basis: observed }
+      foreground: "#000000"
+    fee: "$60 on initial application and $60 on each annual renewal, non-refundable (HRS § 249-9.1)."
+    reapplication_rule: >-
+      HRS § 249-9.1: "Re-application for special number plates must be made
+      upon a change in design of regular plates." A DESIGN CHANGE FORCES EVERY
+      VANITY HOLDER TO RE-APPLY — which means the 1 January 2025 ʻokina
+      boundary is not merely cosmetic for this series, it is a re-issuance
+      event, and it is the clearest evidence in the file that Hawaii treats a
+      legend change as a NEW SERIES in its own administrative practice. The
+      director may also "discard and allow for new applications of inactive
+      special number plates that have not been assigned or registered during
+      the preceding three years."
+    region_encoding: none
+    region_encoding_note: "An owner-chosen configuration carries no county letter, so the county name legend is the only geographic signal on a Hawaii vanity plate."
+    sources:
+      - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0009_0001.htm  # § 249-9.1: six letters and numerals maximum, one hyphen, no other punctuation, the collision and objectionability refusal rule, the $60 initial and $60 annual fees, the three-year inactivity discard, and the re-application-on-design-change duty"
+    notes: >-
+      HAWAII'S VANITY PLATE IS THE ONLY SERIES IN THIS DATASET WHOSE AUTHORITY
+      EXPRESSLY LEGISLATES A SEPARATOR INSIDE AN OWNER-CHOSEN STRING, and it
+      does so twice over: it permits exactly one hyphen and then forbids
+      everything else ("No other punctuation marks shall be allowed"). That is
+      a statutory confirmation of the separator contract from the outside — a
+      legislature independently arriving at the same closed set PRD-PLATES §2.6
+      declares. The re-application-on-design-change rule is the other keeper:
+      it is administrative proof that the counties themselves treat a legend
+      change as a break in the series, which corroborates cutting
+      us-hi-standard-2025 away from us-hi-rainbow-1991.
+
+  # =========================================================================
+  # HISTORIC — permanent, numbered from 1, and labelled by statute.
+  # =========================================================================
+  - id: us-hi-horseless-carriage
+    class: historic
+    categories: [car]
+    period: { start: 2026 }
+    period_evidence: instrument-in-force-upper-bound
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "999"
+      regex: '\A\d+\z'
+      charset:
+        notes: >-
+          HRS § 249-9(c), verbatim: "The registration numerals and special
+          number plates assigned to antique motor vehicles shall be labeled
+          'Horseless Carriage' and 'Permanent' and shall run in a separate
+          numerical series, commencing with Horseless Carriage No. 1." A
+          separate numerical series with a stated origin and NO STATED WIDTH,
+          hence the unbounded quantifier, which makes no width claim.
+      progression: "strictly sequential from 1"
+    design:
+      plate: { w: 12, h: 6, unit: in }
+      background: { finish: retroreflective }
+      legend: "Horseless Carriage"
+      legend_secondary: "Permanent"
+      legend_rule: "§ 249-9(c) mandates BOTH labels — 'Horseless Carriage' AND 'Permanent'. Hawaii is the only jurisdiction in this wave that legislates the word 'Permanent' onto the plate face, which is a design fact and also a validity fact printed on the artefact."
+      colour_note: "No colour is stated for this plate anywhere in § 249-9 (contrast Florida and California, which at least require a 'distinguishing' colour). None is recorded."
+    eligibility: "'any antique motor vehicle' (HRS § 249-9(c)) — the section does NOT define antique, and no definition was located in chapter 249 (recorded gap). Contrast Florida's fixed 1945 model-year cutoff and California's fixed 1922 / 16-cylinder-pre-1965 rule."
+    validity: "permanent — 'valid for use on such vehicles so long as the vehicle is in existence in lieu of the uniform state number plates' (§ 249-9(c)). The director may 'discard and allow for new applications of inactive special number plates that have not been assigned or registered during the preceding three years'."
+    fee: "$10, in addition to any other fee applicable to antique motor vehicles (HRS § 249-9(c))."
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0009.htm  # § 249-9(c): the $10 permanent antique plate, the 'Horseless Carriage' and 'Permanent' labels, the separate numerical series from No. 1, the three-year inactivity discard"
+    notes: >-
+      HORSELESS CARRIAGE. THE THIRD "HORSELESS CARRIAGE NO. 1" IN THIS
+      PROGRAMME — Florida § 320.086(1), California VC § 5004 and Hawaii
+      § 249-9(c) all legislate a separate numerical series commencing with
+      exactly that phrase. Three states, three statute books, one sentence
+      shape: that is no longer a coincidence and is worth recording as a
+      probable shared model act for whoever does the L4 historical pass.
+      Hawaii's differs in two ways that matter: it prints 'Permanent' on the
+      plate, and it does not define "antique motor vehicle" at all, which makes
+      its eligibility the least determinate of the three.
+
+  # =========================================================================
+  # CORE CLASSES the counties separately serialize.
+  # =========================================================================
+  - id: us-hi-moped
+    class: moped
+    categories: [moped]
+    period: { start: 2016 }
+    period_evidence: statutory-enactment-year
+    matching: recall-only
+    format:
+      pattern: "LLLLLL"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z0-9]{1,6}\z'
+      charset:
+        notes: >-
+          NO ARRANGEMENT IS PUBLISHED. HRS § 249-14.1 creates the moped plate
+          and its administration in detail — production, staggered
+          registration, the $27 annual fee, the fee structure, the rear
+          mounting, the top-right emblem — and says nothing whatever about the
+          serial. The regex is therefore deliberately over-broad and this
+          series is `matching: recall-only`: a hit is a shape observation, not
+          a validity claim. Recorded gap.
+    design:
+      plate: { unit: in }
+      plate_dimension_note: "Not stated in § 249-14.1 and not obtained. Moped plates are reduced-size in practice; no measurement is recorded rather than guessed."
+      background: { finish: unknown }
+      note: "The moped plate is not a 'number plate' under § 249-9 and is not caught by that section's legend and geometry requirements; § 249-14.1 imposes none of its own."
+    display: "one plate, fastened to the REAR of the moped at a manufacturer-provided location or otherwise on the fender, in conformance with § 291-31 and 'in such a manner as to prevent the plate from swinging' (§ 249-14.1(c)); emblem to the top right of the rear plate (§ 249-14.1(d))."
+    fee: "$27 per year registration fee, plus the plate cost and administrative cost on original registration and 50 cents for the tag or emblem (§ 249-14.1(b)-(c))."
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0014_0001.htm  # § 249-14.1 (L 2016, c 200; am L 2018, c 77): moped number plates, one rear plate, staggered registration by county agreement, $27 annual fee, 50-cent emblem, top-right emblem placement, $100 penalty"
+    notes: >-
+      MOPED PLATES ARE A 2016 CREATION IN HAWAII — § 249-14.1 was enacted by
+      Act 200, Session Laws of Hawaii 2016 and amended by Act 77 of 2018, which
+      is why `start: 2016` is claimed on the enactment year rather than as an
+      upper bound. Before that mopeds carried a bicycle-style tag under the
+      neighbouring sections. The series is `recall-only` for the honest reason
+      that the statute regulates everything about the plate EXCEPT what is
+      printed on it.
+
+  - id: us-hi-temporary
+    class: temporary
+    categories: [car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle]
+    period: { start: 2026 }
+    period_evidence: instrument-in-force-upper-bound
+    matching: recall-only
+    format:
+      pattern: "LLLLLLL"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z0-9]{1,8}\z'
+      charset:
+        notes: "NO ARRANGEMENT IS PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER 249. § 249-7.5 refers the temporary plate out to HRS § 286-53, which was NOT fetched in this pass (recorded gap — capitol.hawaii.gov is Cloudflare-blocked and only the chapter 249 files were retrievable from the archive). The regex is a deliberate over-broad placeholder and the series is `recall-only` accordingly."
+    design:
+      material: "not stated in chapter 249"
+      background: { finish: unknown }
+    validity: >-
+      HRS § 249-7.5, verbatim: "Any person who has purchased a new motor
+      vehicle which has attached a temporary number plate under section 286-53
+      shall register the new motor vehicle in accordance with this chapter
+      within thirty days after taking possession of the motor vehicle." The
+      county then furnishes the permanent plates "Within thirty days of the
+      original registration", and "Upon attachment of the number plates, the
+      temporary number plate provided under section 286-53 shall be destroyed."
+      So the temporary plate has a hard THIRTY-DAY life and a statutory
+      destruction duty — an unusually explicit end-of-life rule.
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0007_0005.htm  # § 249-7.5 (L 1980, c 133; am L 1990, c 131; am L 1999, c 207): the § 286-53 temporary number plate, the thirty-day registration duty, the thirty-day plate delivery, and the destruction requirement"
+    notes: >-
+      TEMPORARY PLATES. Included because temporary issuance is a core L2 class
+      and because § 249-7.5 gives it a genuinely sourced LIFECYCLE even though
+      it gives no format: thirty days to register, thirty days to receive
+      metal, destroy the temporary on attachment. The format itself lives in
+      HRS § 286-53, which is in a chapter this pass could not retrieve, and
+      that is the honest limit of the entry.
+
+  # =========================================================================
+  # SPECIALTY — THE PROGRAM INDEX, per PRD-PLATES §2.5. Hawaii's programme is
+  # structurally unlike Florida's or California's: it is a DECAL regime, run
+  # by the counties, with the size of the decal fixed by statute.
+  # =========================================================================
+  - id: us-hi-organization-index
+    class: specialty
+    categories: [car, van, truck, motorcycle]
+    period: { start: 2026 }
+    period_evidence: instrument-in-force-upper-bound
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "LLL 999"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z]{3} ?\d{3}\z'
+      charset: { notes: "An organization plate is a UNIFORM plate carrying a decal, so it takes the ordinary county serial unchanged. That is the structural difference from Florida and California, whose specialty plates are separately manufactured designs." }
+    design:
+      plate: { w: 12, h: 6, unit: in }
+      background: { finish: retroreflective }
+      decal_geometry: >-
+        THE ONLY SPECIALTY GEOMETRY IN HAWAII LAW, AND IT IS A CEILING RATHER
+        THAN A LAYOUT. HRS § 249-9.3(a): the Honolulu director of finance, "in
+        consultation with the directors of finance of the counties of Kauai,
+        Maui, and Hawaii, shall establish special design parameters and
+        restrictions for decals or graphic representations affixable to special
+        number plates; provided that the decal shall not be larger than three
+        inches wide by three inches high." The parameters themselves are
+        delegated and were not located (recorded gap); only the 3 in x 3 in
+        maximum is statutory.
+      emblem: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+      note: "One decal per authorised organization; the decal designs themselves are L4 scope (PRD-PLATES §2.5) and none is described here."
+    program_index:
+      count_official: null
+      count_official_note: >-
+        NO COUNT IS PUBLISHED BY ANY OF THE FOUR COUNTIES OR BY THE STATE, and
+        none was located. That is a structural consequence of the design: the
+        programme is administered by four separate county directors under
+        § 249-9.3, so there is no single register to count. RECORDED AS AN
+        ABSENCE. Contrast Florida ("over 100", stated by FLHSMV) and California
+        (no total, but three published category lists).
+      eligibility_rule: >-
+        HRS § 249-9.3(b) defines "Organization" as (1) an IRS-recognised
+        not-for-profit "whose primary purpose is to provide the community with
+        specific programs to improve the public's health, education, or general
+        welfare"; (2) a military service veterans group; (3) a state or county
+        agency approved by the director; or (4) "Any school or accredited
+        institution of higher learning or a college or recognized program
+        thereof." All organizations "shall be headquartered in the State",
+        except that a chapter of a national or international body must be in
+        good standing and authorised in writing by its parent to use the decal.
+      revenue_rule: "§ 249-9.3(a): 'Organizations are authorized to retain the fees collected, less expenses, for the special number plates.' The organization keeps the money directly — no state trust fund intermediates, unlike California's § 5060 programme."
+      statutory_named_programs: ["Haleakala National Park and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (§ 249-9.5)", "Polynesian Voyaging Society (§ 249-9.6)", "environmental conservation (§ 249-9.7)", "Duke Kahanamoku (§ 249-8.8, cited in the chapter index as § 249-9.8)", "Malama Puuloa (§ 249-9.9)", "military service (§ 249-9.2)", "special series number plates (§ 249-9.4)"]
+      statutory_named_programs_note: "Hawaii ALSO authorises individual programmes by their own statute sections, which no other state in this wave does — the chapter index at § 249- lists §§ 249-9.2 through 249-9.9 as separate named plate authorisations. Their texts were not all fetched (recorded gap); they are listed here because a statutorily named programme is a far stronger index entry than a brochure listing, and because they are the natural next fetch."
+      official_list_url: "https://www8.honolulu.gov/csd/motor-vehicle-license-plates/"
+      official_list_note: "The Honolulu Customer Services Department page links a 'Special License Plates' section; the linked page was not separately fetched and no count was read from it (recorded gap). The other three counties' equivalents were not located."
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0009_0003.htm  # § 249-9.3: county issuance of organization plates, the fee-retention rule, the 3x3 in decal maximum, the delegated design parameters, and the four-part definition of 'Organization'"
+      - "https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-.htm  # the chapter 249 index, which lists §§ 249-9.1 through 249-9.9 as separate named special-plate authorisations (military service, county design and issuance, special series, Haleakala/Hawaii Volcanoes, Polynesian Voyaging Society, environmental conservation, Duke Kahanamoku, Malama Puuloa)"
+      - "https://www8.honolulu.gov/csd/motor-vehicle-license-plates/  # City and County of Honolulu plate page, which fronts the special-plate route for Oʻahu"
+    notes: >-
+      THE HAWAII SPECIALTY INDEX, AND IT IS A DIFFERENT ANIMAL FROM THE
+      MAINLAND ONES. Three structural facts make it so, and all three are
+      statutory. FIRST, it is a DECAL regime: § 249-9.3 puts a graphic on the
+      uniform plate rather than manufacturing a distinct design, so a Hawaii
+      specialty plate carries an ordinary county serial and is not
+      distinguishable from a standard plate by its string at all — which is
+      precisely the case a parse API must be told about rather than left to
+      infer. SECOND, the money goes straight to the organization, which removes
+      the fee-trust machinery that dominates Florida's and California's
+      programmes. THIRD, there is NO COUNT and structurally cannot be one from
+      a single source, because four county directors each run their own
+      register. The honest record is the absence plus the eight named statutory
+      programmes, not an invented total.